Bad ink day

The card maker’s equivalent of a bad hair day.

Today I sat down full of hope for a productive time. A few minutes spent clearing a space large enough to work in (10cm square) and I was away. Except I wasn’t. Couldn’t settle on what I actually wanted to do. Stamping? Die cutting? CDs? Cards? Notepads? Bags? Boxes? One hour gone by. Stamping then. This one? That one? One I know I have but cannot find? Another hour gone.

In my hunting I found a WIP bottle tag, so the rule of ‘if you touch it you’ve got to finish it’ came into play. There are a lot of rules when I craft. Gilding flakes and a cheery greeting are all that is needed, I thought. So, added gilding flakes and turned to the pc to print out a greeting and try to colour match it by eye. Hmm, what font? So many to choose from. Another hour gone.

Eye swerves over to a stamp I have not yet used, a gorgeous large rose background. Maybe I should just try it out? I need a thank you card anyway. I decided to do a quick and simple one, then something trickier and end up with a Nobel Prize winning effort. Ambitious on any day, even more so considering how things were going.

Card one. I used Wild Honey distress ink. Lovely colour. Never used it before so was taken by surprise when, after diligently cleaning my stamp, I saw my hands looked like I have been smoking 1970s cigarettes for a bajillion years. Nothing a bit of soapy water won’t deal with, I hoped. And a lot of vigorous scrubbing, as it turned out..

The rest of the card was a breeze. Sort of. The die cut sentiment is so fine that adhering it is tricky. So I stick it through the sticker maker. Can barely get it off the carrier sheet and some of the sticky seems to have made it on to the front of the die cut, somehow, but a bit of faffing sorts it out. Sliver of vellum, couple of dotty punches and done. Another hour gone.

Now for the tricky bit. Really? Were the last four hours not torment enough? What kind of eejit doesn’t learn from such an experience? Not, me clearly. I decide to stick with the distress inks, but to go really subtle. Milled Lavender and Spun Sugar leap to my fingers.

I stamp them out – beautiful. Except, strangely, I have Wild Honey hands again. More scrubbing ensues. Then…nothing. Cannot think what to do next. I look at them for an amount of time I am not prepared to ‘fess up to, and a couple of ideas come to mind. I try stamping onto vellum, hoping to heat emboss a glittery something, but the powder refused to cling to the ink (even thought it was pigment so should have). I tried a dropped shadow with a word die but it looked rubbish. Then I gave up.

BUT, my last idea was to open it up to suggestions. Anyone got any good ideas what I can do with these?

Apparently Spun Sugar (the one at the bottom if you haven’t come across it) has extra magic qualities and pretty much disappears when photographed! They are actually really pretty, a lovely stamp and beautiful colours. They are each 14.8 cm squares.

Anyone? No prizes, just my eternal gratitude.