Card Day!

I have done way too much working and not enough hanging out. Haha. . . at least it sure feels that way this week! At any rate, I finally have a day off . . . so I got the rest of my card day stuff put together and then got the photo shoot done. I think that the photo shoot is the hardest part. Photographer, I am not. . . but check out these awesome cards by the card day ladies! We had so dang much fun this time. . . and I love that everybody has something totally unique to bring to the scrap table!

Thanks all you card day ladies. . . the next one is set for March 23rd at my place. . . emails to follow soon. . .

Oh Scrap.

I have been secretly watching this show on TV called Scrapbook Memories, or something like that. It's a PBS show, but they show it on the BYU channel every day at noon. Don't judge me. Ok? Anyway, the show features these pretty neat people from scrapbook supply companies - and they always have the latest and coolest scrapbooking techniques and tools. Most of it is pretty interesting. Anyway.

One of the things that I keep seeing on the show are these lovely little Souffle pens - they are supposed to have 3-D opaque ink and I have seen them used on metal, acrylic, paper, and lots of other things and they looked pretty danged cool. I decided that these would be my next "save up" item because. . . they cost $19.99 for this pack of ten. HOLY SCRAP.

So I wasn't so keen on spending twenty bucks on pens, but I decided that I really wanted them, so I got a paper and used the %50 off one item coupon and on Monday I trotted down to Robert's and purchased my long awaited Cool New Thing. I was so excited!!!11! Now this is the part where I really need to get into using my video camera, because I think that it would be really cool to make my own show about scrapbooking techniques. But on each epsiode, there will be a segment that is really useful to people, because it will be called, "This Scrap Doesn't Work!" Srsly. Learn from my mistakes!!!!!!!!

The pens are actually pretty cool. The colors are vibrant and bold and they will be great for journaling and yes, they DO work on surfaces like metal and plastic and acrylic and cell phones. Ahem.

It is my technique here, that failed, and I would like to show that with you today, viewers, so you do not mess Scrap up like I did.

I thought it would be fun to use these bright neon-ish colors on some black paper, and make some black and white and bold colored cards for spring. Something fun and pretty and different. So I cut a piece of black cardstock, and found an old template and went to work.

I taped the template down to the paper and started coloring with my beloved Cool New Thing Souffle pens. The colors are actually really pretty. . .

I noticed right away that the ink - when it first comes out of the pen, is kind of runny. It also takes a little bit to dry. At first, you color with it, and then you go hmm, that doesn't look quite right. But after it dries for a little bit, the color really starts to show up and pop - kind of like those galaxy markers. I did wait for the ink to dry - and I reapplied another coat of ink, to make these butterflies and flowers really stand out. I was so excited, I started searching my patterned paper for cool things to use on the cards.

I waited for the ink to dry really well - and then I lifted an edge of the template to see how things turned out. Well, I TRIED to lift an edge of the template. What I found, was that the template was completely stuck to the paper. At first I thought it was just around the edges where the ink was, but no. After prying and lifting up gently, this is what I found under the template.

The colors ran together underneath the template. The paper stuck to the template and ripped up in some places - the ink - which starts out pretty runny at first, got underneath all of the template, and was even so wet, that it kind of warped the cardstock. Worst of all, I used up quite a bit of ink from my awesome New Thing Souffle pens. I almost cried when I saw these results. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, PEOPLE.

So, my scrapping blog can't all be about things that turn out to be pretty or fun or cute. Some days, you have to mix in a little bit of ugly to give it balance. I think that I did an awesome job of that here. In fact, I was thinking of saving this page of scrapped-up template ink flowers and butterflies, so that I can make a scrapbook page called FAIL. Sweet!

Scrapblog fun!

Yeah! I was in dire need of some serious scrap therapy but none of my beloved paper was calling to me. So I stopped back in at Scrapblog where there is always something fun to do. I am sad to see that not all of the site is free any more - you can buy credits to purchase some of the papers and embelishments and such. But hey, TANSTAAFL right? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. :) I am sure that I will still use Scrapblog because it is so much fun - and besides, it's still cheaper than a therapist.



I love that you can add videos to your pages. . . how cool is that?

Once again Express the Moment came through for me like a box of chocolates. :) It's always like Christmas morning when I get to pick up my monthly card kit. . . the February kit was just full of these pretty red and pink things by Making Memories and best of all there is this page of layout ideas for what to do with all of those wonderful toys!

I already had most of my Valentines done but I hadn't even thought about making tags. . . lucky for me the page maps this month were all about tags and so. . . I got a ton of them done for those Valentines' gifties! Woot for tags! I cut out all the card bases on my Cricut and used a lot of glitter (what, me?) - it's a bummer that glitter is so hard to see in photos.

Sadly, I got a lot of tags made and put on the gifts before I gathered them up for a photo shoot. Doh. But here are a few of the ones I had left. . . card day people - you should check out ETM some time. :)

Speaking of card day - it's coming soon so all of you card day peeps should watch your email - I will be sending them out soon with reminders and stuff, m'kay? We are still planning for Monday Feb 23.