MORE STAMPING

I seem to be running on rather about stamping

but, as it is my blog, I suppose I can.  My major card-making journey started  in 1993 thanks to a magazine called Crafts Beautiful and a picture of a rubber stamped rose.  It was intriguing but I went no further. Then Christmas 1994 hove in view and I thought it would be cheaper to make my own cards (silly, silly me). Still had the magazine and found that stamps were available from the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden - just about do-able in my lunch hour. And this is the very stamp that I bought 22 years ago still looking as good as new.  

If I was more clued about up about blogging the photographs would be better positioned but for the moment I can only go with the flow. 

The second pic. shows the stamp side on and, of course, it won't fit into the MISTI.  However, by putting the wooden block in the microwave oven for 10/20 seconds it is possible to lever the rubber stamp off the block and thus use it in the MISTI.  The rather schmaltzy 'Life began in a Garden' card shown in the previous blog had the oven treatment and works perfectly in the MISTI now.

This bauble was one of my first Christmas stamps which I used for some of my cards.  Very briefly the stamp is inked up with an ink pad, presssed on to card or paper and, whilst the ink is moist, has embossing powder sprinkled on.  Excess powder is tapped off and then your perfectly stamped and powdered image (!) is heated with a heat gun that melts the powder. This bauble had gold sparkly embossing powder on it and I coloured it in afterwards with felt tip pens. I still like it. The rose, garden and bauble were all made by Personal Stamp Impressions who manufactured hundreds of lovely stamps but sadly went out of business.  

The realm of stamping is illimitable, which is a fancy way of saying that there are thousands of stamps of every description available - and that's not to mention the multitude of embossing powders and ink pads that are needed, too. Most stampers will say they never tire of seeing the powder turning to molten gold under the heat gun.  Well, not necessarily gold, of course, but whatever powder has been chosen.

I wonder how I can put borders round my pix?  They look so much better with a border.

Rather slow at blogging

Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with blogging.  The last time I sent a few words into the ether was early in January.  Have I been productive in the intervening period?  Well, on and off Yes.  But who wants to read a wordy blog unless it is on some boring philosophical subject and, after all, I'm supposed to be a card maker.

Nothing is straightforward and my current difficulty is transferring pictures from my phone to my laptop in an effort to make this a little more interesting. My dear brother told me about Photosync which I managed to download on laptop and phone but the ethereal link between the two seems to escape me sadly.  Clicking on the photographic link in the menu I homed in on Picasa and selected a rather elderly picture to upload.  But, again, I am brought to a full stop as none of the passwords requested by Google are to their liking.  People blog every day so why am I finding all these difficulties?

 Must get to the bottom of it so that I can go on about the problems with glue and the edges of MDF.

Somehow or other I've managed to include a pic. after all.  This was a papier mache Easter egg (one of 2) that I made for my granddaughters.  It was large, slightly wobbly and the top and bottom didn't fit neatly hence the flowers cut on my die cutting machine which, when pop dotted, covered the divide.  My first foray into decoupage and really the photo as uploaded doesn't do my effort justice (she said modestly).  Of course I had to fill the egg WITH eggs and a fluffy kitten in each. I have to confess that the Kinder eggs included in both were far more popular than my masterpieces.  

Having managed to include one photo I've now negotiated another two.  The cock and hen were stamped with the excellent Clarity stamps and coloured with Spectrum Noir pens.  Chicks very cheaply from Amazon.  Also for my granddaughters.  I thought the chicks were so sweet but not very storable - and I have a lot left!

Early April seems a long time ago now and in the intervening period my stocks of all sorts of materials has grown alarmingly.  Instead of struggling with a blog I should be utilising some of them shouldn't I?  But the Tour de France is on, of which I am a devotee, so that's all for now.

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

Whether this blog will ever get off the ground I know not but I am resolved to have another try.  Apart from family (who I am, of course, slightly interested in) my main pursuits are watching the birds in my garden and card making.  Both extremely sedentary occupations.  Oh yes!  Watching craft channels on my laptop, checking Amazon and consequently BUYING.  More money than sense frequently comes to mind but can be easily ignored.

To make this blog faintly more interesting I need to post photos but, that, too is escaping me at present so I will continue about the birds in my (sadly neglected) garden.  Quite a small one in Hackney, London.  Several unexpected birdy visitors recently.

Entertaining two old friends to lunch on New Year's Day one of them suddenly said - "you've got parakeets on your feeders."  I know people in the northern part of De Beauvoir, where I live, have had them but this is the first time they have ventured in my direction.  In fact several days later I had 8 of them perched in a tree.  I'm not sure at present whether they are welcome or not.

 My other excitement was having a flock of 5 long-tailed tits arrive.  Infrequent visitors but today (8th January) one has returned several times obviously liking the Westland Peckish Daily Goodness nuggets.  Starlings, sparrows and tits like them, too, and my bucket of nuggets is running rather low. Sadly Westland seem to have discontinued their buckets so now it's packs which are only available - from Amazon, of course.

Dried mealworms are going down a treat with a cock blackbird and the starlings and last year a pair of jays, a magpie and a crow found them delectable as well.  They haven't appeared so far although I saw 6 magpies the other day but no gold has come my way yet (5 for silver, 6 for gold).

The last bit I'll say about birds today is my infuriation. that feral pigeons (the sort that used to populate Trafalgar Square) can get on to my premier sunflower feeder and they eat and eat - even found the tiny hole in the nyger seed feeder especially for the goldfinches. I have to admit I'd shoot them if I could.

As I believe my blog is entitled "Elderly Card Maker" I ought to say something about that aspect of my life rather than go on about the birds - which I could at considerable length!  One of my most recent purchases is the MISTI stamping tool - (Most Incredible Stamping Tool Invented).  Indeed it has given my stamping an incredible fillip so I'm really, really pleased with it.  It is enabling me to use rubber stamps that have been difficult to stamp perfectly in the past. Currently MISTI is not easy to come by in the UK but I got mine from the US just after Christmas. And here I should really post a picture of my successes so far. The first one might be of my dining table strewn with craft materials, my eCigs and a glass of port which could be easily taken with my phone but I don't know how to upload it.  So there we are.  Enough meanderings or maunderings for today.