Stamps, Paper, Scissors

Strength and Hope

I had a great class on Monday. Before you apologize for missing it, I just want you to know...it's okay. I realize that some of you live far away and couldn't get here. And others...well, while I was hurt that you didn't make it, I have forgiven you. Really. Don't feel bad. There will be other classes.

It had been a while since I had had a class, especially since the debacle last month where one of my customers had actually signed up and paid too, but due to a technical SNAFU on the part of Yahoo mail, I didn't even notice. It's been marking some of my mail read when I haven't actually read it, so it was very easy to overlook the Paypal notice that someone had actually paid for the class. So when Amy showed up, needless to say my basement stamping classroom/transcription workspace was a pit. I felt pretty stupid! But this time, all was in readiness!

Here's one of the cards we made:

Ingredients: Stamps - Hope & Strength; Paper - Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red; Ink - Rose Red, Pretty in Pink; Other - 5/8" Whisper White satin ribbon, 1-1/4" circle punch, Basic Jewels - Rhinestones, paper piercing tool, dimensionals, sponge wedge

GOJUS (YILM!) This is the card we started out with because it's fairly simple and I like to warm up with an easier card before I pull out the more challenging ones.

I had another reason for using this set...I went and had my mammogram last week. I hadn't gone back since the last one in 2008, mostly because I thought it wasn't that long ago that I had one, so I just kept putting it off. But with one aunt and two cousins with breast cancer, plus listening to doctors dictate about mammograms all day long, especially when the dictations are about women who are fighting breast cancer, it really brings it home that you need to be vigilant. So I went and had, as my mother calls it, "the girls pointed out."  And it was just as pleasant as I remembered. Which was not pleasant at all, come to think of it.

I'm just hoping I don't get called in for more views, like last time. I can definitely do without more trips through the tortilla press. I just know deep in my heart, that if men had to do this with their precious...er...parts, they would have figured out a much easier and far less painful way to look for cancer. Just sayin'!

If you hadn't noticed this set before, it is in the Summer Mini catalog.  For every set sold, SU! will donate $2 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Well, back to playing with stamps. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it. Ta!

 

Cupcake Throne Instructions and Template

Do I come through for you, or what?

Yes, I do! Here it is:

Download Cupcake Throne.pdf (464.4K)

Enjoy!

 

That Freakin' Blog Tour!

Yes, it is that time again, to fly your Freak Flag and get all freaky-deaky with us Controlfreaks!

If you have arrived here from Wendy Weixler's blog, you are in the right place! But if you have started here, fear not, you can still make a complete circle by following the links at the bottom of each post and end up back here where you started!

This month's theme is FREAKY SNEAKY PEEKY, that is, new stamps and products from the upcoming 2011-12 Idea Book & Catalog with a soupcon of Summer Mini projects thrown in! Let's start out with something GOJUS! Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - My Friend; Paper - Pocketful of Posies DSP, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Whisper White; Ink - Night of Navy (craft), Poppy Parade, Night of Navy (classic), Baja Breeze; Other - Basics Jewels - Pearls, Whisper White 3/8" taffeta ribbon, Lots of Tags Sizzlit dies, Eyelet Lace border punch, sponge wedges, dimensionals, clear EP.

OMGOJUS!! (YILM!) I got this sketch from PageMaps and it was just perfect for this stamp set. I did change it up just a bit to fit with my interpretation. The leaves/flowers stamp was stamped with Night of Navy craft ink and embossed with clear EP.

You'd think after all this crafty jeenyus I would be all wored out, wouldn't ya? But noooooo! I went on to create this:

Ingredients: Stamps - Cherish Friends; Paper - Blushing Bride, Calypso Coral, Wisteria Wonder, Whisper White, Certainly Celery; Ink - Basic Black, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral; Other - Stampin' Write markers, Square Lattice Textured Impressions folder, Clear Bitty Buttons, Whisper White baker's twine, 3/8" Certainly Celery Taffeta, dimensionals, sponge wedges.

GOJUS is in dah house! (YILM!) I colored in this beautiful image with our markers only! I love these new colors...the biggest problem I have is in deciding which one is my favorite!

And finally, one of the most GOJUS projects I have ever created, as well as one of the most delicious! Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Pennant Parade, Bring on the Cake; Paper - Just Add Cake DSP, Wild Wasabi textured, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight, Baja Breeze, Poppy Parade; Ink - Basic Black, Poppy Parade, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi; Other - 2-1/2" circle punch, 3/4" circle punch, Petite Pennants Builder punch, Bitty Punch pack, Early Espresso baker's twine, Basics Jewels - Rhinestones, Scallop Oval punch, Poppy Parade marker, dimensionals; Cupcake - Just Baked, Livonia, Michigan

Well, now doesn't that just TAKE THE CAKE!!! (YILM!)

In the new wonderful IBC, there is a project like this and when I saw it I just KNEW I had to make one. There is no template provided, but it wasn't TOO hard to figure out and I really only trashed one piece of cardstock before I figured it out.

Of course, I sailed right away from direct CASEville to OVERTHETOPland, don't you think? Once I had made it, I just gazed at it for, like FOR-EV-ER.  Before I could take a picture of it, I knew I would have to have a cupcake to put in it so you knew what it was. And I knew that not just any Duncan-Hines-or-Betty-Crocker-12-in-a-box cupcake would do! I would have to have something so spectacular, so scrumdillyicious that it would perfectly set off my marvelous creation. So I settiled on Just Baked in Livonia to provide this wonderful confection. I had never been there before but had heard good things, and I was not disappointed!

The hardest part was selecting the perfect cupcake and it was HARD because they had so many yummy ones. So hard that I had to allow 6 of these delicious desserts to accompany me home to audition. The one that won the audition was this delicious Black Forest Cupcake!

But don't worry! Those that lost the audition were very much appreciated! Each and every one was given an all-expense-paid tour of our insides! And the one that won also won this same prize but with the added honor of it being MY insides!

The things I do for art!

Will I provide a template for those who also want to create this marvel? Probably! But it may take me a while, so please be patient!

Well, it's time to let you proceed onward to Connie Babbert's blog! Hope you enjoyed yourself here and remember to keep your ink pads wet and your pants dry! Ta!

 

In the Good Ole Summertime Class

I'll be holding my next stamping class on June 27th at 7 PM! We're going to be doing 3 projects using stamps and products from the Summer Mini catalog. If you are interested in signing up, click on over to my class reservation page.

In other news, the Controlfreaks blog hop is coming up on the 20th!

Be there or be very sad because you missed it!

Actually, it will still be around even after it is officially over, but you do want to be one of the first to see it, right?

<a href="http://www.millan.net"><img src="http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/yes.gif" border=0 alt="Smiley from millan.net"></a>

Ta!

Graduation Gift Card Holder

Taking a little break from

To bring you the project at the heart of controversy:

Ingredients: Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes, Great Grads (retired), Paper - Bazill cardstock, Scrapbook Customs Class of 2011; Other - Electronic Die Cutting Machine (cough...cough..do you hear something?) ,electronic die cutting machine cartridge "Happy Graduation", Word Window punch, Modern Label punch, Keytag punch (retired), free SVG file from here.

This is the inside:

The one problem I had with this gift card holder was that the card would fall out quite easily unless you stuck the card in there with adhesive. So I made a few changes. I changed the fold so that the front of the card would tuck into the bottom, and then I came up with the solution of having the greeting hold it in. It's popped up on dimensionals and keeps the card from sliding out of the pocket.

The interesting thing about this whole dealio was that I had quite gotten over my irritation with the teacher for commandeering the gift purchase. I like this teacher...this was her first year teaching the 8th grade, so there were a lot of things she had to take on. Plus, she does an awesome job with the Boy and I have to admire anyone who can manage to teach him anything.

But what ended up happening the day before graduation, though, was that the people who were supposed to do the class banner got into a tiff and didn't finish it. The principal had gotten irritated with them and after finding out that the teacher had bought all the gifts and that the 7th graders were wrapping them, jumped to the conclusion that the teacher had had to take it upon herself to buy the gifts, rather than that she had just done it. So the principal sent out an email to ALL the 8th grade parents to say, basically, that someone had better pick up the banner and finish it, because she wasn't allowing the teacher to do it as she was already picking up the slack for those who were not doing their jobs.

Um. Yeah. I got pretty mad, let me tell you. I sent her an email back, with the whole long story of my involvement with the gift and my effort to at least provide the gift card holders. I got an apology. So I am good.  I got another apology from the teacher, who had been horrified when she read the email herself and made sure the principal got set straight. All is well and forgiven. But most importantly, the kids had a great graduation and are now on their way to high school!

I would have never guessed that this whole thing would open such a big can of.... Because now that I have this thang, having just one cartridge for it isn't enough. I have been haunting Ebay, mostly, trying to pick them up on the chirp ...er..I mean CHEAP.

Well, back to work. Ta!

 

Some people never learn...

And I am one of them!

You'd think, wouldn't you, after THIS episode I would have learned my lesson about creating cards at the last minute, woudln't you? But I found myself in the exact same situation, with the last day of school today and only a couple of hours to create cards for the three teachers who both Emily and William had this year.

I woke up this morning thinking about it. And I was safely laying there thinking, "I have a ton of cards that are made, why don't I just find 3 of them and tuck gift cards in them and be done?"

Well, you know the answer to that, don't you?

Cuz dat jist ain't da way JanTink roll, yo!

Actually, if I eat enough chocolate, I will have no trouble rolling at all, but I digress...

Anyway, it was a fiasco from the getgo. I decided to use the set Flight of the Butterfly, which has the perfect sentiment for this occasion: One person can make such a difference and that person is you!

I had definite ideas about the design. I learned a lot, though. Do you want to know what I learned, do you?

Well, I'll tell you:

1) If you decide to make cards at the last minute, make it easier on yourself and your stock of precious cardstock and copy a design you have successfully made before.

2) If you are foolish enough to ignore rule #1, do yourself a favor and make a prototype of your design first before cutting and stamping pieces for the other cards you are going to make. That way you will only trash one piece of cardstock once you decide your design is FAIL SAUCE and that it has to be redone.

3) If you are foolish enough to ignore rule #2, don't ignore it again and assume your next design will work and recut and stamp multiple pieces of cardstock before determing that your second design is also FAIL SAUCE.

4) Once you finally realize that rule #2 and rule #3 are your friends and you have successfully developed a design with only ONE card cut and stamped, remember that some inks dry very slowly on Whisper White cardstock and that if you don't allow them to dry properly or blot the excess away on your grid paper that you will smear the ink. Which means you will have to tear apart your design and do part of your card over again.

5) Make sure that you aren't in such a hurry to get on with it that you don't properly line up your Stamp-a-ma-Jig plastic guide sheet so when you finally stamp the butterfly with polka dot image over the shape image so that it actually does line up properly instead of being obviously 1/8" off.

6) Covering up mistakes that you make as in rule #5 is easier with a punch than tearing the whole dang thing apart again. Just make sure that you fix the problem you created in rule #5 before proceeding. Trust me. I know this.

7) If you've made it this far, make sure when you go to stamp the sentiment on the inside of the card that you ink your stamp properly. But again, covering up your mistake with another piece of cardstock is the way to save your cardstock. Just remember if you do it for one, you must do it for all, because teachers are the one exception to JanTink's Law of Greeting Propinquity. What's that, you ask?

JanTink's Law of Greeting Propinquity

"The chance of two people who are sent the same card comparing them to each other is directly relative to how close their houses are to each other."

In other words, don't worry about all your Christmas cards looking exactly alike because your friends and family probably are not going to compare them. But teachers usually receive their cards at the same time within the same building, so if you are covering up a mistake on one card, you had darned well better do the same cover up in the others, even without the need for it. Trust me. They will compare them.

So, at the end of this saga, with multiple piece of Whisper White thrown into the trash, my stamping table covered with stamps,ink pads, pieces of cardstock, patterned paper, and ribbon, ink all over my fingers, and the air turning blue from some of the choice words used during this whole experience, I finally ran upstairs, took quick pictures of the card, slid them into the envelopes and ran out the door and drove to school to get in the car line, just in time. Phew!

So, here's the card. It's not superfantastic, but it is cute. Isn't it?

Ingredients: Stamps - Flight of the Butterfly; Paper - InColor Print Patterns (hostess pack), Peach Parfait, Poppy Parade, Pear Pizazz, Whisper White; Ink - Poppy Parade, Early Espresso; Other - Pear Pizazz ribbon, Scallop border punch, butterfly punch, Brights flower brad, paper piercing tool, Word Window punch, Modern Label punch

Here's the inside:

Yeah, maybe this time I will not UNLEARN what I have LEARNED.

I hope they all liked their cards. William took them and gave them to one of the teachers before getting in the car and leaving with me. I am glad the school year is over. If I were smart, I would have come home and made 3 MORE cards for this coming Christmas and 3 MORE for the end of the next school year. But you know what?

I ARE DUMB.

Ta!

Don't fall out of your chair...

But only 4 days have passed and I am posting again. Hope I won't wear you out!

Seriously, when is the last time that happened? Just about in FOREVER!!! But you know what? Monday mornings I usually have no work waiting...don't get any until around 11 AM, sometimes even later (that must be SOME party those doctors have on some weekends!) so this obviously is  great time to be takin' keer of bidness!

Plus yesterday, I finally got to stamp for fun! For the past few months, it's been only for classes or blog tours. But after doing committing rubbahcide on my stamp shelves what with the new retirement list and ordering new schtuff from the preorder, I figured I had been start that thing I like to do at this time of year:

The Festival of Uninked Stamps

I hope you are excited by the idea as I am. For newbies, I go through my shelves and find stamp sets that I have bought but never used. This year there were around 6 or 7 sets, so I went ahead and started out with a set I bought in my very first order last July and NEVER USED! Oh, the stampanity! Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Countryside, Woodgrain, Oval All, Rough Type; Paper - Kraft, Not Quite Navy, Cajun Craze, Old Olive, Naturals Ivory; Ink - Basic Black, Soft Suede, More Mustard; Other - Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Twill Tape, Medium Jewelry Tag punch, Metallic brads, sponge wedges, dimensionals, 5/8" circl punch, Early Espresso baker's twine.

it's MOJUS!!! I love how this turned out! One little detail you can't really see here: I split the Old Olive cardstock plies apart on the little matt there and used the fuzzy side up. It gives a suede-like texture which is really cool. It was a total accident too, as I was trying to pry the matt up and my tool slid between the plies. It left a bubbly looking pocket where it had been, so I just pried it apart all the way. If you want to try this look, you can take a piece of cardstock and pull it over a sharp table edge a few times or using your bone folder, hold the sharp side against the back of the cardstock and put your finger over the top and pull the cardstock over the bone folder a few times, front and back, until the plies start to split naturally.

One other detail is I am so happy we finally have a white watercolor crayon, as it helps the glass look like glass if you put a few diagonal streaks on it with the white crayon.

Well, the work has started to roll onto the server, so I must dash. Ta!

 

 

A very special thank you card

As you recall, a very nice person bought me a Nook for my birthday and I have been enjoying it to the max.  I took the time to make and send her a card recently and since it has been a week, I thought it would be safe to show it.

This set didn't get much love when it was new, but once it retired, I could not bring myself to get rid of it.  And now I am glad I didn't. Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Knobbly Gnomes (retired); Paper - Pear PIzazz, Basic Black, Poppy Parade, More Mustard, Whisper White, In Color Print Patterns DSP; Ink - Versamark, More Mustard, Basic Black; Other - Stampin' Write markers, gold brads, Scallop Trim corner punch, Black EP,  Basic Black 1/8" tafetta ribon, dimensionals, sponge wedges. 

GOJUS!!!  (YILM!) The sentiment on the front says, "Good friends are like rare books, hard to find, precious and few, I'm glad I have a friend like you." Just so appropriate, don't you think?

And no, I did not color it with alcohol markers, just SU! markers.  Working quickly while the ink is still moist lets you manipulate it  and blend it a little. 

I hope my friend liked her card! I had fun making it! Ta!

 

The retirement list is in da house!

 

You can see it here.

I am offering 10% off all retiring sets as a personal promotion available through me only. To receive the 10% discount, you must place your order through me by phone or email by June 29th and I must have payment in hand by then. The discount is taken off the set price only, full shipping and tax will still be charged. Your order will be shipped directly to you, unless your order is below $69.50 and you would like to save on shipping costs by placing it with the order I will be placing for my class on June 27th.

I am excited because I just placed my order for Sneak Peek sets, papers, accessories, and the new In Colors. So to pay for my big honkin' order, I have deeply discounted the items on my list of previously retired preowned stamps!

Word Document file:

Download JanTinksStampSale2011.doc (269.5K)

PDF file:

Download JanTinksStampSale2011.pdf (76.4K)

Excel file:

Download JanTinksStampSale2011.xls (26.5K)

I slashed my prices by half (roughly!) All sets are $10 or below! So check out that out and contact me if you want to buy any of those sets and wheels.

I also placed an order for catalogs. If you ordered from me in the past year, you can get a catalog for free, just contact me to reserve yours! If you haven't, I sell catalogs for $5, so you can reserve a copy as well.

Ta!