How to: heat-set??

Okay, silly question ahead.. Over the past days I've read about 'heat setting' ink several times, but am not quite sure how one does that?? Is it just basically using your heattool to really dry and 'set' the ink or such?

Meanwhile I am on the hunt for bottles of ink (those refill bottles) to play with this babywipe technique I've been wanting to try out.. but they are no where to be found in the craftstores here in town! :( The only ink they sell in bottles is alcohol ink but I know I can't use those cause it'll mess up my stamps..

Day 20 AEDM: more craftsupplies*

*(as if I didn't have enough already!!)

During a quick visit to the Action (a discounter) this afternoon, I couldn't help but pick up some more craft material and supplies. /giggles They had supercheap sets of unmounted christmas/winter-themed stamps (grabbed 4 of those) and a whole bunch of cardstock and the like (of which I also grabbed some). Also got me a package of babywipes, to try out some new technique I learned about recently.

When trying to take a quick pic of the new goodies (with my phone, sorry for the crap quality) some of our cats ofcourse had to come check everything out. They too curious for their own good I am telling ya! :-) So here's my new stuff including some crafty curious kitties!



From left to right: Nero (up front), Maybe (in the back) and Indy (on the chair next to the table). Aren't they cuties?!

Day 13 AEDM

Yesterday I went and splurged on a new set of crayons: Derwent Coloursoft pencils. I'd seen awesome examples of colored-in stamped images, using these pencils together with mineral spirits and a blending tool. Even though I am crayon-challenged, I just really wanted to try myself!

So this evening I sat down with my new crayons, a small bottle of no-odor mineral spirits and a set of doezelaars. I stamped this cute kittycat on cardstock, using the black Staz-on ink I was told to use (other inks get messed up by the mineral spirits) and got to work. I really do need some more practice but I must say I was somewhat happily surprised with my first attempt.

Day 10 AEDM: Random Acts of Kindness

As my creative activity of today I browsed through all of my craft material and packed together a few enveloppes filled with goodies to send off to some fellow members of the ATC forum. Decorated the otherwise plain&boring white envelopes with some stamps (the rubber&ink kind), and going to scout for some fun postage stamps tomorrow as well. I always like to stick a bunch of non-boring and different stamps on mail to fellow crafties, as postagestamps are always fun to play with.

< will upload the photo I am gonne make when tis ready to be mailed out >

Also I visited the local craft store this afterniin, and bought me a set of Dewert soft pencils to work with. After coloring you can use a doezelaar (I wasn't able to find a translation for this) and mineral spirits to smooth and blend colors. I never been good at drawing and stuff, which is why I like stamping so much I guess heh. I got me some really cute stamps that are perfect for coloring-in and I am going to try out this -for me- new technique soon! I hope it'll work out, if it does, I'll make sure to show you! :)

Day 9 AEDM : no crafties!

Long day at university, followed by a dinner out with friends. By the time we got home it was definitely bedtime so no crafties today! :)

Day 8 AEDM : Snowman ATCs

Today after dinner I sat down with my new set of (simple kiddie-) filt-tipped pens and worked on finishing the set of snowman ATCs I started yesterday. I am making them for a Snowman themed swap over at ATCsforAll.com.

They're really simple (I like simple:)) but cute nonetheless: basic white cardstock, one of my favorite winter stamps featuring a cute snowman holding up a star, colored in with pencil/marker and topped of with stickles (glitter glue like stuff, I do not like glittery stuff much at all on my crafties but this stuff does add a fun finishing touch at times).

Also went through a bunch of womans magazines (de Margriet!) that my MIL gave me and cut out the Marjolein Bastin pages for future use on ATCs. I like her drawings.

Day 7 AEDM : Postage ATC

Yay, I've actually got something to show in lieu of the AEDM challenge! Not 100% happy with the outcome of this ATC but at least I created something today. :)

This ATC will be part of a set of 3 ATCs created for a swap themed 'Postage Due' - the cards should feature at least one stamp (the postage type of stamp).
As a background I used part of an atlas page showing Spain (and half of Portugal heh), to go with some stamps from Espana I had in my stash. The two other cards that are in the make are of India and Australia.

Also worked on another set of ATCs with a snowman theme (winter/xmas coming up again after all!), but I will keep those for another day :) I like them though, they are simple, but cute.

AEDM : lack of time to craft :(

We're 6 days in to the challenge and I managed to do something creative maybe half of these days.. and none of this 'creativity' really yielded anything fun to show. Ugh. Though, I made some photos of the kitties the other day, of which I might could post one. Cats are always good! Am planning on making a bunch of ATCs so maybe I can even make up for the missed days heh.

Day 2 AEDM

As I am in the mids of studying for midterm exams, I haven't really had the time to be very creative today unfortunately. Unless cooking a nice meal from semi-scratch counts as being 'creative' as well? I am afraid the rest of this week will be seeing a shortage of crafty time as well, but am hoping to really pick up this challenge this weekend.

Day 1 AEDM

My first day of AEDM consisted of sorting out all of my craft material. I had to create order in the chaos before I can start crafting! I now have a organized set of drawers filled with craft supplies and material, instead of a bunch of crap stuffed into each and every drawer :)



Obviously this is not ALL of my craftsupplies.. There's a huge box of stamps in the closet; a seperate cabinet filled to the brim with 'pizzaboxes' full of paper; file folders with stickers, flat embellishments, cut-outs, rub-ons etc.; 3 sets of mini drawers with ink, unmounted stamps, ATC bases and what not, a couple of more drawers with cardstock and cardmaking material.. and I am pretty sure I got more stashed away at places I can't think from the top of my head heh. But while all the rest is pretty neatly ordered, these drawers had been bugging me for quite a while now cause they were just too disorganized (pretty much just had crap stuffed into every drawer without being able to tell what was in where)..

Art every Day Month

After having been out of the creative groove for way to long -it's been a couple of years since I last crafted regularly, and I have only sporadicly made a postcard here or there for a birthday or such- I am planning on participating in the "Art Every Day Month"-challenge of creativeeveryday.com in hopes to get creativity back in my life again.

Create some art every day for one month. There's the Nanowrimo for writers, and several years back there was an "Art-by-the-Inch" challenge as well though that one seems to have disappeared. The "rules" for the AEDM challenge are simple, just do something creative, be it painting sewing cooking writing photography etcetc.. Tomorrow will be the first day!

AccuQuilt Go Giveaway

Sue Hauser at Alderwood Quilts is having a give away for the AccuQuilt Go! The winner will be announced November 1st. My mum loves quilting and I have always been wanting to give it a go myself as well. This cutter seems to be pretty darn handy (and they have some really cute dies as well).

cards

Felt crafty today so I took out my cardstock, patterned papers, scissors and glue, and made some postcards. Of course by the time I was ready to shoot a pic of them it was already getting dark outside, hence the bit crappy quality of the pics. I need to learn how to play with lighting!