Pinch, Punch, First Day of the Month

Oh my! I had no idea it has been so long since I posted an entry. I have no excuse other than living a chaotic life. We’ve had a little four-day break in Devon (Ilfracombe and surrounds) in October and family goings on (a christening near Exeter) and, well, just L-I-F-E happening.

Needless to say, I haven’t done much crafting lately, either. I did start (!) two cards, which both lay on my craft table waiting patiently for more work. The Affirmation Card swap on UK Scrappers went very well. I got three lovely cards back for the three I sent. Everyone in the swap seems to have put out a huge effort as all the ones I’ve seen are really nice.

One huge project was to finish the travel journal I did for our Norway cruise.

I’m still planning something more for the cover, but the inside pages turned out quite nice. I used a few ‘smashbook’ techniques and that helped, especially for sneaking in lots of extra photos.

The cover is bare but only temporarily. I used the 7Gypsies ‘Lille’ paper (8x8 pad) for the cover but will cover a lot of it over once I make up my mind what to do/how to do it. Inside I just used a lot of scraps from my ever-growing pile. For someone who doesn’t do that much scrapbooking or cardmaking, I seem to have a LOT of scraps!

My latest craft project is my new inkstand. I ordered it from Tando-Creative last week and it arrived on Monday. That’s really quick service, considering they work on a bespoke basis. I’m really impressed with the quality, too….very sturdy. Of course, it comes unpainted, so here’s what I’ve been doing since yesterday morning:

These are the shelves. I first coated them with gesso, since they’re chipboard, then painted them with Cosmic Shimmer Mist, then used a paper towel to rub the still-wet ink. Just a thing I have about spotty, splotchy paint. They look slightly distressed, which is both on purpose (because I like it) and not (because I’m sloppy when I paint). The turquoise shade is because my craft room curtains have a turquoise print. I painted the solid wood ink caddy a kind of cream colour:

I first painted it with Titanium white acrylic paint, but wasn’t wild about the coverage. Then I got a little tester pot of Dulux One Coat paint from B&Q and finished it off with that. Much better result! The black trim was on it when I got it, so I only touched it up with black acrylic paint where I had slopped the white paint.

And here is the finished project. It’s on a swivel base so with the back side, it holds 36 ink pads, but it also has the side projections, where I have my cat’s eye chalk paints. I arranged the Tim Holtz distress pads in order by colour ‘families’ and the chalk paints are near the ones that coordinate with them. The top holds my re-inkers and also my Distress Stains. So handy!!!

This is the reverse side. Because I don’t have every colour of distress ink (yet), I have room for the other ink pads I use most often, which includes Stazon, Archival, Memento, Ancient Page, etc. So yes, I’m really happy with this little baby. I no longer have to keep digging through boxes to find the ink pad I want.

All in all, October has been a fairly productive month but not necessarily in crafting. I have a lot of craft projects lined up, so just have to get over my bad back so I can sit for awhile comfortably to craft. Wouldn’t you know it – just as my mojo comes back, my back goes out!!!!