OLW100 Rescued, and Why You Need a Colander for Stamping

My OLW100 card is a rescue. I colored in the balloons from Papertrey's Up, Up, and Away set after stamping them in a nice visual triangle. When I was coloring the last, smallest balloon, my hand jerked just enough to ruin the whole thing.

Darn it all to heck.

Then, it occurred to me that Sakura stardust pens, which I have in a variety of colors, might cover up the mistake. They put down a nice, shimmery, almost opaque layer of ink. So I rummaged through my embellisment drawers for the best colors, and fixed the mistake by adding a little Sakura to each balloon...not a lot, just enough to make it look on purpose.

The results are fine, but it really would have looked better if I'd never made the mistake at all. The Sakura pens are just a little too dark giving the Copic colors I was working with.

Why You Need a Colander

A number of you were baffled about the colander hanging in my craft space. Here's the reason it's there.

Clear stamps lose their stickiness with use. Dust, dirt, and oil from your fingers make them less sticky. They eventually won't stick to acrylic blocks or CD storage cases, and then it's so very easy for them to get lost.

To restore the stickiness, all you have to do is wash them in water with dish soap and let them air dry.

But so many clear stamps are TINY and therefore easily lost in a sink of soapy water.

Hence the colander.

I put my clear stamps to be cleaned in the colander, and then set the colander in a sink of shallow, soapy water. I run the stamps between my fingers to clean them under the water, without ever moving my hands or the stamps out of the colander. Then, I lift the colander out of the soapy water, rinse well under fresh running water, and move the colander away from the drain that wants nothing better than to suck a precious stamp into oblivion.

The stamps air-dry nicely on a Bounty paper towel--Bounty brand doesn't shed lint like cheaper paper towels do. I place stamps with the backs up to keep the adhering surface as clean as possible. When dry, the stamps go back into the CD cases, where they now stick quite nicely.

Now, you may ask why you can't use your kitchen colander for such a job. Well, you certainly can, but as some inks may not be safe for ingestion, you might contaminate the colander. The chances of this are extremely slim, but I find it helpful to keep crafting and kitchen supplies separate. The mesh colanders are cheap, and it's always good to be too safe rather than not safe enough.

There you have it: if you have clear stamps, you need a colander.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Up, Up, and Away
ink: Memento black
paper: Gina K deluxe white
accessories: Copics, Sakura stardust pens