Using my Hoard...Stipple Brushes

Ever since I rediscovered the stipple brushes in my sponge drawer and put them on THE LIST (#34), I've wanted to play with them. Do they work substantially differently from sponges? Are they worth the space they've been taking up in my drawer for so many years? Should I be using them more often?

If you're not sure what a stipple brush is, it's a flat-bristled brush intended for pouncing color through a stencil. Here's a picture of mine:

You'll notice that they have colors scribbled on the handle. I added those years ago (maybe 10 years ago) when I tried to stipple blue with the same brush I'd used for orange and ended up with a very ugly brown, even though I'd washed the brush between colors. I went out and bought 4, color-coded them, and haven't run into any problems since. You'll note that while there is one for yellow/orange, there isn't one for red...stippled red looks like blood, and just ewww.

Of course, it's been at least 8 years since these brushes got a work-out, as best I can remember.

So are they worth my keeping? Short answer: Yes.

Are they worth your going out and buying some if you don't have them? Short answer: Depends.

Today's card won't convince you of their value because the effect I got with a stipple brush wasn't substantially different from what you'd get with a basic--and cheaper--sponge. Instead of pouncing/stippling the brush (dabbing it straight up and down on the paper), I rubbed it in circles across the paper. This, it turned out, isn't a technique that allows the stipple brush to shine.

Here are the supplies I started with.

As you can see, the gradation of light to dark doesn't look substantially different from the effect you could get swirling around a sponge. In fact, a sponge might even have worked better, perhaps giving a stronger color on the bottom...the Hero Hues Ocean color is a very dark, rich blue-green. But my hand got tired from all the swirling while holding the brush, and I eventually gave up. The results were certainly good enough for government work.

The completed card background seemed a little dull, so I ran my clear Wink of Stella brush-pen over it, and also across the spray of water from the whale. The effect was AMAZING!

EEEP!!! This is AWESOME!

This will be a perfect birthday card for a kid, don't you think?

Using-My-Hoard Results

• Wink of Stella Clear brush/pen: Thumbs up
• Stipple brush: Meh (a sponge would do this easier and faster)
• Whale Punch: Thumbs up

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at actual stippling.


Supplies
stamps: A Muse
ink: Memento black, Hero Arts tide pool and ocean
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: stipple brush, copy paper for mask (cut out is 1.25" x 5", with 1/2" border on three sides), Wink of Stella clear brush

OLS12--Attractive Opposites

Ardyth is hosting the One-Layer Simplicity Challenge for January, and the theme is Attractive Opposites. She made a simply awesome one-layer example that shows LOTS of opposites. I'll wait while you go check out her card.

Are you back?

Okay. Her card was so amazing, I was inspired to sit down today and see what I could do!

Using my new set from Simon Says Stamps called Sunnier Days, I employed a similar "opposite" color scheme as Ardyth--the complementary colors of orange and blue--only in darker shades than she used. On this card, we have wet and dry, outline and block stamps, matte and shimmer (the rain drops were touched with Wink of Stella clear pen!), handwriting and type. The bling is just for fun!

I hope you'll join us at the OLS blog this month for Ardyth's fun challenge! Remember, you may enter as many times as you'd like between now and midnight eastern time on the 24th. On the 28th, the DT will call out the exceptional details that elevate entries from great to totally awesome! It's a little mini-lesson in doing CAS. Don't miss it!

Using my Hoard
This card uses one of my two Wink of Stella pens...the clear one. It gives a very subtle shimmer to the raindrops. I like this Wink of Stella pen, although I'm not sure about buying more colors. I have to play more with it. Comments on the Wink of Stella line?


Supplies
stamps: Simon Says Stamp Sunnier Days
ink: Hero Arts orange soda, soft denim
paper: Papertrey
accessories: bling, Wink of Stella pen

New Year, New Challenges!

One-Layer Simplicity Challenge: The OLS monthly challenge continues for 2015 with eleven new challenges, each beginning on the first of the month and running through the 24th.  On the 28th of the month, the Design Team--Ardyth, Karen D., Cheryl E., Heather T., and I--will share our favorite details of the month's entries. Click over to the OLS blog on January 1, 2015 for the first challenge of the new year!

Use Your Hoard: Starting January 1st, I'm kicking off the follow-on to my Use-Your-Stamps Challenge. Use Your Hoard has three motivations behind it:

1. Clutter Clearing. Too much stuff clutters up our stamp spaces, making it hard to find the stuff we really love and use. As we Use Our Hoard, we will made decisions about what to keep and what to clear away, making our spaces much easier to work in.

2. Creative Karma. As we show our unused supplies love, hopefully they will love us back with refreshed and renewed creativity and inspiration.

3. Style Savvy. Sometimes, our style doesn't suit our supplies. For instance, I hardly ever do lumpy-bumpy cards, but I have a LOT of supplies (buttons, hardware, etc.) hanging around taking up space and weighing me down. Does my style need stretching or does my hoard need pruning? If we try to play with stuff, we might learn something new...or we might learn how to say goodbye more easily to unnecessary crap.

If any of that sounds good to you, join right in!

Step 1. Start by making a list of all the products and tools you have in your hoard. This might take a while, and if you're like me, you'll keep finding new things to add to the list as you open drawers and peek in boxes. You may see my list on this page HERE.

Step 2. Pick an item from your list and get started! Play around with it, search Pinterest or the interwebs for ideas, try new stuff, don't be afraid to screw things up or waste things. The whole point is TO USE YOUR HOARD. So use it. No apologies, no regrets.

Step 3. Reflect on and evaluate the product as you go. Is it fun to work with? Did you find it easy to use in ways that made you happy? Did you feel like it was fighting you the whole way? Was it too fussy or not fussy enough for you? Do you like the idea of it better than the application of it?

Step 4. Make a decision. Either a) keep it and store it for easy access in your craft space; b) toss it into a donation box that will go somewhere else when it's full; or c) keep it stored away from your craft space for future use or to re-evaluate at a future time. The third option is there for those who have a tough time letting go of stuff or who might have very legitimate reasons for holding onto things. For instance, even though I rarely use my Bind-It-All and accessories these days, I KNOW I will use it again. It's not going away permanently.

Step 5. Repeat Steps 1-4 until your whole list is finished! For some of us, this might take a while.


Now, some of you might not have a big hoard to use. You might have joined the stamping world recently, or perhaps had to downsize, or just have a small budget that makes you highly selective and careful with purchases. Watching what others do with their hoard can be very helpful for you, too! You'll see products in action, read honest evaluations of them, and can make better decisions of what might be worth your space and investment.

And now for another card using Doodlie-Do and some enamel dots.

And I mean that. You're amazing!!! Thank you so much for reading and supporting Simplicity, and for encouraging me as you do. And Happy New Year!!! I'm so excited to be starting another year with you and hope we all have a simply spectacular crafty year together!

Doodlie-Do Background

While playing around with Doodlie-Do, I experimented with using lighter colors and fell in love with the set's potential as a background creator.

Now, y'all all know I'm a huge fan of white space...the empty space on cards. Some of you tell me you get itchy if there's "too much" white space on your cards, while I have spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out how much white space I can get away with.

The answer is A LOT.

But occasionally, I do play around with filling that space, and Doodlie-Do is SUPERB for creating fun, simple backgrounds.

Of course, I keep it simple and monochromatic, but can you imagine this sort of line-art background in polychrome? So pretty! Add Stickles more liberally than I added the bling here, and you could create a really shiny masterpiece of a background. And those of you who absolutely love to color could have a field day making backgrounds with this set!

But I'm me, so I kept it simple and pared down to the basics. It was extremely plain before I put the bling on, but I love the font of the sentiment and the way the sentiment is the focal point.

To create a random background like this, start stamping slightly off-center and work your way out to the edges. This particular background was made with just one largish stamp. If you've never stamped a random background before, using a single, larger stamp is generally easier. There's not much "random" about random stamping, and it can take a little practice to avoid unsightly holes in the design or, worse, trapped white space.

And now for a comment about that glorious green ink. It's Impress Fresh Ink Celery. I LOVE these inks and will be buying a few more. They are rich, wonderful pigment inks that dry quickly and make good, crisp images. If you're in the market for a good pigment ink, check them out. But I'll have more to say about that in tomorrow's post.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Doodlie-Do, Keep It Simple: Thinking of You
paper: Papertrey white
ink: Impress Fresh Ink celery, Memento black
accessories: rhinestones, dimensionals

Doodlie-Do in Color

One very easy way to stamp outline images without needing to color them in is to stamp them in color. On today's card, I went with one flower image, stamped thrice in a visual triangle, in a raspberry ink that pops right off the white paper.

A tip for these sorts of arrangements...stamp the sentiment first, and then work around it. Also, if you plan on adding embellishments to the stamped image, as I have done here, be careful to make sure the places you will put said embellishments aren't hanging half-off the raised panel. I stamped very carefully so my silver half beads would fit nicely on the raised panel.

I just love the vibrant raspberry with the silver accents. The contrast works well, don't you think?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Doodlie-Do, Keep It Simple: Thank You
ink: Hero Arts raspberry, Memento espresso truffle
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: silver half beads, silver metallic marker, metal ruler, dimensionals

Doodlie-Do, CAS Style

The Plans for 2015 post has some wonderful comments. If you haven't read them, I recommend checking them out. You'll find good company. Laura H. sent me an email with this lovely thought: "Junk is stuff you throw away; stuff is junk you keep!" I'll be having lots more to say about the Use Your Hoard Challenge in coming days. Stay tuned.

Today, we're going to talk about weird stamp purchases that work.

Sometimes, stamps call my name, and I'm baffled as to why. For instance, Papertrey's Doodlie-Do set doesn't seem to evoke LateBlossom style, does it? After all, it's clearly supposed to be colored in by people who actually like coloring...a lot. I, however, am not one of those people. When was the last time I colored something on this blog?

I'll take that challenge! Hold on a minute while I figure that out.

You might count the post nearly two months ago on November 5, 2014, in which I colored green berries red with a Sakura Stardust pen, but that seems pretty lame. If you go back to October 12th, I painted a white-embossed flower with Twinkling H2Os, and that seems a better candidate if you count painting as coloring. But the last time I colored with markers or pencils was...wait for it...August 26th.

That sounds about right.

So when Doodlie-Do called my name, I figured I'd be able to do other things with it than color. It's been lots of fun playing around with it, so no regrets!

My first instinct was to stamp repeatedly through a mask (to limit the stamped space and allow for lots of white space) and then spotlight color using Stickles.

First up, I used peacock Stickles, and I like it, but it's a little subtle.

So on the second card, I used true blue Stickles, and the color pop is definitely more pronounced...and prettier.

This super-easy and flat card lets the line art of the stamps shine, and it also showcases the Stickles in a very CAS way.

Cutting this mask was easy with my Omnigrid quilting ruler and a craft knife. Start with a quarter sheet of copy paper, and trim out a rectangle that leaves a half-inch border around three sides and creates an open space 1.5" tall. Put a few spots of temporary tape-runner adhesive along the sides, and adhere to the front of a standard card. Stamp to your heart's content!

So if you're not a colorer, don't be afraid to purchase and have fun with outline sets like this one. For the next few days, we'll explore some other options with this set. Yay!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Doodlie-Do, Clearly Besotted A Little Sentimental
ink: Memento tuxedo black
paper: Papertrey
accessories: copy paper, quilting ruler, craft knife, Stickles

Plans for 2015

'Tis the season to think about resolutions and goals, and last night, while everyone else in my house was peacefully sleeping, I sat at my craft desk and reflected on crafty plans for 2015. Earlier in the day, I spent several hours cleaning out and straightening my craft supplies, moving a few to the unfinished area of the basement and putting others within easier reach.

I still haven't decided what to do about the ribbon stash.

You see, for me, my craft space organization helps guide my creativity. Clutter--unnecessary or unused supplies taking up visible space or labeled drawers--drains my creativity, while useful things energize and inspire me. Ribbon used to be useful; now, it's just pretty, arranged in rainbow display in glass jars on a shelf. And it's pretty uselessness is starting to annoy me.

Either I need to start using it, or stash it out of sight, or get rid of it entirely.

At the same time these organizational thoughts rattled around in my head, I remembered Ali Edwards' encouragement to create a crafty manifesto, a motto, or some sort of mantra to encourage creativity, and also to have "one word" for the year...an experiment I've tried with varying degrees of failure over the past ten years or so.

As I cleaned off the cork board over my desk earlier in the day, I pulled off a 3" x 5" card with the following written on it: "Do Simple Things Well." I read this on Joan B's blog several years ago, and it stuck with me.

That's my crafty mantra: Do Simple Things Well.

Put that together with the reality of dozens of different craft supplies...an abundance flirting with the border of pathological hoarding...and we have a bit of a contradiction, don't we?

Simple is good, but the sheer quantity of crafty crap inhabiting my space argues against simplicity. Sometimes, tension between two things can be good...a way of maintaining balance and harmony. Sometimes, such tension creates unnecessary stress. The key, for me at least, is to keep the tension healthy and productive.

Hence my plans for 2015.

In past years, I've emphasized using your stamps, and even have a page on this here blog dedicated to a Use-Your-Stamps Challenge. Last night, it occurred to me that I have totally aced the UYS Challenge. No stamps enter my stash until they've been used productively on a number of cards or crafty projects. I no longer buy piles of stamps and hoard them, uninked, like Smaug guarding his gold. Nope. I'm good. The habit of using them before adding them to my stash is firmly engrained to the point of being annoying, and every stamp in my stash has been well-used and justifies the space it takes up.

Now, it's time to use the OTHER stuff in my space. Use it, and decide whether to keep it or move it out. Stuff like colored pencils and watercolor crayons (both rarely used) and stuff like metallic markers and Stickles (both often used). Without trying too hard, I made a list of such supplies and came up with thirty-six items hoarded.

That's when I got tired and went to bed.

So 2015 is my year to Use My Hoard and figure out what in it will help me Do Simple Things Well.

Perhaps you'd like to join me, or perhaps you'd like to expand your hoard and do complicated things well. Doesn't matter. Like the card above says, "Start where you are, but don't stay there."

Let's get moving, folks!

What will your crafty focus be for 2015? Please share in the comments. What you share might give other stampers helpful ideas, and that's always a good thing!