A huge thank you to Paula of Crafty Storage

A few days ago I sent Paula (Crafty Storage) some photos of my little ole crafting area, and today she included me on her blog! Wow! I feel so honored, especially since my little area is so pitiful compared to the great studies she frequently shows. If you have not yet visited her blog, take a moment to stop on over there, some amazing craft rooms and studios.

Here is the link to the photo album of my craft area, not much, but it works. I am finding that I really need to get my stamps unmounted (yes, I am going to unmount them all) so that I can free up some of the shelf space for more paper and tools. Bought some of the EZ mount, but need to order more sheets (though I have only used one sheet so far I can see that there isn't enough to finish the job). Unmounted stamps are great, less room, and in my opinion, easier to use. And they can make stamping faster.

For instance, you can combine stamps on the acrylic block to make a combination of images without having to stamp, ink, stamp again, you just place your stamps on the block as you want them to stamp out, ink them up and poof, you are done. For some reason I also think I get a better image with the unmounted stamps, but have not really tested that out yet.

Anyhow, one last thing, I recently bought a cuttle bug and wanted to figure out how to use my brass stencils with the machine. After reading and seeing lots of hints, I think I have come up with a perfect recipe (I have printed out a few of them and they all work, but I wanted a deeper embossed image): Plate A, Plate B, piece of cork from plumbers gasket kit, red rubber from plumbers gasket kit, card stock, stencil, plate B. This recipe really seemed to make the embossing stand out as if I had done the whole image the traditional way! I also used the red rubber for fiskar embossing plates, but had to add a shim of two sheets of water color paper to make the image really emboss.

So, my next tutorial will be on the best recipes for your cuttle bug! What I love about the plumbers kit is that I paid $2.49 at my local hardware store! Of course I bought two, and of course I am going to take pictures for the tutorial. Most likely the tutorial won't be done till this weekend, unless I get my cards done before that. Will do both a written and video of the process.


Yesterday I posted the card I made for my Dad (still have to make my hubby's and my brothers cards). The reason I did the lighthouse is because my Dad has a place in Bodega Bay (Northern CA), and it has an amazing view of the ocean. So today I thought I would post a few pictures of his place, and some of the surrounding area:

This is what you see as you drive towards Bodega Bay. Before getting to this point you are on a major freeway, US 101, but then you cut over and wind through the country. When we get on this part of the drive I always start to relax and just soak in the beauty of the area.




This is the front of my Dad's place, that is my hubby getting stuff out of our van. These pictures are about four or more years old.


This is the view from the window, it is amazing, you can see from Bodega Bay to Point Reyes. This is just one of the windows, there are three, and this one is on the far right of the room.



This is a sunset, taken from the middle window.....I just love this picture. The field that is in the foreground has deer and jack rabbits in the morning, really neat.


This is my Dad : ), getting ready to cook some crabs that he picked up at the local wharf. Love this kitchen because it is open to the living room so while you cook you look out over the ocean.

Happy Dad's Day Dad!

Have a great day, I am off to pick up my son from work and then get to bed so I can get some cards made tomorrow.