All I do is craft, craft, craft...

Not really, but I wish that were true! I have been trying to up my crafting game and it's resulted in some purchases of supplies and then actively using them.  I try to make sure that I use my supplies regularly and I haven't bought new supplies (besides adhesive) in a few weeks. That might not sound spectacular, but for me that's a long time.  The truth is I realized I have enough supplies right now to go "shopping" in my craft studio; that realization forces me to use/rediscover what I already own.  Doing this has yielded some "Responsible Crafting".  I'm using that to refer to things like making swatches:

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens

Practicing my handlettering: 

Done with Tombow Dual Brushpens

And even working on my digital art: 

Wacom Pad using Sketchbook

I've been working to really get the most out of my supplies and I have to say I'm pretty happy.  I feel like I have fallen in love with some of my supplies all over again, which I like because I think it's easy to fall into the trap of "hoarding" supplies and being afraid to use your "good" supplies. To be honest, the whole reason you buy things should be so you can use them. I'm trying to take my own advice there, happy crafting! 

Gab about Craft Storage

So my husband agreed that it would be a good idea to convert the closet in the craft room into extra craft storage. Yesssssss! Here is how it went down.

A mess! 

First I removed the doors. 

Easier to see. 

Then clearing out the stuff! 

So much stuff! 

Then adding the shelves. 

Looking good! 

Now the fun part, adding supplies. 

Finished! 

I am beyond happy with the results!! I can see and access all of my supplies now and I'll probably add a little wall storage soon, but the bulk of the work is done! The final thing I need to do is to mount a curtain rod and put a drape across the door so I can "close" it when it's not in use. This could work in any smaller closet, it took me about 2 hours to do, I bought that shelf at the home improvement store for $24.99. Let me know if you have any questions, happy crafting!!! 

Another Craft Drop

I was able to leave this one in Boiler Country (Purdue WL) last weekend.  

This was in the Union

Not only did someone get this, but they found me on IG and said thanks and that they loved it! 🎉🎄  Happy Crafting!

My own hinged stamping tool.

Hi everyone!  So I have been churning out cards like crazy and one of the things that has helped me is the tool I made.  I found it pretty easy to make and wanted to share how well it works.

Here's a picture:

I added some embellishments and I'm going to decorate it with vinyl soon too!

and you can check out the video of it in action here:

I also colored in one of those flowers when I was done, and here' s that too:

Colored with Spectrum Noir Markers, a gel pen, and a Wink of Stella brush.

You could really use one of these and make a set of notecards to give someone without worrying if all of them will be stamped the same, and it can save you a ton of time, even on things like Christmas cards.  I also think this would be good for the big background stamps, so you can get a nice even stamp, I think there are a bunch of uses for this and hopefully you're inspired to make one too.

Craftermath - An Engineer's Guide to Crafting

So I wanted to make these little rosettes I kept seeing and it occurred to me that I already had all of the materials, but I did not see any clear instructions for the sizes of paper needed.  Then I realized that they are just strips of paper in circles, so I used the circumference formula: 

c=2*pi*r

Where c= the length of your paper, r=the height of your paper, and pi can be rounded to 3.14 and the size of the finished circle across will be 2 times the value of r.  Sounds a little complex, but I'll give an example.

Say I want a rosette that is 7" across. Then my strips of paper need to be 3.5" width wise and at least 22" lengthwise, but you should do at least 24" lengthwise since the paper is folded.  To go the other way, say I have paper that is 18" lengthwise, the biggest rosette I can get from that is going to be about 5.75" across, so to be safe, I should cut the width of my strip to about 2.5"-2.75" just to be safe so I'm not stretching the paper.  This formula will work for any size rosette and you can adjust your accordion folds based on appearance, but remember, the further apart your folds are, the more you "shorten" your initial length, so always try to have extra length so you don't tear your paper, happy crafting! 

Materials needed: 

Paper of your choice, I used K & Company Double Sided paper

Glue, I used Elmer's Craft Bond

Scoring Board, I used Martha Stewart

Button

Embroidery Floss and Needle

Scalloped Die Cuts, I used my Cuttlebug, but you can also use a punch

Materials used for rosettes minus my Martha Stewart scoring board! I used one but it's not in this pic.

The above rosette is 3" across. I cut my paper 1.5" wide and 12" long. So I needed at least 9.4" length, but I wanted it to look "full" so I used the entire 12" length with 1/4" folds.

A stacked rosette. 

This was done using 20" of length and 3.5" of height, I did all of the folding and glueing and then cut 1" off the top to make 2 rosettes, 1 at 2.5" height (5" across when flattened) and 1 at 1" height (2" across when flattened) and then glued them together.