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Stampin' Up!

3:35 PM

I love the Sunday paper, particularly the Sunday advert inserts.  I love browsing through them whilst eating breakfast and I can find pretty good deals.  I never usually peruse through the Staples advert, but for some I did yesterday and I found something pretty cool.

It's the Scotch Expressions Tape in a variety of colours and it's removable without damaging the paper for $1.50 each.  So I head on over to Staples and buy four colours ... Green, orange, purple and blue.  I though these would be the perfect things to label and decorate my Filofax without damaging any of the sheets.


At first I was skeptical.  A tape that won't damage paper?  RUBBISH!  But I stand corrected.  It does do the job.  



I think it's the beginning of a new friendship with me and Scotch Expressions Tape.  They'll do the job, but they won't replace the other things I seem to put in my Filo -- such as my doodles, stickers that I purchased from the Dollar Store, and of course, the stamps that I've been making.

I've been so obsessed lately with making rubber stamps.  The last one I made, which was this morning was that of an apple.  The more I make rubber stamps, the better I get ... I guess.  But I think it's time to move on to bigger more intricate stamps rather than the small ones I've been making.




Crafts

stamps! making my own.

8:12 AM

- warning - image heavy post -

Since my Filo has been looking quite bland lately, I wanted to customise it by drawing, stamping, and adding stickers.  So I dug into my rubber stamp box and found that many of them are just too big to stamp into a day on my Week-On-Two-Pages.  I remembered reading a blog post several years ago about making your own rubber stamps by using erasers.  Well, why not?  I'll give it a try.  I'll post the instruction towards the end.

I didn't have erasers when I first decided to try it, but I did have some craft foam that I used to use when I was teaching my Spanish Speaking kids how to read English several years ago.  I have two sheets of that red craft foam and no longer have any need for it, so I decided to use it as my first try.  I glued three small cut up pieces of foam together using a glue gun and prayed that it would work.  I got started cutting and I wasn't quite thrilled at how it turned out, but still not bad for my first time.



With this result, I told myself the next day that I'll get a pack of erasers from the Dollar Store and try again.  In my previous post, I showed pictures of the pack of erasers and the super big eraser I found at the dollar store.  With those in my hand, I got to work.

I love Starbucks or better yet, I love espresso (since I make Starbucks drinks at home anyway).  I went ahead and drew a coffee cup, traced the drawing onto tracing paper and transferred it onto the eraser.



I started sculpting the stamp which was 2cm x 2cm (very small).  I thought it was going to be easy -- I thought wrong.  It was hard getting into the small crevices and I wondered how people made small and detailed stamps.  I guess practice makes perfect, so I grabbed another part of the eraser and made on in cherry. 


I continued on my route practicing and I ended up with four very small rubber stamps.


Here's what you'll need:

Xacto Knife (Make sure the blades are sharp.  It won't work if its dull).
Rubber Erasers
Tracing Paper
Pencil and an eraser you use daily.

1.  Draw whatever image you want on a piece of paper.  Take the tracing paper and trace it with a pencil.
2.  Transfer the image onto the eraser by rubbing it on the eraser.  Use another eraser, one that you use daily to transfer the image.
3.  Start carving your stamp.  It's a good idea to angle your xacto knife when you're removing parts of the eraser in the inside of the image.
4.  Carefully rub the traces of pencil left on the eraser.
5.  Ink it and stamp away!


  

Planner

Filofax Week #33

11:19 AM

I can't believe last week was relatively calm, slightly boring and uneventful.  My week was filled with a series of chores that ranged from filing away paperwork (I can't convince Michael to go digital) to caulking the bathroom trim after replacing it nine days ago.


I'm also trying to add more character to my Filo by putting stickers and using a colour coding system to organise my schedule, adopting my iCal colours in my Filo.  Personal Family Work/Study Miscellaneous  Travel (still unsure about the Travel).  I also use pink to underline and strikeout items in my Filo, which is helpful because I can spot the time slot for each entry.

Since I love to doodle, I've also started to draw the weather entry in my Filo, which I am finding quite difficult since the summer days in Sacramento are HOT-HOT-HOT.  I did however start adding stickers, especially those kawaii note/stationery sets that I found in the back of my office drawer.

I intended to buy more kawaii items at Oto's Marketplace (a local Japanese Grocery), but they didn't have much kawaii items in their "Daiso" department, so my last resort was the Dollar Store and I did find cute stickers whilst I was there.


Everything was a dollar, with the exception of one sticker that I found for 50p.  I don't quite remember which one it was.  Since the Care Bears and My Little Pony were on the shelf, I decided to get those as well since they were my favourite characters during the 1980s.  Yikes .... I'm that old?  

I also found erasers that I can use to make my own stamps, of course, to use to decorate my Filo.  I tried making my own stamps yesterday from foam sheets I used to use to teach my Spanish speaking students to read English.  I'll post that experience when I have the photos edited since I've been using my iPhone to take the photographs.


I was really surprised in finding a really large eraser.  The big bright blue one measure 14cm x 5cm whilst the pack of small erasers measured at 4.5cm x 2cm, pretty small, but I can make small stamps out of them -- hopefully.  More on that later.


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