My Aladdin’s Cave

Hello, Crafters.

Yesterday was another busy day, without the excitement of having a new Mini Catalogue downloaded at 8 pm! I still haven’t had a chance to have a good look at it yet! It’s currently only available as an online PDF but I have to print it off because if I try viewing it online I’ll get a migraine! My printer is always set at double-sided printing which always saves me lots of paper! I thought I’d share with you what I have been so busy doing over the last two days! I have finally organised myself so I can sell my retired Stampin’ Up! products via my website! The first job I had to do was to put my stamp sets in alphabetical order and then I counted them! All three hundred and eighty-five of them!

I sorted them into the same headings I used when I did a buy one, get one free a couple of years ago. That is, new (unused) with dies/embossing folder or punch and new without, used with and used without, and used where I’ve trimmed off excess rubber. I also have a small amount of Designer Series Paper, some embossing folders and some ribbon. I’m hoping that Aladdin’s Cave will go live over the weekend. At the moment there’s a 50/50 chance of that happening! Although I shared yesterday’s card with you I didn’t have a chance to explain anything to you! As you can see it’s a very straightforward card, i.e. a stamped image, coloured and then the cardstock was dry embossed! You would never imagine what I went through just to achieve this! I’m glad I didn’t plan anything that could be described as a challenge! LOL!

I stamped and painted the first image the same as the completed card I shared, and although I used the same colours I did change them between the flowers! But overall, I was really pleased. I also stamped and coloured the smaller image for the inside of my card. The stamp set is called Fancy Phrases and I used my Stamparatus to stamp the sentiment, the main image and the smaller image on the inside layer. As I frequently say there was too much white space for my liking and decided to emboss the layer using the Scripty 3D Embossing Folder. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve put my cardstock into this folder back to front or upside down. To make sure I didn’t make a mistake I checked and double-checked I had the writing on the folder the right way up and I had the right side of my layer facing me!

I cranked it through my Big Shot, opened the embossing folder and I could have cried! Yes, the writing on the folder was the right way! Yes, the front of the layer was facing me. But it was upside down! How could I get it so wrong when I had concentrated so hard? That wasn’t the end of it! When I was deciding on the colour for the middle layer, I realised I’d used a middle layer piece of Whisper White Cardstock (CS) for the top layer for the inside of the card. I took it to my guillotine to cut to size and I obviously wasn’t concentrating because I cut it 3 3/4″ to 4 7/8″ instead of 5 3/8″! Moral of the story! Don’t have too many balls in the air at the same time.

Fortunately, I don’t really get upset when this kind of thing happens! I reached for my Stamparatus, two pieces of clean Whisper White Cardstock (CS) top layers and started over again! Everything went smoothly, except I was a bit heavy-handed when I was painting one of the flowers on the small image for the inside of my card and went over the edge big time!

A quick bit of fussy cutting and I adhered the image from the layer I’d cut too short over my bad bit of painting! The colour of the middle layer is Gorgeous Grape and the card base is Highland Heather CS! The colours I used for the flowers were Light and Dark Purple Posy, Light and Dark Highland Heather and Light and Dark Granny Apple Green – all Stampin’ Blends. The gems are Basic Rhinestones I painted with my Dark Daffodil Delight Stampin’ Blend. Today’s going to be another busy day, hopefully, finishing off the preparation for Aladdin’s Cave and also planning Sunday’s video. I know what I want to do so I’ll start working on it first.

We’re enjoying a heatwave here in the UK at the moment! When hubby and I first moved into this house, we had it rewired and all new light fittings. In the bedrooms, the sitting room, the dining room and the conservatory we had combined ceiling lights and fans. At times like this, they really come into their own! They make it easy to sleep at night! That’s it from me today. I look forward to being back with you tomorrow, and in the meantime take care and stay safe! Happy crafting.

JanB. xx