Happy Father's day from the herd and Distress Ink Storage

It's been a while since my last post. I've been busy running. I kid you not! I have been trying to get back into the whole running thing, but it's an uphill struggle. I keep getting slower instead of faster, so I think I need to give my body a bit more time to adjust. Anyhow, today I got my run done first thing in the morning, and without that pesky work thing getting in the way, I did manage a bit of time in the good old craft room.

Today's card is in preparation of UK Father's Day (as Finnish Father's day isn't until November). So this is for my Father-out-of-law (I guess that would be the correct term for one's significant other's father if not married...). I wasn't quite sure what would be a good theme for the card as I went with boats and sea last year, that's a sure bet. But I thought I can't go wrong with the herd, now can I?

I stamped the herd onto watercolour paper using Staz-on ink and watercoloured using Tim Holtz distress inks. Then I die cut the photo frame using a Lawn Fawn die, and die cut the "Happy" using Stampin' Up Hello You dies. The "father's day" part of the sentiment is from a Lawn Fawn sentiment set. For the background I chose a paper from Let's Polka Mon Amie, and I punched a few banners using the Stampin' Up Banner Punch.

I am linking up with the following wonderful challenges:
Clear It Out - Anything Goes
Crafty Creations Challenges - All Creatures Great and Small
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Make It Masculine
Stampin' Royalty - Masculine Projects
My Time To Craft Challenge Blog - Male
Brown Sugar Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
Creative Corner Challenges - Just for Dad 

I would also like to show you my storage solution for my Distress Inks. I decided all the commercial Distress Ink storage solutions are a bit too expensive given that I just spent a whole lot of money on getting new furniture for my craft room. So I thought, as I am a crafter after all, why not make one myself. So I did, using black cardstock and some gorgeous Tim Holtz paper. It's a bit wonky and not perfect, but it works and it didn't cost me more than a few pieces of cardstock, so I'm happy with it for now. However, the size was limited by the size of the square shelves in my storage unit, and with six more colours coming out this year, I will have to find some more space for my ink pads. And I'm not even close to owning all the standard colours either! And of course after that I need to complete my collection of Distress markers and paints as well... What's that sound? Oh, it's just my credit card screaming in pain. I have a few other posts on my craft room organisation, my desk organiser here, my paper scrap organiser here, my general craft room layout here and my stamp and die storage here.

The organiser on it's shelf with inks and the matching foam pads.

The top of the organiser.

The back of the organiser.

Father's day card
Card: 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up From the Herd, Lawn Fawn Happy Everything
Inks: Tsukineko Staz-on Jet Black, Tim Holtz distress inks
Paper: Lawn Fawn Let's Polka Mon Amie
Other: Lawn Fawn , Stampin' Up Hello You die, Banner punch

Ink organiser
Card: Black 350 gsm card
Paper: Tim Holtz idea-ology Wallpaper

A new card and a new craft room

I have finally had a chance to enjoy the new and improved craft room today. Getting home turned out to be a bit of an epic journey as we had the "pleasure" to endure the mother of all hailstorms. Visibility was zero to none. Luckily I made it back home safe, and now the sun is shining in through the windows of my little piece of crafty heaven.

But first, today's card. I was just itching to get to craft something and was browsing a few challenges for inspiration. I was quite taken with the STAMPlorations sketch as well as the colour combo over at My Favourite Things. I'm also linking up with the X, Y, Z challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Monday. I wanted to come up with something clever and exciting using X but in the end I had to settle with the boring Y is for yellow as my brain cells were in useless mode. Last but not least I'm also linking up with Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge where the theme is Anything Goes/Just Add Pink.

In my mind, the borders on the sketch looked exactly like my Tim Holtz Vintage Lace die cuts. So I cut some and used them as a mask to ink through using three shades of pink distress ink. Then I used markers to colour the Stampin' Up Four Feathers stamps and die cut them with matching dies. Last I die cut the hello and matted everything onto pink card. I was tempted to add some ribbon or rhinestones, but decided less is more this time.

And then to the new craft room. Oooh, how I love my little room. I am convinced having your own rooms is the secret to a happy relationship (check in on me again in a few years to see if said happy relationship still exists...). The new Ikea organiser went in, one of the desks moved up to the loft making room for my old and faithful sofa for those lazy Saturday mornings when I want to slouch with a cup of coffee and browse blogs for inspiration. Of course I wanted my Ikea unit to look like the one below. 

This is what I wanted my craft room shelf to
 look like (click image to be taken to the source)

But then I thought about how hard it is to get away with robbing a bank, and settled for some DIY hacks instead. I am still waiting for a lot of stuff to arrive in the post to be able to finish organising my stamps and dies which is why it all looks a bit unorganised yet. Most things haven't found their places yet, but I'm sure that things will fall in place. And I have so many plans, there will be a much bigger desk one day. Also, although you can't see it in the picture, there is a whole white wall above the sofa which needs pictures. But that will all be a project for another day.  

The empty shelf is where my camera lives, but
for obvious reasons, it could not be included in the picture.

Card: kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, coloured 240 gsm card raspberry
Stamps: Stampin' Up Four Feathers and matching dies
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress inks Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick, Stampin' Up Blushing Bride, Melon Mambo, Summer Starfruit
Other: Tim Holtz Vintage Lace dies, Lawn Fawn Hello die

Scrap paper storage

My craft room re-arrange is still ongoing. Lots have happened, the Ikea storage unit has gone up and most of my crafty stuff has started to find it's new home. I have organised my papers and dies. Next, I'm waiting for some storage bags so that I can re-arrange all my clear stamp sets into a more aesthetically pleasing display. I'm also so tempted to buy some ink pad storage for my Tim Holtz inks, but I can't really justify the expense, so I think I will try to see if I can create something myself instead. After all, the whole point of crafting is that I should be able to create things myself, right?

A while ago I created a desk organiser from the very glorious raw material of TP rolls. As part of my re-arrange, my crafting desk has moved and it's now in front of the window. When I arranged all my things onto the desk again I realised that the little box that holds my leftover scraps of card and paper looked just horrible. So I decided to make a nice scrap paper holder to match my desk organiser. I also went through all my leftover scraps and threw away the slivers that were way too small to ever get used again and now I'm only keeping scraps which are a reasonable size and might see some use one day.

I started with a box that I happened to have lying around. I started by covering the box in a layer of gesso. Then I spread Mod Podge onto the lovely Tim Holtz Wallflower paper and covered the box with bits and pieces of the paper. I also clad the inside, not that it's ever going to be visible but I just felt like I wanted to finish the box appropriately. Once dry, I inked all edges using Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink and added the lace washi tape on the top. I created the dividers from white 300 gsm card and again inked around the edges with Vintage Photo. I store my paper scraps according to colour: yellows and oranges, pinks and reds, purples, blues and turquoises, greens, neutrals, whites/creams and last multi-coloured patterned papers, so I coloured the tabs using Copics to indicate the colours. It most certainly looks better than my old tattered box, and I will try to keep my scraps organised in my new box. I only store small scraps in the box, larger scraps are stored together with each appropriate cardstock or paper. I can't wait to show off some of my other storage solutions as I finish things. 

I would like to link up with the following challenges:

A Vintage Journey - Spring Colours

Craft for the Craic - Wings 

Crafting With an Attitude - Spring Fever

2 Crafty Girls - Vintage 

Not Just Cards - Anything Goes