If I Could Find The Person Who Invented Button Hoarding!

I am slowly moving the last few things back into my studio.

I'm at that stage that you get to when you're moving - where nothing really fits into a category you've defined and you just want to throw everything away.

So I'm coming across things like fracking extra buttons.

Who IS the person that decided that a) extra buttons should be included with clothing and b) convinced us all to save them??

I have 80 squillion packages of extra buttons that I have NOT ONCE sewn onto a piece of clothing. I just shove them into drawers, put them with my crafty stuff thinking I'll craft with them, and then find them 12 years later and wish I could pinch that person's head off!

If I could go back in time and talk to myself I'd tell myself never to save one single button and to pay myself a quarter every time I snipped a little package off some new clothes and tossed it in the trash - I'd be a billionaire!!

Now in order to take a break from my Cinderella drudgery in the button mines, I've been playing around with my MISTI. 

True confession time - I still am not really friends with photopolymer stamps. Stop yelling - I know most people love them, and we can all still be friends. I own many of them. But they are more of an acquaintance than a BFF. My BFF is rubber. I don't know if it's just a feel thing or what. But stop judging me. I can feel your little scowls.

But rubber just couldn't do some of the fun things you could do with photopolymer in terms of alignment - until the MISTI.

The Stamp-a-Ma-Jig works great for wood mounted stamps - but it doesn't work as well with cling stamps - it just doesn't fit those acrylic blocks quite right - for me, anyway. They just don't get seated into the handle as well.

So, truth be told, I have been neglecting some of my favorite multi-step stamps that I only have in cling. Like Stippled Blossoms, for example.

But hallelujah - thanks to my MISTI that neglect ended yesterday.

The key to stamping with stamps you can't see through was just to have a transparent sheet I could tape down and use as a positioning sheet.

I found these quilting guides thanks to someone on Splitcoast that are PERFECT - I just cut them down to the correct size and now I have great guide I can use over and over.

This was such a revelation for me but I found it hard to explain, so I made you a little video. And sorry about the quality of the video - I'm not back in my regular shooting setup yet, so I'm having to make do with what I have. I hope this makes sense!



SO much fun and so much possibility now! PS - the tape is here.

A lot of people are considering unmounting all their wood stamps after seeing what this thing can do. I haven't gone that crazy yet, but it's very exciting to find new life in stamps you already have.

Unlike extra buttons.

Those are not exciting at all.

PS - meeting with the retreat center this week so get ready for info!

Loveyameanitbye.