A New World (Ink) Order

I have had zero "free" crafting time this month, sadly. I have traveled every week in April - my next trip is in a few days. I've been hopping with the MISTI team all month and been in a few other blog hops, so I've done lots of projects for those, but not any real unstructured play time. Until yesterday. I finished the samples that I needed to get done for The Collins Show on Sunday, and declared Monday a play day after work.

I have my pre-order from the catalog, and the stamp set to play with was a no-brainer. It's the Crafting Forever set, and it rocks. One of the sentiments says "Crafting forever - housework never."

And the people said -"Amen."

I wanted to try out the new masking fluid I got - it's from Schmincke, it's ammonia-free, and works beautifully. I had tried the Molotow masking pen with no real success - I found it got gummy during application, and doesn't work equally well on different papers. But regular frisket/masking fluid smells like the devil and I hate using it. So this - which is in a container with a very fine tip - made me feel like Goldilocks in the perfect bed. Easy to apply - even to those tiny paintbrushes - doesn't gum up and doesn't stink. I'm super happy with it. It comes in blue tint as well as colorless - I like the blue, because my vision isn't good enough for the colorless one.

So I masked off the little pot and paintbrushes, and then built the background around them. I just finished it with a sentiment from the set. This is going to be a much loved set, I can tell. The other images are adorable too. It was very fun to watercolor.

InLinkz.com

I did a video - and I'll be honest - I love doing videos for lots of reasons. I love teaching, so that's my favorite part. But right up there is the forced peace that takes place when I'm filming. I film with my phone, and so to start a video, I have to put it on do not disturb, and manually turn off all notifications so they don't interrupt my app. It's like that first time it snowed every year when I lived in New York - everything gets really, really quiet.

Sometimes, of course, I forget to turn it all back on, and then people think I'm dead. But it's really, really nice when it lasts. When social media is a big part of your job, like it is in my job - all the messages, and emails, and notifications can get crazily overwhelming, so taking a break from it is awesome. And as you know, the actual phone part of the phone I'd be happy to live without forever.

So yes, I highly recommend doing something creative every day. With your phone turned off. :)

In related news - on my Show Me Sunday team Facebook live a few days ago - I was stamping out the new In Colors I got to preorder, to show the team where they fit in the lineup of our existing colors.

When I was doing it, I stamped them with the balloon image from Super Duper in little groupings with like colors. But what we found surprised us! The new Fresh Fig, which I expected to group with our purples, made a lot more sense in the burgundy range, as it is very warm. Pool Party was much more green than blue, and I had previously had it in the blues. So after the call, I became obsessed with grouping all my inks properly, so I stamped out ALL the colors that will be current in the new catalog and grouped them this way: Reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples and neutrals. Here's how it turned out - so if you have a compulsion to ROYGBIV all the things - this is the order that makes the most sense to me.

It was easiest for me to stamp and punch them out and move them around to where they made sense. I wrote the color name on the back, and then once it was the way I liked it, I glued it onto a piece of Whisper White.

Now I just need to put the actual ink pads in the right order in my storage and my mind will be at rest. :)

Hope you find that helpful.

A few final notes!

• If you do not have a demonstrator and want the new catalog, fill out this form.
• If you are coming to Salt Lake in November, I'm having a retreat. It's at the bottom of this page.
• If you want to be stock up on retiring products - the most economical way is a no strings attached starter bundle - you'll get $125 worth of goodies for $99, and the ability to pre-order from the new catalog starting May 2. NOTE - the Curvy Keepsake die is retiring, and blender pens are going up by $2 a package in the new catalog - so now is the time to get both of those. Retiring items are while supplies last merchandise - so don't wait if there's something you want - it might sell out.

Loveyameanitbye.