Day 4 countdown St. Patrick's Day +

Good morning!

An Irish Friendship Wish

"May there always be work

For your hands to do;

May your purse always hold

A coin or two;

May the sun always shine

On your window pane;

May a rainbow be certain

To follow each rain;

May the hand of a friend

Always be near you;

May God fill your heart

With gladness to cheer you."

RUBBER STAMPING

Today I thought we could explore the wonderful world of rubber stamping together. I am still amazed when someone says to me "Rubber stamping? What is that?". I have been rubber stamping since 1983 or so, starting out self-taught as there really wasn't that much information out there about it. I have been teaching rubber stamping classes for a couple of decades! Wow.

In the back of a craft magazine I found an ad for a company named "Bizarro", that had rubber stamps. I saved up my money and sent off for the catalog. I think I may even still have it! The pages became very dog-eared and worn what with me reading and re-reading every page of quirky images.

To illustrate how much rubber stamping can be economical, I still have that original bottle of copper embossing powder I purchased for my first batch of home-made-rubber-stamped Christmas cards. I also still have the stamp I used. Both are still quite usable!

To illustrate how much rubber stamping can be outrageously expensive, I now have an entire room dedicated to my hundreds of stamps, thousands of sheets of paper and cardstock, and dozens of bottles of embossing powders, fun flocking, pearl ex, embellishments....well, the list could go on for quite a while!

How sweet it is!

hand stamped and colored domino magnet by inkspired

"The person born with a talent they are meant to use

will find the greatest happiness in using it."

- Goethe

Let's start with a fun rubber stamping project for any level stamper!

St. Patrick's Day Party Cupcakes

The fun baking part-

To do ahead:

Make a batch of cupcakes, let cool.

Frost with green frosting. If you can't find any pre-made, simply use a can of prepared white frosting, and drop in JUST A COUPLE OF DROPS of green food coloring. Really, just a couple. Mix well. You can always add more food coloring a drop at a time.

Sprinkle frosting with green tinted coconut to simulate grass.

How to tint coconut:

Add a few drops of food color to coconut in a jar; shake until evenly tinted.

The fun rubber stamping part-

Find a simple rubber stamp with an Irish theme - shamrocks are great. The image should be no larger than 1 1/2".

Purchase a good ink pad. Go ahead and invest $7 and get a green one. I like Stayz-on, Brilliance or Marvy Matchables.

You will need a pack or so of lollipop sticks. You can find these anywhere they sell Wilton cake decorating supplies (I get mine at JoAnn's Fabrics).

Now you want circles or squares or ovals of plain cardstock.

You will also need the same amount of green cardstock cut into shapes. 

There are many hand held punches in these shapes.

For more addicted stampers, there are the cuttlebug or cricut machines, etc.

Or you could do the old fashioned but really cheap way, and trace around a bottle or jar for a round circle, and cut out.

Ink your stamp lightly. No grinding, pounding or smacking.

Stamp your simple image onto scratch paper first to practice, then stamp onto the shaped plain cardstock.

Pretty!

Let dry or help it along with an embossing gun to set ink.

No, a hair dryer won't work.

Now make a sandwich:

Shaped and stamped plain cardstock circle face down +

    blob o' glue, with lollipop stick in the center +

        shaped green cardstock.

Press to secure lollipop stick. Let dry.

alternate - you can tape the lollipop stick in place and then glue the green card onto the back.

Or, you can put a dab of frosting on back side of stamped circle, and push lollipop stick into that, then a dab more frosting and squish the green cardstock in place on top.

Go clean your stamp. Using an old washcloth or tube sock, dampen the cloth. Dab your stamp repeatedly onto it and slightly scrub until no more green comes off. Then stamp several times onto scratch paper to make sure there is no more ink leftover. Your stamp should not be wet.



For extra pretty, tie a thin ribbon bow at the base of each stamped circle, around the lollipop stick.

Push one decorated lollipop stick into each cupcake.

Ready to go!



Fun extra - if this is for a school party, you can write the name of each student on the back, plain green cardstock side to personalize!

"If you're lucky enough to be Irish,

then you're lucky enough."

inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com



Day 6 St. Pat's Day countdown, paperdolls, mazes and vintage clip

Good day!

"A world of wishes at your command,

God and His angels close at hand,

Friends and family, their love impart,

And Irish blessings in your heart!"

Today is a beautiful day outside. The wind is still, the sun is shining and there are some blue skies peeking out between clouds. My Great Dane Tanner just wants to sit outside in the sun - sniffing the breeze and soaking up the sun, and, well, what ALL Great Danes do - napping!

and one of my favorites - remember, he is napping -

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's spirit remains unawakened."

- Antole France

Here is a wonderful celtic knot maze from Dover:

You can click on any of my pictures and they open in their own little window. You can then copy and paste, or just print.

Please be courteous about copyright laws.

If you didn't come up with the idea, don't say you did.

Try to always give credit where credit is due.

Here is another interesting maze based on Ireland:

courtesy of Dover

For future Crafts:

Time to save an egg carton or two. These need to be made out of the paperboard/cardboard kind, not the styrofoam white ones. Any color will due, as long as it is bio-degradable cardboard type material.

For a SUPER Egg project coming up, please start saving those twistie ties that come on bread or bags of things. You will also need a variety of silk ties to cut up. Not any other kind, just silk ones. I finally broke down and purchased a handful from my local ARC thrift store. My husband had this strange objection to my cutting up some of his ties....go figure.

A silk scarf might work, I'm going try that this year also. I don't know if it will work yet, so don't depend on just silk scarves. Get those ties!!!

For our CD project you will need a hundred or so CDs. That means a pile of them! It does not matter what is printed on the CD at all.

We will be making a purse with all the gum wrappers you are saving. You might want to hook in with a youth group or something to get a good supply of them. Perhaps a junior league baseball team? I kinda' shudder to think one person would chew that much gum themselves!

Here is another paper doll set with an Irish theme:

Liana's Paperdoll Blog is a website with all original (and copyrighted) paperdolls and their fantastic wardrobes. Well worth a check.

joechip.net/liana

Well, I think that's enough for today! I'm looking forward to a recipe for traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage cooked in a crockpot for tomorrow.

"Irish Alzheimer's:

You forget everything except the grudges."

 - Judy Collins



inkspired

http://www.inkspired.etsy.com/

dominoes@myinkspired.com



Scrapbooking, kirigami and St. Patrick's Day

Howdy!
Today will be a fun day of tips and quotes, and hopefully you'll start feeling a little "green"!

"For each petal on the shamrock

This brings a wish your way,

Good health, good luck and happiness

for today and everyday."

TIP: Time to check the closet and make sure you have some green to wear on Mar. 15th. If it needs cleaning or mending, do it now!

Scrapbooking and Kirigami really complement each other.

After cutting a few different designs in differing colors, spread them out on your work table/counter.

Set out a few pages of the scrapbook in progress that you have.

Get out some photos you want to scrapbook. Kirigami looks fab as photo frames! Ad one to make a big splash on your page. Use several pieces that overlap the edges and cut off the overhang. Save for later uses.

Play with color combinations. Do at least ONE that is way out of your comfort range. You might end up really liking it!

DESIGN IDEA:  Use your glimmer mists and kirigami stencils in your spray box onto sheets of 12x12 or whatever size your scrapbook is. After drying, take the shadow images sheet to your work table. Use the same cut of kirigami to layer over, slightly off center, the glimmer mist shadow image on your paper.

An example of colors: off white paper, gold and walnut glimmer mists, scrap kirigami to spray over, brown vintage look kirigami to layer. You are well on your way to completing a scrapbook page with vintage photos or memorabilia.

    Here is an original papercutting          Here is the sprayed paper

Note how the image is reversed. These 2 pictures are not my own. Unfortunately I have lost the info on who it belongs to. If you know, send me the info so I can give credit where credit is due.

Here is a  St. Patrick kirigami design for you to cut and play with:

This kirigami uses the quarter page fold. You take one square piece of paper. Fold it in half. Crease well. Fold in half again. Crease well. Print out the above shamrock design (copyrights by http://www.scissorcraft.com/). Fold using the directions above. Now you have a 1/4 pattern that can easily be cut, or transferred to your desired paper. Spread open flat and admire  your work!

HINT: make sure that your shamrocks are overlapping, and that you don't cut between them. You need the connections to keep your kirigami in one piece.

TIP: You can always iron your kirigami to make it flatter. Use a dry iron with no steam.

Wouldn't these kirigami shamrocks look pretty with a spray of Glimmer Mist over the top?

These two designs are copyrighted from DOVER PUBLICATIONS. They are found in the Stained Glass Book section. I would highly recommend that you subscribe to Dover's free downloads weekly club.
.
Here is an addy that I think will get you to the right place:

"Mary Davis, Dover Publications" <Mary_Davis@e.doverpublishing.com

This is a heart design from the discontinued Back Street Studio line of books. It is definitely okay to use for your own personal use. I'm not sure where they stand on multiple uses, but the general rule is you can make 10 items using their designs for "pin money", but you can't reproduce it and say it is mine.

This next card is a stamp from Peddler's Pack line of rubber stamping. Excellent line! I have stamped it onto the back side of a piece of acrylic. I'll give directions on how to do this with glitter tomorrow.

https://www.peddlerspack.com/

"A friend's eye is a good mirror."

enjoy today,

inkspired