New Journal and Spice Bottle Stamping!

I've been really busy for the last couple of days creating the posters for my two new card making classes at JoAnn. Any local people should go check them out at the Mesa Riverview store. The first class, Intro to Cardmaking is for beginners. The second class, Cardmaking 2, is all about distressing and creating vintage looking cards. My classes are priced at $15, too, which is dirt cheap.

But, enough of the commercial... LoL. ^_~ I was figuring out what to do with my latest empty spice jar (basil again... can't ever have too much basil!) and as I was staring at all of the parts, I realized that the lid, that little plastic cover, and the jar itself all had different sized circles at their ends. I thought... "Nesting circle stamps!" And here we go...

You need an empty spice bottle (or baby food jar or whatever... ANY jar that has a lid is applicable here because obviously the lip of the lid is bigger than the lip of the jar, right?), a sanding block, and a hot glue gun. Exercise caution, don't hot glue your lip, yadda, yadda, yadda. I say this with just a bit of sadness, recalling the day that my sweet boy, Thad, who was 3 or 4 at the time, touched the tip of my hot glue gun to his lip after I had told him about 17,000,000 times not to touch it because it would hurt him. I was sad about it, but I DID tell him and I know he understood me. Why he had to push the limits with a hot glue gun and his LIP, I'll never know. But other than that, I haven't had a single accident with all of my dangerous crafting supplies and my kids. And Thad knows way better now... But, as usual, I digress...


Sand all of the edges that will be your stamping edges. The jar opening, the lip of the lid, and the lip of the little shaker piece, if you have it. Sand the top of the lid and the top of the shaker piece (since you're gluing them together--this makes the join better). Hot glue the shaker piece upside down to the top of the lid of the jar. Turn the whole thing upside down to let the shaker piece set on the lid.


Use the assembly as a stamp. The shaker piece:


The lid:


And the jar:


This paper shows the stamped circles from the shaker piece, the lid, and the jar. My desk is so old and torn up and uneven (I'm sure you've noticed my ugly desk before.) that the jar one didn't come out right. When I put a cutting mat underneath my paper, ensuring a perfectly flat surface, I had much more success.


Here's one of the Valentine's Day cards I made for my hubby using the "stamps". I nested the circles for the part that spins.


And here is the journal I just made today!!!!!! I LOVE this Japanese binding technique. It lays flat no matter what page you're opened to.




I found some huge damask clear stamps on clearance at Michael's today and had to get them. I love how the covers are mirrored to each other. I'm really quite proud of this thing. It's one of those times, as an artist, where you know you just made the thing, but it's so cool, you don't feel like you made it. Why we have that feeling, I don't know. Maybe there's just this part of all of us that can't seem to admit when we're awesome even though it's staring us right in the face.

I aged the covers with walnut ink (they both started as textured white cardstock) and stamped cute collage and stuff...

And I think I'm done. I'm so tired right now, I don't know how I'll go on. That stupid one night of camping with one hour of sleep might be catching up with me. Elliott and not wearing "mittens for Ay-yot"... *grumble, grumble* You know, I actually want to knit this little punk some socks? What is it? What is the sickness? No matter how little they appreciate me, I just want to keep giving. I think God and I are going to bond a bit over this.