My Pink Stamper

My Pink Stamper

More Yarn...

Hi again. yesterday, I went to Michael's to look for some deals, since I had 50% off coupons I was ready to do some serious shopping. But, when I went down the stamp isle, nothing was new and what I did want was already 25% off. So I went to the yarn isle, my new favorite place. There were the big Pound of Love skeins, which are normally $8.00 but with a coupon (two coupons, one for each skein) I got TWO for $8.00, quite a deal. Then last night I got down to doing some serious crocheting, hoping to read a really cute blanket pattern right and make it look somewhat like the picture. So, I did four huge rows, spent almost three hours working on them and realized, it was curling. So, anyone that knows about crocheting, you have to pull it out if it curls. I don't have perfect tension partially due to getting up every so often and putting down the hook and picking it back up again later with slightly different tension. So I abandoned that project. But today, I made another Knifty Knitter hat! and I felt like crocheting a bit so I crocheted a flower to put on the hat. It is a pink hat with a white flower with a pink center. I also learned how to sew with the yarn needle and how to keep the stitches under the flower so it looks perfect. I will probably post a picture of the hats I have made so far on Friday or Saturday, since I am not on my laptop with the USB port for the camera. Until the weekend, have a great week and I'll post soon.

Onto something new...

So, long time no post. For the past few weekends I have been getting out of my stamping room and onto my living room couch. No, not watching TV, I'm not sick but I started taking up knitting. Loom knitting, with the Knifty Knitter. I got the round loom set before Christmas just because I wanted to try knitting because I was no good at crocheting. I got the loom set with five looms including one for babies. I made a hat for my Dad, a few scarves, and set it aside. Until now, since I am pretty into doing charity crafting stuff I wanted to branch out. This time I didn't want to do anything with cards because I already donate 50 every few months and that is very tedious but yet rewarding. So I am now making hats for babies in the NICU at a local hospital. So something that I can actually see because Wisconsin, where I donate the cards to is not within reasonable driving distance. But the hospital I am donating the hats to is within driving distance and instead of mailing them and waiting in the post office line and paying for postage, I can have my Mom drive me up to the hospital and I can just hand the box or bag or whatever of the hats. This for me, is something new and different. Since I have been siting for the past few weekends knitting I have found it really relaxing its doing good for someone else. This weekend, I got into crocheting blankets, small ones for the preemie babies, but trust me I won't be posting any pictures anytime soon because I am far from being done with them but the day I am, I will be sure to post a picture. In the meantime, I have Monday and Tuesday off from school for winter break and in that time I will be calling hospitals to see if they could use any of these things I am making. I hope that this comes to be what the Necessities Bag Wisconsin work was, and I get more involved and love it even more than I do right now

Something cool...

Since I got all my new stamps today, some of them needed some cleaning, like bad. Most of them were unused but some were very much loved by someone. I used to use just baby wipes for a while, but they didn't always get stains out. I came across this cleaner recipe a year ago and it's better than anything. I only use Staz on for Staz on inks now, I used to use it for everything except I don't like the idea that it says to avoid contact with skin(that's why it works so good) Here's the recipe:
You'll need: One spray bottle, water, baby soap, glycerin, Simple Green all purpose cleaner.
Fill bottle one quarter the way full with water, simple green, then put in a few little squeezes of baby soap and some glycerin.
This works wonders! I usually mess with the recipe a bit for what I need, for instance if I have some dirty stamps I use more simple green or I just spray some of the simple green onto the dirty stamp. When I get older, second hand stamps, I add more glycerin to moisturize the rubber stamps so they don't crack (believe me, cracked rubber is not good) For the really bad, old stamps that need more moisturizing, I spray some of the mixture with a higher concentration of glycerin on and let it sit all night, or over a week since I rarely craft during the week, it will soak into the really dry rubber and make it better than new. Except, you don't want to let it sit on your stamps too much, just do it when you first get a really old stamp and when you just clean it after use and wipe the solution off with a baby wipe, it will do maintinance with the moisture. If you let the solution sit too often, the stamp will feel kind of oily and greasy. I have used this for over a year and I love it. One thing though, there's another cleaner recipe that has all the same ingredients as this one but without the simple green and I tried it. It's terrible. It doesn't remove stains; it's no better than a baby wipe for what I was working with. Try this, it will save you money since the little staz on things are expensive and I don't like working with a chemical like that. You can go to simplegreen.com and send an E-mail telling them that you use simple green for stamp cleaner; they'll send you some good coupons. Just a tip, let me know if you like it as much as I do.

The motherload...

Hi, I have been posting A lot this weekend, partially due to Robyn (AKA:Mypinkstamper)'s challenges and I have time on my hands now that finals are over with (Thank goodness). As a reward for passing all my finals my Mom took me to my local scrapbook store for their yard sale. If you haven't gone to one of these before it is when people bring scrapbooking stuff to a store and they just sell their own stuff for cheaper than half off coupon prices. I spent almost an hour there today making my way through the crowd of hundreds of people. I spent $30 today but I got over 100 stamps, mostly rubber ones, the older ones made before I was even born. Most of them were not even used and were such good deals. No more than two dollars each and I got most of them in gallon bags that people put together. I was grabbing anything that said one dollar on it and I just ran with it. I got back issues of my favorite magazines for .50 each so I got inspiration too. I even got a Stampin' Up hostess set for $3! yes $3! so I am one happy girl. I got to do some crafting with all my goodies and I am SET until the next yard sale they have.

Another send away card

Here is another card that I am going to send off, I loved making this one. It's with my favorite and first Hero Arts clear stamp set. I got my inspiration from actually

an advertisment for a circus and the clown's costume inspired me