Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Unbelievably, I managed two afternoons running in my studio this week!

More storage and organising

I am making very good progress with storing my various stamps and cuts etc.

I have now laminated the dividers for the stamps I’ve sorted so far. The system matches that of the die storage.

Sheba cuts

Sheba is the name I gave to my Cougar cutting machine when I got it. I have now sorted the heap of cuts I made recently, and which have been hanging around on my desk for days, and put them in individual baggies with label inserts, along with a few other bits and pieces including some printed sentiment strips that were rather precariously stored in the back of my Zentangle album, which has clear ATC storage pages. Put a few cuts in there, and when you open the book they all tend to fall out! I am always finding little missives like “Thinking of you” on the floor in the studio. Nice to know Someone is… I have been looking for a better solution for them for ages.

Leaf trails and butterflies

Turning the baggies over, you can see the temporary inserts I made.

Here are the Sheba cuts with printed label inserts.

On Thursday I moved onto sentiment strip storage. I had printed quite a lot which were stored in the Zentangle album, and that afternoon I also stamped and heat embossed some new ones on black cardstock, and stamped some with black archival ink onto white cardstock. These were put into baggies with temporary label inserts.

I then bagged them up by category with printed insert labels.

They will eventually go into an Avery Elle pouch like the stamps and dies, and have their own divider.

On Friday I finally got round to taking my hubby’s advice and had a production line to make envelopes for the cards. My card making has been a real pain up until now. I’ve always done it on an ad hoc basis – “Oh dear, so-and-so’s birthday is next week and I’ve got to make a card!” and I would do it all from scratch, usually working againt the clock. At the end of it, my heart would sink when I realised there was no envelope to fit it, so out came all the envelope stuff just to make one envelope! This hardly falls into Shoshi’s efficiency code, does it.

What I decided to do was make half a dozen envelope blanks for each of the standard card sizes for which I cut bases recently – 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch, 5-inch square, and 5 x 7 inch.

You need quite big sheets of paper to make envelopes. I have a large pack of A3 printer paper but it’s only 80 gsm weight which is too flimsy for my taste. Last week I ordered some 140 gsm white A3 paper on Ebay, which is a much better weight. If you have spent time making a lovely card, to have an envelope with some substance to it really shouts quality.

My envelope punch board was working overtime as I completed these sets of envelopes. I scored and folded them but didn’t glue them, so that I can have the option to decorate them to match their respective cards should I so wish.

I stored them temporarily in individual Avery Elle pouches with labels until I could make permanent inserts.

I recently came across a really good tutorial on YouTube, on how to make envelope liners using the punch board. She showed how to make them as if you are making an entire envelope, which involves cutting off the sides, which she said she didn’t like doing as it wasted paper. She came up with a better method, which I thought I would try. I felt that in her tutorial, the difference in size between the flap of the envelope and the liner was a bit too narrow for my taste, so I did a lot of experimenting with scrap paper until I came up with what I think is a liner with a better appearance. I wrote the instructions on the final result in each case and tucked it in the respective pouch for that size of envelope. This was a temporary measure until I could print these instructions with a diagram on the insert for each pouch. I shall not be making these liners up in advance because I may want to use patterned paper, or the supplies that are already out to make a particular card. It will not add too much work to any card-making project if the envelope itself is cut and folded. It will just be a final step to make the liner.

Here’s a detail of the temporary label and insert for one of the pouches.

In this particular case (the 5 x 7 inch one), when you make up the envelope, the bottom flap comes up to a point which I don’t like. In the past I’ve trimmed it off with scissors which was always a bit of a hit-and-miss affair as I’m hopeless at cutting straight, so I have now measured where it has to be cut, and made a note of this so it’s an easy step to line it up and trim it off with the guillotine.

Here is one of the images I created, to be printed on the insert for the Avery Elle pouch for that particular size of envelope.

That afternoon my hubby bought me another pack of white printer card for my inserts and laminated dividers so I could make good progress on that front.

I also cut half a dozen more mats for the 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 in card bases, and die cut a 2 1/2 in circular window in them. The ones I cut previously with the cutting machine have a larger circular aperture, and I wanted some that I could use with one of my “Happy Birthday” stamps that fits better in a smaller window.

I now have a dedicated basket for card making supplies which contains card bases of various sizes, mat layers to fit them, some with windows and some not, and some ready decorated and some plain; envelopes to fit the various cards; tags and ATCs. This basket also contains spare Avery Elle pouches, magnetic tape for die storage, my new corner rounder punch and various other odds and ends required for this storage project.

Digital Stamps

This week I’ve spent a lot of time on the recliner relaxing and working on some digital stuff – some digital stamps and more cutting files.

I’ve made some sentiments to print out on card bases or mats. Using my desktop publishing software, I designed a banner:

and then proceeded to add text.

In each case I have made a “solid” version and an “outline” which could be coloured if required.

I’ve uploaded the .png versions of these (with transparent backgrounds) to my OneDrive where you can download them if you want.

I shall probably do some more in due course. Also on my desktop publisher I’ve created a template of mats for various sizes of cards and can paste the sentiments onto these and print them out, and then cut out the mats and decorate them as I choose. Here are some examples of how they might be used.

Lattices on Inkscape

I’ve also been working on Inskcape this week. This is a powerful vector drawing program that I use to create files to cut with my cutting machine.

I have made seven different lattices the size of mats for A2 cards (4 1/4 x 5 1/2 in).

I shall be uploading the .svg (scaleable vector graphics) files to my OneDrive for anyone who might find them useful.

I had hoped to have time to cut these and make up some cards but I had some trouble with Inkscape behaving in a rather peculiar fashion and not doing what I wanted it to do, possibly because I was copying some files I created in an older version, and also there was quite a learning curve, getting the tiled clones tool to do what I wanted when it came to the alternating rows of motifs. You start off with a single motif, and tell the software what to do and when you click “Create,” the repeating pattern miraculously appears! – or not, as the case may be!! I had some pretty weird results until I sussed out what parameters to enter. Then I had some fun and games fitting them into frames the correct size for the card fronts. I had a terrible time with “Persian Tile 2” until I’d had a chance to sleep on it, and remove the outermost line, after which it welded nicely to the solid frame. Before that, if I had cut it, I would have ended up with a frame with a wiggly inside edge, a separate lattice and a lot of loose pieces. Not quite what I was after. Inkscape isn’t exactly intuitive until you get familiar with it, but there are loads of excellent tutorials online.

The Persian Tile designs were inspired by one of my favourite dies, featured on the front cover of the album I made about Mum a few years ago.

I’ve got lots of ideas of how I am going to use these new lattice designs.

As well putting these background lattices into rectangular frames, you can incorporate them into any shaped aperture you like. I’ve got some very good instructions from someone on the cutting machines forum I used to belong to, and she made a card with an arch which had a lattice incorporated into it.

Here’s a “new baby” card I made back in 2016 which features a lattice background.

In this case, I didn’t weld the lattice to the frame (probably didn’t know how!) or incorporate an oval window (ditto) – the focal point of this card is laid on top. The footprints are cut out of the white card, revealing the silver card underneath, which also shows round the edge of the oval. That particular lattice was designed by the same person who did the tutorial I mentioned above. I’ve since learnt how to use Inkscape and do these for myself.

Food

Nothing new this week, but I made a kale Caesar salad that I have probably shared with you before – it’s one of half a dozen different regular salad recipes that I make. It’s not strictly “Caesar” any more, though, because I omit the crutons (can’t be bothered with the faff of making them!). I’ve never understood why it should be called “Caesar” salad when it has croutons in it. Was there a particular Roman emperor who was particularly partial to toast in his salad, I wonder? I know they had a lot of bread because they were always giving it away to the populace along with the circuses, to keep them amused and with full tummies so that they wouldn’t become too revolting.

But I digress. My hubby was out and I made up his salad bowl the night before as usual. When I got my lunch, I had a lot of little tomatoes from our lovely next-door neighbour who is always plying us with her delicious garden produce. I also had some beetroot that I wanted to eat, and somehow I got a bit carried away with the decorations on the plate! In the end I knew I couldn’t waste a good photo opp, so here goes.

I don’t usually go so much to town when I’m eating alone, I can tell you! It was fun to do, and looking like a smiley face, it put a smile on my face too. It also tasted pretty good.

Those round almost black things are a particular variety of tomato (very tasty), and the little orange tomatoes are the sweetest, most flavoursome I’ve ever tasted. The cucumber came from our neighbour’s garden too. We give her apples, but this year, it doesn’t look as if we are going to get nearly as many as last year, but as I said to my hubby, we can’t expect a bumper crop every year.

I must remember to share my latest favourite tofu recipe with you too. It’s really delicious.

Kitties

Not a great deal of feline activity this week, but just to keep you going, here’s a photo of Lily with my hubby.

Health update

For several days I have had red, sore and itchy skin in the fold under my breast as a result of the radiotherapy. It’s been pretty uncomfortable. I have been washing it very carefully (no rubbing with a wash cloth) with my new natural body wash and patting it dry, and then putting on lots of moisturiser which helps to soothe it. Apart from some inner tenderness and a slight increase of pinkness elswhere on the breast, I haven’t so far suffered any other adverse effects. I had visions of the whole thing deteriorating into a mass of red and blistered skin but so far so good! I’ve had a couple of days when I’ve felt very fatigued but I think that may just have been normal ME fatigue – impossible to tell. In between I’ve had enough energy to spend time in the studio which has been brilliant, and unexpected! They told me the worst of the effects would be about two weeks after the final treatment, and it’s now exactly a fortnight on, so it hasn’t been too bad. I’m hoping I’m going to escape the worst what I’d been warned about.