Cheating and Sharing

I can't stop myself from checking out the $1.50 bins at Mike's when I go there.  Though I wish they had kept the price to $1.00, but I think that they found that it was a gold mine of snatch and grabs on the way out of the store that they knew they would be able to raise the price and still get their sales.  And their marketers think they're so smart adding signs 2/$3.00.  Well, duh (and I hate that word), isn't 2 x $1.50 three dollars anyway.  Like you need a sign!  They're probably the same people that thought up the 10/$10.00 signs they used to have when the items were priced at $1.00 a piece.  This is why I prefer to wait for sales of percentages off your total purchase, just to get these things for a little less, but sometimes, especially when they put new stuff out, I splurge and spend the complete $1.50 on the item for fear that they will not have any of what I want when I next return.

In this instance, it was these notecards...... again.  I just loved the strawberry print.  But they looked like they could use a little pizzazz so I added some ribbon and a big white die cut daisy.

Here's a close up of the daisy where you can see the dimension I added to the center by chopping up, very finely, some of the cs and then using Tombow glue to adhere it.

But wait!  There's a double cheat on this card.  I actually was going to make four of them but I did not have enough ribbon for four cards to go completely around the top.  Just enough to get around to the back.  But that doesn't look finished and is pretty messy looking.

So I punched out a circle of plain white cs, slit that in half and glued it over the raw ends of the ribbon which had already been taped down.

It's a little bit of camouflage and it looks a lot neater and stretches your ribbon.

So while I am sharing, I thought I would also share some of the tools that I find help me a lot when I'm doing my projects.  

I'm getting old(er) - no surprise, aren't we all - and my eyes are not what they used to be.  So in addition to my normal cheaters, I have a pair of 350 magnifiers that I find very useful when doing close-up work.  I bought this purple pair so I could differentiate between those and my everyday ones that are not so, shall we say, cheerful.  

I also have found that Tombow Multi glue can be counted on to dry fast and stays glued.  I keep this straight pin tucked into the plastic around the label so I can use it to unplug any stoppages in the tip.  This way I don't have to search all over for the darn pin when I need it because there's creativity going on which usually means chaos on my work table.

I have several pairs of these pointy tweezers that I have picked up at flea markets.  They are the best for peeling off the backing on pop dots and red line tape, and they are wonderful helping to place things on my projects.  

If you're going to use the red line tape, you might want to invest in a pair of teflon coated scissors, or at least have a dedicated pair of scissors for cutting this as it will gum them up.  Also, invest in a box of alcohol wipes  (you can get them at your pharmacy) to clean the adhesive residue off your scissors now and then.  Just be careful when swiping them across the blades because you can cut yourself and it will be ever so more painful with the alcohol!

And recently I picked up a couple of these letter size cardboard trays at Target's Dollar Spot.  They are perfect for gathering the things I need for a specific project, should I want to work on it some place besides my stamp cave or if I have multiple projects going on at the same time they help to keep things together.  And when not in use, you can just stack them or use them for storage in your crafting space.