ATC Storage & uses for storage pockets.

I said last week I'd do a post about ATC storage. So, here we are.
I have WOYWW ATC's going back to the 4th Birthday celebrations, and I had envelopes holding them safe everywhere.
 I finally got around to getting them safely put away, using Storage Sheets bought from Amazon.

 I've yet to decorate the covers!

 These are the specific Trading Card pockets,but they come in a wide variety of pocket sizes,intended as Currency/postcard/photo storage amongst many others.
The 4 pocket square ones are ideal for storing the cards that sometimes come with an ATC.

 



    
This is a screen shot from the Amazon page in the link,so you can see what's available.

They come in batches of 10 pages, so the trading card ones will store 90 ATC's.

I also find the 3 pocket one great for storing large tags in, and larger ATC's too.

All of this years in their pockets now.

 Another great use for these pockets is storing spare die cuts.

The wide range of pocket sizes lets you store all sorts of die cuts- just in case you ever remember you have them!

 
A third use for them is storing unmounted rubber stamps, especially the bare rubber ones.
 No matter how large, or small your stamps, there are pockets that will fit them.

Hope this will be useful/helpful in your storage issues!

WOYWW #522- The After the Crop Edition.

Yes, indeed, here we are again, this week with the after the cake crop edition. As always brought to us by our Queen Julia, First of her name, Mother of Desks,Forger of Friendships- and she has the Tiara to prove it! GoT references end there.😄

 You will surely have seen a huge number of photos of the day by now, I know LLJ and Helen both did a blog post with loads of fab pics.
So I'm not going to flood you with pics, just some of the memorable ones for me.

A pair of strange ladies in the photo booth.

Followed by a pair of strange men!

Much laughter was shared, as you can see, wish I could remember what was so funny!

Our leader, and her deputy, along with our two lovely hostesses for the day, Jo & Annie.

We had an amazing day, full of love, fun & cake, as a good crop should be. I got to meet some crafters for real for the first time- Zsuzsa, Caro & Catriona, And catch up with some others I'd not seen for a while, Anne, (Copperbeech), and Dolores, (Cardarian), to name but two.

Many ATC's were exchanged- top row PearshapedChris, Zsuzsa,Margaret( Glitter&Glue),Dolores, next row
 LLJ, then below that,Neet,Christine( Bishopsmate), Anne (Copperbeech),Caro, a bookmark and badge as well.Below them A lovely little hanging atc from Heather, and then Dolores again!( Should be in Debbies pile.)

The tag is from Sarah, the one next to it should be in Debbies pile too, lol, then Stamping byH,a PTC from Maggie, (Silvercrafter) , next row Heather, Mrs D, Jo and finally Elizabeth.

Little gifts from lots of people- Catriona in the silver bag, Annie (Wipso) made coasters, a notebook and biccies from Julia, mini purse from Jan, and Debbies ATC which was a really chunky one made from a stone type of material.

Finally, had two arrive in the post- Robyn on the left, and my PIF, Kyla on the right.





And so I'm done, very little crafting has been managed, I'm working on a Wedding Card for a work friend, so can't show that yet, and it's not finished, and I forgot to take photos of the cards I made at the crop- all two of them!




But that just leaves......And Finally........

WOYWW #521- The Nearly Crop Time Edition

Yep, just a few days now,and many of us will be meeting up for the Birthday Crop,meanwhile we're linking up at The Stamping Ground, to show our desks to the world.  Need to get my butt in gear and sort out what I'm taking.
 Some ATC's have arrived from folks, thank you ladies.





I must show the the envelope that Diana's came in.

The front..............................

 The back...................................

 and a little envelope with die cuts in.
But how amazing is that envelope?

Goodies from Zsuzsa too,








And a card from Cindy.

These are the ones I made, some have been sent but most will be swapped at the Crop. If anyone still wants to swap, let me know.

Made some cards over the weekend, and discovered the one thing I don't have is a New Home die! So I made some die cuts on my Silhouette, which is fine, but if I wanted to use glitter card, that won't cut it. So, I popped over town and had a look in The Range. And look what I found!

These mini word dies at £1 each- what a bargain.They have masses of dies at this price, all sorts including things like fantasy (unicorns & stuff), and Beach. Loads more word ones too.Well worth a look if you have one near you.



 They are pretty much an inch high, which is perfect.(25mm)
Notice I'm keeping the enabling to a sensible level, whilst maintaining my reputation?😎

They'll all be in my dies box at the crop, so if anyone wants some sentiment die cuts, that'll be your chance.


And so, I'm almost done here.



 This pic I'm showing for Zsuzsa, after her cat Oreo walked all over her work last week. It's clearly a cat thing, Zsuzsa.

And that just leaves.......................................And Finally.............................................

Cards using Clarity stencils & HoneyDoo Stamps

A few weeks ago now, I spent some time creating these panels.
  I used two different Clarity stencils, Framework Circles, and Framework Squares. Both are 7" square, and they come with the cut-outs too, so you can mask off areas easily. These cards are just from the circles ones.

  The cardstock is Clarity too, they make a 7" square cardstock pack, which fits the stencils perfectly.

All the backgrounds were created using a light, mid and darker ink, blended using brushes.

By adding each of the two darker colours over smaller portions of the shape, it helps to create a  more 3D look to them.







If you use a dry baby wipe to bring in the colour left on the stencil around the shape before you lift it off,  it does help to define the shape nicely. I picked up that tip from Barbara Gray.
 Most of these have now been turned into cards, and I'll share a few here, and do another post for the others, as there's quite a lot!

These first two use one of the flowers from a HoneyDoo set called Cherry Blossom. The sentiment is a Crealies die, and was cut three times and stacked up. 

These three also use a Honey Doo stamp, this time called Flower Power. In both cases the set comes with 3 sizes of flower, and a stem, or leaves to build up your image.

For all of them I restamped the image onto coloured vellum, then added those to some of the flowers with Glossy Accents, and either Stickles or Glass flatbacks to the centres.

They are all matted onto toning cardstock, then onto an 8" card blank.

In some cases, I lightly stamped a script stamp into the circles, using second generation stamping, and the darkest colour of ink used.

The final three in this post used butterflies, in exactly the same way. No idea what brand the stamp is,  I've had it years, and it's just a random one.

The Best Wishes die is from Crealies, and the Thinking of You is a Sue Wilson Mini Expressions die.

The cardstock used for matting is from a pack by Papermania- Capsule Collection Textured Cardstock.

 It comes is a variety of sizes, A4-which this is-A5 and 12x12. The A4 pack I get from The Range, and they seem to be the cheapest place to buy it, at £9.99. You get 75 sheets of cardstock, one of each colour, so you get quite a lot of shades of each colour, making matting a breeze.