a product review and a “how do” April 8, 2009

So those of you, my faithful readers, will recall that I purchased a new heat embossing tool in early March (click here).  I had high hopes of using it in that month, with no avail. April brought new opportunities though that I was happy to take advantage of.

(am I making too much of this?)

My awesome bright pink, *I’ll-never-be-able-to-lose-it-in-a-snow-storm* heat embossing gun from Stampabilities was the highlight of my last card making session.

So if you want to know how to use this thing, I’ll include a little tutorial with my photos.

You will need a stamp (that SHOULD go without saying) and a Versa Mark inkpad. Simply ink the stamp, and press it on to a piece of paper as you would normally.

(is this too basic?)

Then generously sprinkle on embossing powder, making sure the entire stamped image has powder attached to it.

Then at a 45 degree angle, and about an inch away from the paper, simply flick the switch of your heat embossing gun and heat the image until you can see that the powder has become melted, solid, and slightly raised. It should take no more than 15 seconds, depending on the size of your stamped image.

Then voila! You are done!

Though it is difficult to see the dimension of the image, it is bumpy to the touch and adds an extra element to your cards and scrapbooking pages that is fun for someone who is tactile like myself.

As for the Stampability heat embossing gun. I really like it. Though handling it I have to be careful not to hold it over the air intake, that is the only (and slight) flaw that I can see. I would totally recommend it, especially for the price of it ($22 CAD) at Pointer Scrapbooking in Toronto.

Is there any other products or techniques you’d like to learn about? Would ever be interested in an online card making tutorial?

yesterday – a product review – & a new little project March 7, 2009

Why are all these people smiling?

I’ll show you why:

Sushi! *yum*

I had a great time yesterday. I tried some new sushi rolls, some were great, some were just the wrong texture for me. But mostly my plate consisted of cucumber rolls and yam tempura rolls

Looking at these pictures is making me crave again.

Mat doesn’t think too much of sushi, the guys got him to try a piece, it was the rong texture unfortunately.

So funny.

However, there was more than one reason why yesterday was so awesome, another was because of this:

The sun finally broke through the clouds of this dark city and actually made it so beautifully warm outside. Normally I wouldn’t bother with cloud photos, because everyone has at least one somewhere in their own personal collection of photos…but so often there are those winter days that are sunny but bitterly cold. This was the FIRST sunny day in months were you could actually feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. It was truly glorious.

But that wasn’t all! After sushi Mat took me over to one my my favorite haunts (Pointer) and I spent the gift certificates that have been buring a hole in my pocket since Septermber!

The new addition to my tools is this guy here:

I don’t understand why the bright pink though? (Again I apologize for the yellow tint of the photo)

Heidi from Pointer was kind enough to give Mat and I an demonstration on how to PROPERLY use this tool. For those of you who might be thinking this looks like a glorified hair dryer, it kind of is, but for scrapbooking. It gives dimension to stamping, making images look more 3D, and for a texture person such a myself, this is an exciting little thing to have! I cannot wait to make some more cards!

Also, a little review for you of other heat embossing guns. I had purchased one from Michaels by Marvy Uchida, only to find out from consumer reviews that the electrical cord contained lead, with the potential of causing cancer and birth defects, and there had been a warning issued by the state of California. I returned it immediately and I must admit I am sad to see that Michaels still has them on the shelves even after such a warning.

My new embossing gun is by Stampabilities and so far I haven’t seen anything negative about it, I’ll let you how it works once I have the time to play with it.

I wish I had bought the embossing gun a few days earlier because I would have used it in this little project I’ve done:

This a little mirror didn’t have the most wonderful image on it so I decided to re-create it to something a little more my taste.

I can’t even begin to guess how many coats of podge at on there. But I think its cute. I love birds, I’ve been starting to hear them singing when I wake up in the morning. Ahh, spring is coming. 🙂