Celebrating the new normal here - no daily hospital visits, less pain, less fear, more balance. I still have an issue to resolve about the medication but life, dare I say it, seems a bit more normal.
Now yesterday Jaci asked a question about the equipment I use. Firstly Jaci thank you for saying you love my style. It is really very simple compared to a lot of people and I don't throw a lot of money at a page. Some of the pages I see use pounds worth of product and that has never been my style. I'm quite frugal. But here is some info about what I do use a lot and what I find makes sense for me.
My most important thing by far is paper and I am quite careful to buy lots of papers which have designs that I can also fussy cut for embellishments. To me it makes a lot more sense to buy a sheet of paper for £1.20 covered in florals I can fussy cut to match my page and have enough to use for several pages than buying a £6 pack of florals. I like papers with journalling blocks, small images etc etc.
I also keep scraps - lots of them - because you often need just the right bit to go as a layer on a page.
My best tools that I use every page are my cutter (a Frskars) good scissors (Fiskars too) scissors, a good glue (I use Herma tape or E-Z runner strips both in dispensers. I also have a wet Tombow glue for embellishments. I also like a nice micron pen to journal with. My other essentials are inks (I like the Tim Holtz distress oxides best) my finger daubers and my stencils. I have dozens and dozens of stencils and they can really liven up a page. They are cheap to buy, very flexible, can be used in lots of ways any colourway you want. My things have to give me bang for my buck and stencils fill that brief perfectly for me. I have lots of stamps too, but I use the stencils more. I also couldn't scrap without foam pads - I use them on almost every page to give dimension somewhere.
Other things I use a lot are flair, nuvo drops (though I still also use brads as I have a mess of those) I love my CM circle cutters and my compass knife circle cutter, I rarely use ribbons or wood but I love a nice alpha sticker and acryllic titles. However I use A LOT of hybrid stuff. I print out things from my many many digital kits in batches and I have boxes full of word strips, paper flair, paper images and ephemera. I print them on archival card and the beauty is they can be printed over and over in whatever colour you like and it is way way cheaper. I do print some for specific pages as I am going but every so often I just do a mass print and spend a very pleasant evening cutting them out and putting hem int he relevant boxes for example word strips and titles on travel, on cats, on daily life, flowers, flair, titles etc. I am lucky as I get my digital products free as part of my CT work but you can find them really cheaply and companies like American Crafts and Simple Stories do digital versions of their products. For example I knew I would be unlikely to use the papers from Vicki Boutin Colour Story but I loved the embellishments so bought the digital kit and printed loads out in whatever colourway I wanted.
Some examples of that
I do use stickers but again I haven't bought new for years. I seriously think I could survive if I just had patterned papers, stencils/ inks and my computer.
I hope that helps and I love it when people ask questions
I have played with one of the new releases over at Pickleberrypop today
Credits
Fresh Hues Collection by Dutch Dream Designs
And this was for a challenge at Scrap Squad and Twilight Crop and Craft and a fun photo to take (Nigel is a good sport)
Today I am thankful for
- a good life. It's simple but it's very good
- patience - we are having significant issues with Koda - he really is a psychological mess and we are battling with food at the moment. Finally given in and booked a vet appointment to check there is nothing physically wrong but it's very waring and worrying
