Long Time, No See

I didn't realize that it has been over a year since I've posted here! A lot can happen in a year.

I have updated my LTC section here on my blog. I do have a couple more to add but it's updated with 2014 and 2015 cards.
It's been a busy year so far and I had to cut down on what cards I can make. I'm in college and planning a wedding so my life is crazy right now. But no worries, I'm sure I'll get back to it this summer.

A couple weeks ago for my Interpretation class I gave a presentation on Letterboxing and the history of Letterboxing. It went really well and I got a good grade on it. The best part, though, is that one kid was interested in going letterboxing and my friend wanted to learn how to letterbox and make LTCs! So, I taught him how to make LTCs and helped him sign up on Atlas Quest. It's pretty exciting to have one of my college friends interested in letterboxing. I gave him my block of OZ and I can't wait to see his cards. It's nice to have knew people.

Bigger on the Inside

I'm such a bad procrastinator. However, I have a tendency of doing the things I procrastinate about when I know exams are coming up.... oh well.

I updated my LTC and inchie page and will have more on the way!

Now for one of my recent and favorite cards....


The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special was a couple of months ago so of course there was a LTC tracker for this special event. I decided for such a special event, it deserved a special card.

Here is a look at one of my card.

The front of the card is the front of the TARDIS. I wanted to carve "Police Box" but I was pressed for time and didn't. Oh well.



The inside however, like the name of the card, is bigger on the inside. I spent 16+ hours carving this 5x5 stamp. It was actually my first time using a knife to carve. I have to say it was really useful with all the small detail I did.
Since I didn't have a way to transfer the image that I liked, I ended up using the regular pencil transfer. That alone took about an hour just to trace and then I didn't even get a good transfer. The center of the image didn't come out very well and I had to free-hand(free-carve?) most of it.



After the painfully long hours of this carve I had to cut out many 5x5 papers and stamp them all. each one was folded into a map fold. Once glued in, when you open the LTC sized card the image is unfolded and becomes bigger.

This is probably one of my most favorite cards I've done. Also, my most complicated and time consuming card.

I'll probably be making at least 5 more of these cards. Cant let that stamp go to waste! Feel free to message me if you would like one!

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Mod Podge Transfer

I wasn't sure which of my two blogs to post this on so since it was dealing with making my LTC I chose this one....

So I've had a hard time with transferring images. I normally use a charcoal pencil and go over my image and then transfer it on to my carving material. Well, I been done more and more detailed carvings and so it's hard to do the charcoal transfer.

I've tried regular pencil transfer. I did it with my newest card but I don't like it. It doesn't come out very clear and I spent over an hour going over the image with the pencil. I haven't really tried any other of the transfers. I either don't have room for an iron board or I don't have the chemicals on hand.
Last year a student teacher in my photography class was talking to me about a Mod Podge transfer using this glue type stuff. I looked up online and you can use this stuff for so many things. You can transfer images over to just about anything. They have Mod Podge sealants, glues, jewelry finish, all kinds of stuff! So I thought about what would happen if you did this transfer on some pink stuff. I asked on the boards and it looks like no one has tried this, so I picked up some photo transfer Mod Podge and gave it a try.
Here are my findings:

To do the transfer it was pretty easy. You print out your image, cut it out, put the solution onto the image. And put it face down onto the medium you've chosen(I used 2009 pink stuff). However, now you must wait 24 hours.

After that. You let a soakingish wet sponge or towel sit on it for two minutes. Then you rub away the paper. But, if you rub too much it'll rub off the image. What it is pretty much doing is transferring the image and a thin layer of paper onto the carving material. Than it has to dry.

Next its time to carve. I tried this transfer first on a smaller image that I had on hand but the paper it was on was much thicker then regular printer paper. Anything thicker than printer paper kind of makes it harder to carve.

Since this time I tried it on a larger image the results where much different than the small image. Carving it was great in some place sham others. It looks like to have the blade just glide right through you practically had to have most of the image gone.
The transfer made the material more reluctant and a bit harder to carve with a gouge. It was okay using a knife though.

When the image transfers it transfers all the white space around your image too. I cut out part of the white space and left some of it. It's actually better to leave the white space because a sort of rim type thing forms along the edge of the image making that area raised.

I only carved part of my image because I didn't want to do the entire thing then find out it was not a good transfer method. So when I stamped the image here is what I found:

Lines are not straight and look awful. Due to the transfer making the material resistant to the gouge and a bit of the knife, this is probably why everything wasn't straight. Also, when you put the solution on, if it is not 100% smooth it leaves lines from the brush that then ends up on the surface image creating the lines in the image that were not cut.

So the Mod Podge transfer doesn't make the grated carve or stamped image. I wouldn't recommend this method of transfer. I was hoping that this would really work, but I guess not. Oh well. Now we all know! Feel free to try it yourself. Maybe someone will get a better result than I did.

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Procrastination Is Not My Friend

I tend to procrastinate. Well, mainly with folding laundry but there are times that I procrastinate about other stuff. Like making LTC, or logging finds on AtlasQuest. I do that too.
I joined the "North American Mammals" swap at the beginning of April since I didn't have any cards to do this month. I thought "Hey, I got plenty of time!" So I got my stamp carved right off the bat, I just needed to do my cards. I didn't know how I was going to do my cards. Had the stamp but no idea. Then I decided to find some bark looking paper and some green paper and try to put something together.
Last week I finally got out to Micheals to look for supplies and they didn't have anything I was looking for. I had no idea what I was going to do for my cards. I think I walked around for about thirty minuets, periodically coming back to the scrapbook paper section hoping that  the paper I needed would appear or I would think of something else.
Finally I decided to get some paper with a bunch of trees on it and some textured gray paper I could use as rocks. My new plan was a lot better than my original plan. I also had a 40% off coupon that I really wanted to use so I picked up a Distressed ink pad by Tim Holtz. I've been eyeing the stuff for weeks and I can't wait to use it.
Anyways, I bring the stuff home and it sits in my room for a couple of days until I finally decide to start working on them. Got all the cards cut out, great. Then I wait until Friday to stamp all my ermines. Now, these cards must be sent out four days from Friday. I had my ermines all stamped and ready to get cut out. I wait until Saturday to do this.
Saturday Tyrus comes over to dig out tree roots for my mom so she can plant some bushes instead. I decide to take my stash of ermines outside and cut them out while he works. They take forever to cut out because of their little whiskers. Well noon rolls along and I go in to make us some lunch. I come out some time later and I set down my clipboard of ermines on the ground so I can hold my plate while I sit. Tyrus sits on the sidewalk to eat, next to my clipboard. He reaches over for his glass of milk........and................ spills it all over my little ermines. We just kind of sat there for a moment watching the spilt milk run everywhere. Luckily, he didn't spill it on the five or so I had already cut out.

I threw away my soggy ermines and trudged back inside to restamp my little guys. It set me back about an hour by having to restamp my ermines. I guess this is what I get for procrastinating.

After they were all cut out I had to cut out the little rocks they were going to be sitting on. Got half way through that to realize that when I flip them over the way they needed to be, they didn't have the textured side facing up. I had to recut all of those. 

I finally got the cards done late Saturday night and got them packaged up and ready to send. Did you know that by putting your cards in sleeves make them look so much more awesome and professionalish? I don't usually put my cards in sleeves but I don't quiet trust my glue stick right now. But, of corse I packed them all up before scanning one so I don't have a copy right now to post.

I have a bunch of cards I need to scan and post later. I'll try not to procrastinate about doing that!

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Places You Find Zombies, Holy Grails, and Cats

Just finished hosting my Plants vs. Zombies swap. It was really neat! It was also my first time hosting  an LTC swap that were standard size. I had a lot of people sign up for this swap but a handful dropped out a week before they were due. I got backed up waiting for one set of cards to show up in the mail. I waited and waited and a week later, it still wasn't here. I decided to contact the member to see if they sent their cards. Well, a found out that they were a new boxer and hadn't been on since they signed up for my swap. That was a bit upsetting but what can you do?
I really enjoyed this swap and hope to host two more PvZ swaps. One for the plants, and one for the zombies, but I don't know when I'll do that.
I have been waiting for my cards from "The Placed You Find Cats" and "Holy Grail, Monty!" swap. I     got the cat cards first. I loved this swap! I used to have cats until my younger brother was born. We learned that he was allergic and both he and I had athsma. The cards were so well done! Another "Places You Find Cats" swap is being held for later this year and I can't wait to get these cards! We have some very talented carvers and artist who participated in the swap. My card looked very bland compared to the rest. My carving was good, but I stamped it black and onto white card stock. I thought everyone was doing their cards like the comics. Guess I was wrong. The other cards were very colorful and so well done. I'll have to step up my game for the next swap.
Now, the Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail swap... I got Tyrus to do a card for this swap. He did "African or European Swallow?" I sent our cards together since he lives a few doors down from me. Well... I forgot to tell the hostess that I sent the cards together. She thought that his cards were for a different swap she was hosting so she didn't send out his cards, nor did she send two sets of cards in my bubble mailer(I haven't gotten this swap in the mail yet though). She was very apologetic about the mess up, but it didn't bother me. I forgot to tell her so its my fault too.
When I get the cards in the mail, I will be giving Tyrus the cards. The hostess kindly asked the others to mail me one of their cards and she'll be mailing everyone Tyrus' cards. This was a really interesting swap and I can't wait to see the cards. Now all I have to do is wait.

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Art of Sandra Boynton

I got back the cards from the Art of Sandra Boynton swap a couple weeks ago. The cards were very cool. My mom loved the cards too. Her favorite card was Practically Perfect's "Art of Sandra Boynton: Blue Hat, Green Hat!" card. It was so very well done and is one of my favorites too. I think this card was mainly her favorite since it's one of her favorite books by Sandra Boynton.
I spent a lot of time working on these cards and it seems that a bunch of people really enjoyed them. I even had a little story of my younger brother who "ate" part of the book while he was teething years ago.
I was very excited to get the cards back, but when I pulled the package out of the mail box I was confused... The postage on my return envelope was not the same as the ones I sent. That's not a big deal, with a bunch of people sending in cards to a host the return postage could get switched around. It's also very possible I forgot my return postage, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Oh well, but, the thing that annoyed me the most, was that it was open. The packaging tape to keep the flap down was completely gone. All the cards were in it safe and sound, but it still unnerves me that it was just left open and I don't know when it got that way. It may have been sent back to me that way or the post office took it off. Either way, I was not pleased to get my cards back that way.

Well, I finally took the time to scan some of my new cards! While I was on tumblr last week I came across this comic strip about a shark puppy. It was the cutest thing ever and I just had to carve one of the images. I remembered that there was an LTC swap going on that the little shark puppy could fit into. So I signed up with a little over two weeks before the due date. I finally have those cards done and need to get them mailed. While making those cards, I barely had enough cardstock left to get them done. Well, anyways, here's a look at my new cards. Spoilers!!!

Places you find cats: Greeting a Deer

No Ordinary Rabbit

Orca Inchie

Scaredy-Shroom

Shark Puppy

 

More cards to come once I finish them!! Hope you enjoy these ones!

 

 

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Almost There...

Ok.... So maybe I lied.... I won't have an update of my new cards for awhile. I still have to scan them and finish a bunch.

I have, however, gotten a lot of cards done. My cards for the "Places You Find Cats" swap kept getting progressively lighter and lighter as my ink pad started dying. I was using black Color Box ink.
I do not like Color Box or Craft Smart ink. First off, Craft Smart is cheap and is more like paint than any thing else, and it smears so its not very good for LTCs. I don't like Color Box because it starts off overly strong then dies fairly quickly, not allowing a lot of use for it. This is just what I've experienced with it. I had to use Color Box's white ink for my No Ordinary Rabbit card. They turned out okay.

Anyways, I'm currently working on my cards for my "Plants vs Zombies" swap. So here's a sneak peek of my army of Scaredy Shroom stamps.

*Hint, hint* There's still room in my swap for any one interested!

I'll try to update my cards here soon!

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