New Markers for Coloring

Last Friday was my last official day of work as it was the day of the 8th grade graduation as well as the luncheon.  Once the actual ceremony was over, I felt fine.  I had to present the subject award for ELA as always, but I also had to do a few new things this year.  I presented 2 other awards (one was just given to me to present, and the other required another prepared explanation), and then I also had to help give out the diplomas (I handed them to the principal).  What got me through the day was that I knew I'd head on over to Staples afterwards to pick up my new toy!

I purchased the Bic Mark-It Permanent Markers in Fine and Ultra-Fine.  As I said in the video, they were actually the full price of $19.99, but I asked someone for help and got someone to print out the online prices for me to price match.  Yay!  I got BOTH sets for the price of just ONE set!

The dinosaur freebie from Dustin Pike was the first thing I colored.  I tried to blend, but I didn't really do it that well.  However, I like that I tried!  These were the two colors I used, Key Lime and For-Ever Green.  I used scrap paper underneath to test out the colors.  I also realized I needed it because when I first started coloring without it, it bled through with all the saturation and stained my computer table!  Thank goodness I was able to take it off!  Oh, you can also see that the scrap paper is the back of  a paper that had a Christmas tree on it.  I'm using the copies of the literacy projects I had made during the school year.  These were the extras.  Glad I lugged them home!  I'll use 'em and THEN recycle them instead of recycling right away.

I colored the dinosaur and was doing fairly well and then BAM, I colored outside of the lines!  Haha.  I couldn't believe it was like, all the way at the end when I was almost done!  Oh well.  I still used it anyway!  You can see it to the side of the dinosaur's mouth.

I didn't shade for the rest of the card because the things were too small, and I didn't want to ruin it even more.  I love the options for colors though.  Can you imagine how different this would have been had I only had my 8 Crayola markers?  I wouldn't even had a different shade of green for the grass.

I was pretty happy with my first colored image!  And of course, it's very appropriate now that school is finally over for the year!  It went by pretty quickly, but it was probably one of the most frustrating years of teaching (other than my first, of course, but that's frustrating for ALL teachers).  I took this pic just so you could see how saturated the cardstock was.  I don't know why it won't rotate.  It is rotated in Photobucket though.  I hoping it'll be corrected.

Attaching it to cardstock and layering it really made it look even better.  I chose the yellow cardstock to bring out the dinosaur's tummer (aka stomach).  Plus, for such a happy image, I think it deserved cheerful cardstock!  The sentiment is from Pink by Design's "Our Kids" set.  It has a lot of encouragement stamps for kids in school, but they can be used for anything, which is why it's probably going to end up being one of my favorites.

I'll post a picture of the other card in the video as well as others I've made some other time.  As promised in the video, here are pictures of the markers themselves.  It's pretty cool that they decided to make the Fine markers with the fully colored cap and the Ultra-Fine with the silver cap.  That way you don't have to look at it closely to see which one you need in case they get mixed up or in case you store markers by color or just in a big tub.  I wouldn't have thought of that, but that simple design decision will definitely be useful!

Lastly, this is the kind of pictures I was looking for when I was doing my research on these markers.  I wanted to see the actual difference between the Fine and the Ultra-Fine.  You can see that you could still write with the Fine, but for scrapbooking, the Ultra-Fine would be much easier.  Plus, the latter would also be good for coloring in small, detailed parts.

I'll definitely be making more projects with my new toys!  All 72 of them!

That's it for now!  I made and submitted this card in a Pink by Design challenge to make a project without the Cricut or other die-cutter.  You can find that thread on the message board here: Cricut-less Challenge.  I'm happy that I can actually participate in challenges because of the SUMMER!

Making Patterned Paper

Crafting can really become an expensive hobby because when you have a certain idea in mind, you may not have all the supplies for it!  If you look on YouTube and search for tours of craft rooms, you see that people have a TON of supplies.  One of the things that takes up a lot of room is PAPER!  I never thought I'd be so into paper before because I figured plain cardstock with a few patterned pieces was all I needed.  Now I see that patterned paper REALLY makes a difference.  That's why I decided that maybe it'd be more cost effective to make my own at times!  

Here's a video I recorded showcasing the method I used.  I'll show the pictures and write it out below as well.

Here are the 3 materials that I needed: cardstock, ink, and a stamp.

I started off with a plain piece of cardstock.  I chose this lovely shade of green because it coordinated with the card I was making AND because it was a piece I had in my scrap box, haha.

I stamped the flower image all over the paper with scrap underneath so I could make it go off the page as well.

This is the finished product.

The one I had tried earlier was already put on a card.  I'm actually holding it that way because I'm covering a mistake, haha.  I didn't stamp one of the flowers on all the way, so I tried stamping over it again (since they're clear, it's possible to do this).  Of course, I made a mistake, and it didn't line up correctly.  Oh well!  And yes, as I said in the video, I do know that I stamped the "somebunny special" on crooked!  Whoops!

I'm really excited about this especially because I'll eventually be making my cousin Danielle's scrapbook for her latest vacation to Japan.  I did find an 8x8 stack of the DCWV Far East print at Marshalls for just a few bucks, but I knew the entire scrapbook would need more paper.  I bought an Inkadinkado stamp set for $5 using a 50% coupon that's Asian-inspired, so I can use that to make patterned paper!  Yay!

Stop Collecting, Start Crafting!

This is a haul video for the past few months.  Since I was so busy with life, I got to the point where I was actually doing more collecting than I was crafting.  In reality, I wasn't crafting at all.  So I told myself that I could finally do this one video and move on!  Yay!

I did actually upload this to Windows Live Movie Maker and added captions and such, but it didn't save and then my computer freaked out on me causing me to lose everything.  I didn't want to take the time to do it again, so I just uploaded it directly to YouTube.  Yes, I do now have a YouTube account (MissNinjaCrafts) since Photobucket did not want to accept such a long video!  Oh well.  Thankfully, I can post to YouTube from now on if I need to! 

Video #7: My FIRST Cricut Cut!

This is a video of the first cut I made using a Cricut.  It was filmed the day I actually picked it up from Walmart, so it was maybe about 2 weeks ago.  I've made a handful of cards since then, but I'm glad that my fiancé was there to record this!  I hope I never lose this excitement!  Haha, I mean, I don't get all giddy like I did then, but it's still so much fun!

Video #6: Embossing for the FIRST Time!

Video #5: HSN Cuttlebug Bundle

Video #4: My Cuttlebug

Here's another older video that I haven't yet posted.  This is opening up my Cuttlebug!  I got the V2 one from HSN because I used credit card reward points, and that's where they got it for me.

Video #3: Cricut Goodies!

Here are the other things I got with my Site-to-Store order at Walmart.

Video #2: My Very Own Cricut Expression!

After the long wait, I finally got my own Cricut Expression!  I recounted the story in another post, but when I decided to buy one, I used my reward points from my credit card to get a Walmart gift card.  That took a while to get to my house.  Then I had to order from Walmart through site-to-store to save on shipping and THAT took a while.  It's about time that it's now in my possession!  I got it yesterday, and Howard recorded my opening it! 

I'll do a post some other time about the rest of the day and the whole experience of actually picking it up, but I wanted to post this first!  SO EXCITING!

Video #1: First Haul videos!

Since I've been looking up a lot of crafting videos, I learned what haul videos are.  It's basically a video where you talk about what you've just purchased!  It seems strange, but it's actually really interesting to see what kind of deals people find and what they get to make their cards or scrapbook pages.  I decided to make one after my huge splurge.  This is only part 1.  I ran out of memory and had to delete stuff to continue the video.  I'll fix and post that tomorrow.

I was skeptical about posting it, but Howard said I should!  He said that I was cute, but he also thinks it's really funny!  I had him YouTube search haul videos, and then he realized it's a really common thing!  I also had him search for scrap room tours, so he wouldn't be surprised if I eventually make my own scrap room tour even though it'd just be one table in my bedroom!  Well, I hope you enjoy my weirdness!  Yes, I spent a lot of money, but I couldn't pass up on these deals!

[edit]

Here are the other videos from that day!  The first one is a continuation since I ran out of memory and had to delete some old pictures.

After I took Howard out for an early birthday sushi lunch, I asked oh-so-innocently if we could go to the other Michaels.  He agreed without a problem!  Of course, I ended up buying more there!

Okay, that's it for today!  I did have fun filming them, and even though it seems kind of silly, I think it's cool to have this as a reference!  Plus, I'm STILL amazed at the fact that the carts cost ONLY $10!  This was the perfect time to get into Cricut-ing because the sale really benefited newbies.  Of course, I'm still waiting for my Cricut ... haha.  The delivery date was pushed back to the 18th!  Oh well, I guess I still have a bit more time to get my crafting area all set up.  Or it'll give me more time to do other haul videos, hehe.