Thursday, October 28, 2010

Cheap Stickles Storage

Back with more cheap storage ideas. Here's one for storing your Stickles. Here's a completed rack containing all 41 of the current Distress Stickle colours.

The key is the following: 1/2 inch Schedule 40 PVC couplings from Home Depot. I got them in a 10 pack for easy counting. They were less that $2 per bag. The holder above cost me less than $8 in parts. It's not the lightest of materials - the rack weights just over 1.5 pounds.

The coupling will have 2 ends-one with writing on it, and a plain end. I ended up putting the plain side down so that they sat a bit more flush. You might need to do some light sanding since the smooth end has some slight burs and could scratch up your work surface if left un-sanded. I used hot melt to glue them together in a space efficient honeycomb type pattern. I think it kind of has a "space station part" look to it.
If you're worried about getting the Stickles out from such a tight arrangement, there is enough give inside of the couplings for the caps to move around, like a joystick. They will move out of the way when you reach in to grab one. You could also assemble the couplings into rows, and then arrange the rows in an elevating fashion.

CCC #19 & SSS

Calendar made with Frayed Burlap over Watermark Resist on a somewhat glossy cardstock (was a freebie from Eclectic Paperie). Stamped with Black Soot.

Top of background: Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord and Black Soot
Bottom of background: Scattered Stray and Wild Honey.

Sprayed with water, Forever Violet and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls Mists.

Mask was made with .007 plastic sheet with Xyron re-positionable adhesive applied to it (I'll cover that in another post).
A more head on shot the shows the stamps better. The background is choice between seeing stamps, or seeing the Perfect Mists.

EDIT: Also entering this in GC74, since Watermark Resist can be used for embossing. 

Monday, October 25, 2010

Adirondack Arcylic Dabber Storage

Here are some photos of a storage solution for Adirondack Acrylic Dabbers. I used 1" Schedule 40 PVC pipe cut into 1" lengths, which I then glued together. The Schedule 40 is pretty thick, but as you can see, it doesn't add too much room between each dabber. You can pick up 2 foot lengths of PVC at Home Depot. Normally it comes in 10 foot lengths. As you can see, I used hot melt to glue the tubes together. I have no idea if this is the idea adhesive, but it worked for me.
My cutting wasn't precise - I used a PVC blade cutter which tended to make some of the cuts uneven, but it didn't really affect the outcome. Hot glue helps cover up a lot of mistakes. As you can see, the dabber cap, the clear part, rests perfectly inside the tubes. I suppose if I had a mitre saw, and wanted to created a lot of white plastic dust, I could have used that.
I originally arranged my cut pipe in section of 12, and then glue each section together. The problem with this is you have to hit 12 spots which the glue gun pretty quickly. In adding my third row of 12, I worked in sections of 3. You can see the thickness of the PVC here.
I made up a triangular arrangement which has the advantage of not requiring a straight edge to assemble, and may possible be a bit more secure.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

CCC #18

My entry for CCC #18. The tag was a freebie from Eclectic Paperie and it had a coating which lead to an interesting dotting pattern when I hit it with the Mini Mister.

I can see now the difference when doing a Dabber Resist, and simply doing a stamp after the fact - the Distress Inks will colour the resist somewhat, which obviously you wouldn't get if the order was reversed.