I’m sure you know where this is heading, so I will spare you the shredded details.
I went down to the basement and used my old-fashioned wooden, elementary school in the 70’s, slicing block with lever.
You know, the one where my teacher told us to be very careful when we used it, and then almost immediately nipped her finger. I was terrified of that thing.
I store it in the drawer above the fabric drawer. I don’t take it out there, though. I just pull the drawer out far enough and use it just where it is. Awkward? Of course! Time-saving? Meh. But, the paper scraps are retained, nicely. While I was there, I did some smart thinking and chopped all of the ink layer rectangles, too.
That was actually easy. While it’s fun to be fancy, sometimes the primitive stuff works reliably better.
Next step: stampede stamping the ink layers and the white card stock.
Easy enough after a few, totally expected, crooked and over-lap pressings. (Pssst. Crafter’s secret: that’s why we have extra pieces and supplies and left-over small amounts of pieces and supplies, which we faithfully store. Though, they will likely never be needed.)
Now, onto the super-fun and exciting part! Punching out 240 or so maple leaves from my two-days-prior poured acrylic swirls on ugly neon yellow card stock that I couldn’t imagine any other use for all these post-store years.
Ah, the hand held assistive apparatus owned for at least 19 years. It had to have been used at least once before. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have looked at it and recalled it to be a bit-sticky, like new dies are. I knew it just needed to be used to loosen it up.
It’s probably a bit of a spoiler to let you know I looked up the answer to a question I should have asked before I began this step, but here you go, anyway: Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicon oils, defoamers, stabilizers, metal soaps. Acrylic paints are water-soluble, but become water-resistant when dry.
Word to the wise: they become punch resistant, too. Although, that wasn’t perfectly clear to my creative genius until my hand started cramping. Not to be deterred, I switched hands. Following a few fumbles, I decided I could place the punch on the coffee table, squat-up to apply appropriate pressure and get some glute work in there, too.
A few struggle-shapes in I had a few logical visions.
- a scenario where I would end up with a pulverized slate tile, leaving a gaping gap in my living room decor.
- it was gonna take a while, but eventually, the pressure needed would be lessened.
- if I continued this way, not only was I still flirting with destructive danger, but my hands would hate me.
Interesting illogical resolutions:
- placing a thick (slippery, duh) glossy magazine on the coffee table as a pressure cushion.
- adding a little olive oil (out of wd40) to ease the resistance away.
- continuing until my hands could no longer squash out a squeeze, switch gears to glue-running and assembly, then finish the rest tomorrow.
Re-thunk thoughts:
- don’t be a dolt. enough with the coffee table torture. find a different surface.
- how do you get oil completely off a creviced die-cut, will it rust if washed and why isn’t repeated action helping?
- 20 or so really pretty leaves in, a deadline reminder, and… ouch.
This is typically the time a crafter stops to reassess invested time vs future hours required against the likelihood of completing the project in time to make the necessary Sunday afternoon Post Box drop. Then, forges on to concoct an easier way to accomplish what must be accomplished. I subscribe to this process, because, I’ll be danged if I’m going to call wasted-time and walk away.
Quote for the Week”
knabble 