From Coast to Coast Creations

• If you want your glaze or glue to look imperfect or distressed, wait until it is half set, then bend your item out of shape to create cracks, or use metal to make imprints before leaving to dry completely.
• When you use your paper punches, do not discard the aperture that is left.  Keep them to use as stencils.  Simply stipple colour through the aperture with your inkpads using a sponge or stipple brush.  Your aperture can be used over and over again as a stencil.
• Be sure to use a permanent black inkpad for an image that is to be watercoloured.  A non-permanent inkpad will run when wet.
• Use tiny jam pots for storage (or baby food jars). You can see easily into them without opening.
• A great way to use left over letters from sticker sheets is to use letters from serveral sheets to spell out words.  It gives a slightly eccentric look to your pages!
• Don't throw away your tomato puree tubes.  Cut off the top and botttom with your kitchen scissors, vut along the side, open out flat and wash.  Put on the worktop and rub along the patterned side with the back of a spoon to flatten.  You are left with a lovely piece of metal to emboss.
• PVA glue thickens in hot weather, so add a few drops of water and stir well to thin out.
• Keep micro beads or accent beads to adorn your cards in bags with a grip seal.  When you want to add them to your work, put your project into the bag and shake to apply the beads inside it.  No mess, no waste and all can be stored away until the next time.
• Use a cooled wet teabag dabbed onto the card to create a distressed look if you don't have a brown inkpad.
• Print a contemporary photo in black and white and tint portions of it with photo pens to match your patterned papers and to create a vintage look.
• Save and wash disposable foil pie dishes then die-cut metal tags, bookplates, letters and shapes.
• To make your own customised coloured glue, add a drop of re-inker fluid to your ordinary wet, clear drying adhesive.  You could also add Powder Pearls to add sparkle and shine to your glues.
• Look in the cosmetic section of pound shops or chemists. Anything made of talc and mica with a shimmer can be used just like Powdered Pearls.  Cheap multipack make-up brushes are a great way to apply them.  Pressed powders can be re-powdered by scraping them with a toothpick into a small container.
• For an easy mask, add tape to the area on your stamp you want to mask before stamping.
• Left over silicone (the type that is used for fitting windows or sealing bath and showers) can be used as dimensional adhesive and to adhere bulky items.
• To punch mulberry paper, layer between 2 sheets of copier paper to make it firmer and to ensure clean cuts.
• For a perfect fold without a bone folder, use a blunt butter knofe or a pair of blunt scissors.

• To make more space with the storage of your rubber stamps, remove the rubber from the back of the wooden backs by Simply placing your stamp in the microwave for a few seconds and the heat will warm the adhesive, making it possible for you to separate the stamp from the mount.

• Further to the previous suggestion.   You can leave the sponge on, it helps get a clearer image when you stamp.

• Also when you use your unmounted stamps put some sort of pad underneath.  A magazine will do, this supplies enough 'give' to get a good image or those sheets of craft foam work great as padding under a stamp.

• Store your unmounted rubber stamps in cd cases/

• How to stick your unmounted stamps to the acrylic blocks – use either Eezy mount (available from many craft stores) or you can use a glue stick on the back of the rubber stamp to stick it to the acrylic block, washing both the stamp and block off afterwards with warm soapy water.
• Using a very heavy watercolour paper, precut into ATC’s size ad put each blank into a sleeve to protect from getting dirty prior to use.  Ideal for using for your watercolour ATC’s especially as it never curls.
• Illustration board is excellent for using for your hand-drawn ATC’s as well as using for Chunky Books.  Due to the thickness of it you don’t need to glue layers together as you do with lighter weight papers and cards.
• As Illustration board is too thick to cut with a little Fiscar sliding paper cutter use a rotary cutter, ruler and mat (quilting supplies).
• To remove a stamp from the envelope - If you put postage stamps in a bowl of water and soak it a long time, the time varies and I have not looked to see what is the normal but it could even be a couple hours sometimes. It will release from the glue and envelope leaving a nice clean stamp. It almost always works. I think on an occasion someone may have glued a stamp with a different glue.  Works quicker if you use hot water!
  *most stamps release pretty fast, others take awhile
  *never try pealing it away the paper of the stamp it's fragile and I've torn stamps and or rubbed the ink off damaging the stamp when I was rushed
  * If the stamp is on a coloured envelope, especially red it bleeds like doing laundry! put it in a bowl by itself, otherwise you can put 10 or so in bowl to soak at once

• use a paper cutter and sometimes a right angle ruler (they look like an "L")
• A mini trimmer can come in useful you can find them in the scrapbooking  department of your craft store.
• Some people get the card stock cut to size at their local copier store.
• Use playing cards and gesso them prior to using, however check that the cards are the correct size first as not all cards are.
• A lot of craft shops are now selling ready cut card bases, however this isn’t always the cheapest option.
• Apparently the Coluzzle Rectangle is the perfect size!
• The ATC Wizard tool is a nifty little gadget.
• There are all sorts of printable ATC templates on the web for example this one or even this template that shows how to cut ten cards out of a 8 x 11 sheet of card. 

Lay the bottle cap top side down, then place a SOUP spoon on it and tap at the edges, the edges will flare out allowing you to turn the bottle cap right side up and FLATTEN it "properly". They aren't quite as nice and neat as the unused bottle cap.

or

You can also flatten the bottle caps into button-type embellishments by using needle nose pliers to turn the edges under, then use a mallet to flatten, first on the crimped side, then on the flat side.

A hole can be punched in the flattened cap to create a charm!

or

Using the Spellbinders wizard you make a "sandwich" as follows;

 get out your Wizard and the following: 1 white master mat, the blue master mat, the tan embossing mat, a piece of scratch paper and a few bottle caps (you can purchase unused bottle caps at many web stores selling brewing supplies). Layer the elements as follows:

White Master Mat
Piece of scratch paper
Bottle cap with flat side resting on the scratch paper (If you put the flat side up, when you run the sandwich through the machine, you will embed the bottle cap into the mat…very challenging to remove!)
Tan embossing mat
Blue

Use the normal cranking motion to get the sandwich through. It won’t feel like anything is happening and you may need to push/pull the sandwich through with both hands…but open it up and Voila! A perfectly flattened, perfectly round, no pounding bottle cap!

or

Get yourself a tortilla press!! place the bottle cap down nto the press and close press.  You will hear a "crack" as you close the press but it does work!!  Go to this link to see the press in action. tortilla press used for flattening bottle tops.

or

Place the cap top-side-up on a hard surface, pound it with even pressure a couple times with a rubber mallet. Flip the cap and give it one more pound with harder pressure.