Ink Applicator Tutorial

Tutorial para Aplicador de tinta

Several people have asked me if an alcohol ink applicator is a good buy, if you have the money and have the chance to get one easily I guess it is, but if not you can make your own, super easy and best of all with stuff you probably alredy have at home.

Varias personas me han preguntado si un aplicador de tinta es una buena compra, si tienes el dinero y la oportunidad de conseguir uno fácilmente me imagino que si, pero si no, puedes hacer el tuyo de un modo muy fácil y lo mejor con cosas que probablemente ya tienes en casa.

You are going to need:
Van a necesitar:

°Scissors/tijeras
°A wooden block /un bloquecito de madera

°Scratchy side of velcro/Parte que raspa de velcro
°Scrap of foamy/Pedazo de foamy
°Light color felt/Fieltro de color claro
°Glue gun/Pistola de silicón caliente

Step 1/Paso 1: Cover the wooden block with foamy and trim the edges - Cubre el bloquecito de madera con foamy y recorta las orillas.

Step 2/Paso 2: Attach the velcro and trim edges to fit block- Pega el velcro y recorta a la medida del block.
Step 3/Paso 3: Cut several pieces of felt in the size of the block-Corta varias piezas de fieltro en la medida de tu block.

Step 4/Paso 4: Attach to velcro and start using it with your favorite technique- Unelo al velcro y comienza a usarlo en tu técnica favorita.


You can use it to ink your paper and give it a distress look.
Lo puedes usar para aplicarle tinta a tu pápel y darle un look desordenado.

Or you can use it to apply alcohol ink to your favorite project- Ó para aplicar tinta de alcohol a tu proyecto favorito.

Hope this quickie tutorial was helpful to you and can use it to save a bit of money and try new techniques.

Espero que este tutorial rapidito haya sido útil para ti y te sirva para ahorrar un poco de dinero y que pruebes nuevas técnicas.

Order & focus.

Orden y enfoque.

Back in the begining of 2009, several crafters (me included) picked our word for the year, mine was: Focus. Simply because I thought my life needed a bit more of it, in every sense and I think that I´m trying to be focused and what is even harder to stay that way.

Al principio del 2009, varias personas que hacemos manualidades (yo incluida), escogimos nuestra palabra de el año; la mia fué: Focus (Enfocar), simplemente porque pensaba que mi vida necesitaba un poco más de esto, en todos los sentidos, y siento que estoy intentanto enfocarme y, sobre todo, mantener el enfoque.

This week I saw at another blog (wish I could remember which one) some lists to plan your blog topics ahead of time and I simply loved the idea, so many times I know I want to talk about something and then I forget; or I sit here and talk about nothing in particular, well I downloaded the really adorable lists by Erin Vale; check her out she is an amazing designer and has all kinds of freebies in her blog.
Esta semana ví en otro blog (ojalá pudiera recordar cuál) unas listas para planear tus tópicos de el blog con anticipación y me encantó la idea. Tantas veces sé que quiero hablar de algo y se me olvida; o me siento y hablo de nada en particular. Así que bajé las listas super lindas de Erin Vale; chequen su blog, es una diseñadora maravillosa y tiene todo tipo de cosas lindas y gratis en su blog.

And today I made this cute little folder for our lists (me and Diana´s) so we can plan ahead our blog topics, and do more to our blogs hers of course is with cats and mine is with birds but I didn´t take a picture oops.

Y hoy hice este lindo folder para nuestras listas (la mia y la de Diana) para que podamos planear nuestros blogs con anticipación y hagamos más por ellos; el de ella, por supuesto es con gatos, el mio es con aves pero olvide por completo tomarle fotos; oops.

I used some cat and dog paper kit not sure of the brand, my adored fiskars border punch and some alphabet stickers and ribbon, easy peasy, fun and functional.

Use unos papeles de un kit de perros y gatos, no estoy segura de la marca, mi adorado punche de borders Fiskars, unas letras y listón, facilito, divertido y funcional.

This...

...kept me busy last week:

Esto... me mantuvo ocupada la semana pasada:

I´m happy to report that the person who I make them for loves them and plans to wear them as much as possible.

Con mucha alegria puedo reportar que a la persona a la que se los hice le encantaron y planea usarlos tooodo el tiempo.

I´ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

Regreso mañana con otras cosas.

My first Easter project

Mi primer proyecto de Pascua

Really! In Mexico Easter is celebrated very different than in other parts of the world, so we have very little Easter bunny and eggs interaction while growing up (or well at least I did)

¡De verdad! En México Pascua se celebra muy distinto que en otras partes de el mundo, así que tenemos muy poca interaccion con el Conejo y Huevos de Pascua mientras crecia (bueno yo al menos).

But I had to make this baskets because when I saw these plastic eggs at Walmart I loved them, and knew this was the year to make easter goodies.

Pero tuve que hacer estas canastitas porque cuando vi los huevos tornasoles en Walmart me fascinaron y dije este es el año que voy a hacer cositas para Pascua.

The basket is inspired by this one from Dawn Griffith and I made it with DCWV "Spring Gliter Stack" and the egg inside has easter candy and some crafty goodies.

La canasta esta inspirada en esta de Dawn Griffith y la hice con DCWV "Spring Glitter Stack" y el huevo por dentro tiene dulces de pascua y unos detallitos de manualidades.

I´m making these for some of my crafty friends to share on Easter and even do is not so expensive is so cute and everybody likes a little candy and some crafty bits.

I think they are going to like them.....

Creo que les van a gustar....

My latest projects

Mis ultimos proyectos...

I love it when I sit down to make a project and ideas just flow and I get to finish the project, like last night at our friend Vanessa scrapbooking store I started making a project that my friend Liz saw on a blog (wish I could remember wich one!) and was able to finish it.

Me encanta cuando me siento a hacer un proyecto y las ideas brotan y puedo terminarlo, eso sucedió anoche en la tienda de scrapbooking de mi amiga Vanessa, donde comencé a hacer un proyecto que compartió conmigo mi amiga Liz, (ella lo vió en un blog, pero no recuerdo cuál).

I had never done anything for our dogs, so this was a very easy choice and the "Pet Stack" DCWV paper worked great for it, I only used coasters and put it together super fast.

Nunca le habia hecho nada a nuestros perros, asi que fue una decisión bastante fácil y junto con el papel "The pet stack" de DCWV use protectores de vasos y lo terminé rapidísimo.

Here you can see how pretty it is and I´m already looking for some pictures of my dogs to put on them and were to hang it.

Aqui pueden ver que bonito quedo, ya estoy buscando qué fotos de mis perros usar y dónde lo voy a colgar.

P.S. Yes I changed the blog....yet again.

P.D. Si, cambié el look de el blog... una vez más.

Box fun

Boxes are so much fun to alter, I think. I´ve altered more boxes than anything else, I love boxes because they are functional, look great and you can add tons of things to make them look pretty, of course the main recepient of my boxes is Diana, I know she loves her boxes and she uses them all.

This is a box I altered this weekend, first I created my own acrylic paint color I used a very light aqua and added a couple of dorps of gold metalic paint which gave the paint a very shimmery look, then I used Doodlebug´s Kitty Essentials to cover it and embellish it.

The sides with the pink solid cardstock are stamped with embossing ink and some cats just to give it some cute image.

As you can see the top has some space to put some heavier thicker embellishments that I think are going to be a couple of quilled kitties, somethink like this, but in the same colors as the box so it looks cuter.

This little box I made it with K& Company Brenda Walton Sweet Talk Heart Stripped Flat paper, and I´ve never been so careful matching the lines and making it pretty, then I just rubbed some red and pink ink on the edges and stamped the top.

And the tiny chest is covered with K&Company Urban Rhapsody paper pack and is adorable paper with butterflies, that pack is one of my favorites right now I think is super cool and edgy and vintagy.

For New Years Eve we are going to Julia´s again, Christmas was so much fun we want to do it again and this time I´m making chamoy margaritas, chamoy is a sweet-spicy-sour paste, liquid or powder that most of us love to eat, you can find it in gum, put in on fruit and even find some with ice cream, Julia and I love it, Diana despises it.

Need to print tons of photos of the holidays so I can get started making layouts, specially since I joined the Calendar Girls at 2Peas. Also have huge plans of doing some decoration in the house, wich is tricky with our monsters, I mean cats.

Be safe and stay warm, off to post comments on my favorite blogs!

♪ It´s the most wonderful time of the year ♫

And besides kids jingle belling and everyone telling you "be a good cheer" we have parties and get togethers and presents to wrap, cookies to bake, people to remember and way too many stuff to do and keep track of all activities, so when I saw this album in Ali Edwards blog I thought it was a great idea to write down and document all the important stuff we have during this busy holiday month.

I just finished with mine, now I only need to decide what goes in it, of course there are some days that will be very easy going but some will have activities and I plan to use my album to document all we did and then after is over read it over and remember how much fun we had.

I made my book with an acrylic album and I just added enough pages to cover 25 days until Christmas, I used all kinds of papers, some acetate sheets, journal blocks and even felt and a starbucks cup and sleeve, some of the pages have pockets, some have hidden space and some have stuff that makes me happy, I added flocking and rub ons and stamps and basically I did it to fit my needs.

I´ll try to explain if I did something with each of the pages I fill, even if I don´t plan to take a picture every day in december the ones I do take I want them to go in the album and I´ll make sure to show them to you.

Can´t wait to start filling it and showing it around, and let me know what you think.

My paper ball....

This was a very good weekend, I had some stuff done and had a chance to organize my Sizzix dies and work on some goodie bags for our crop this saturday for NSD, isn´t that exciting a whole day to celebrate just how magical scrapbooking is.

Thursday we are going to a course at the LSS where we will be making a MOM album, so can´t wait to see what do I learn and looking forward to have fun doing that.

And Heather from "A life so simple"posted this really cute ball she made from Heather Bailey and I made it tonight, it looks super cute and I´m taking it to the office tomorrow to hang there somewhere, I can´t imagine what the kitties would do to a hanging ball of paper lol.

I so hate taking pictures in the evening

I added a few Prima flowers and the ribbon to hang it, and I used MM Maddi PP cause it looks cheery and super springy.

I forgot to say thank you so much for the awesome comments on my "Make me a better blogger" post, it feels so good to know there is people out there that likes me and my blog, plan to stay her a lot longer.

Have a great week and hope the weather is kind where you are (cause here is starting to get mega-hot!).

I´m on fire!!!

I´ve been scrapbooking like a crazy woman this weekend, feels so good and so weird first I joined Sassy Scrappers and I´ve been trying to follow the challenges and so far I got two done, one traditional that was with some titles of Betty Boop movies and I choose Stopping the Show and this is the layout I made.

The pictures are from when I was 3 years old and I had my presentation in church and I got to the altar and turned around and stick my tongue out to the people, I know early on I was a pain in the butt, I loved how it ended I used American Crafts Fucsia Cardstock, PP Pastel Kaleidoscope from Doodlebug and some other sequins and buttons and swirlies.

This challenge was from Dreamgirls blog that is super awesome I am loving it so far and they are only on their second week and you had to use the title of a reality tv show and of course I chose What not to wear. I used Rhona Farrer Color my World and the alpha is from Theresa Hernandez Vintage Getaway (love my digi kits)

Some pages of my ALBM book, tonight I´ll catch up with the one I need to do.

Thi is the title page and love my little skull I need to add some bling but I don´t want to do it until the book is finished so I don´t get all glittery all over.

Just the facts and how it looks right now, I also might add some stuff once I complete the whole book just to make it look constant, so far I´m loving it, I also have Places but can´t find the picture so I´ll post it tomorrow.

Also I´ve been unmounting my very few stamps and sorting them on cd cases and I have the incredible ammount of........5 cd cases, thats not counting the unmounted ones or acrylic so makes me feel a bit good.

So this is what is going on around here, apparently doing challenges is working for me and I am loving it and having tons of fun and also haven´t used anything of my new stuff so just using stuff on my old stash.

Have a great week and do a lot of scrapping!!

Create and conquer

This past couple of weeks I put my ALBM album aside and worked on a banner I saw featured on TvWeekly, and I had a ton of fun, it was easy and fast to make and I took some pics today so you could see it, is going to hang over my door in my scraproom and it´s super springy I´ll have to do one for halloween and Christmas now.

(the pretty kitty in the back is not included in the banner)

(is kind of a long banner, excuse the mess in the back)

I´m so happy and proud of myself today I started conquering one of my biggest fears: lizards; I am terrified of lizards, big or small, green or blue, vicious or tamed, caged or free they simply FREAK ME OUT!! But today leaving home to go to work I greeted our neighbors who love animals and have a wide variety of them, including 4 dogs, 1 ferret, 1 rabbit and now also a green lizard and they wanted to show it to me, oh yes you know it I started to freak out and they were trying to get me to get close to it and I politely refused and then it occur to me, why was I so afraid? So I got close and gently rubbed Rene´s (green lizard) back with my finger, its been over 12 hours and I can still describe in detail exactly how it felt to touch it, I felt so good about myself maybe next week I allow them to place it on my hand, is a small step for manking but a huuuge step for me.

Tomorrow we have craft meeting and who knows what could happen there, fun times for sure, I also worked on a card today I´ll take a pic tomorrow and also work on my ALBM album, have a great weekend everybody and hope you all create a lot!

I made a layout.....

Yes a real life 12x12 to put in an album kind of layout, must be my first layout in like a year or more lol, many thaks to Colleen for posting about Get your scrap on, who provided the inspiration, the theme was to scrap about pictures from past or recent travels, and while searching around I found these three and had a great time making the layout.

The journaling reads:
"We were so lucky to have such a nice Beast at the France Pavillion in Epcot. He was super goofy and really made me have a blast, pulling my hat, covering my eyes with his paw, but he was a super sweetie Beast, and yes Belle was very nice too, but Beast is going to be my favorite for a long time"

So I already sent my layout to Get your scrap on and I can´t wait for the next challenge it is a lot of fun!

My scrapbooking plans this weekend continue with my ALBM album and go to craft meeting tomorrow where I plan to work on the before mentioned album, thank you for your well wishes about the car accident, yes we are feeling a bit better and the wall is already being fixed.

Hope everyboy has a great weekend with awesome weather!!

ETA: Ehm I used Bazzill Cardstock in like a lavender shade, some orange and purple swirlie patterned paper, Chipboard and letter stickers from American Tradition designs and other chipboard from Oriental Trading, blue acrylic paint Politec (yes I always forget to do this)

Carving stamps

I love stamping, finding stamps in Mexico is not so easy but when u want somethign you simply must have it, and then tell Diana so she can make it, like in the case of stamp carving. We saw that and decided it looked cool and wanted to try it so Diana said she was going for it.

Well I think she did great she started with the little ghost and I think is amazing, then she did all of the other ones, the little bird, the kitty, xmas tree and pumpkin, is not hard to make them but you need a great hand and lots of patience (I have none of those)

So for Christmas we used the Christmas tree one and made some gift cards for some stuff our boss was going to give and I think they came out great.

Right now she is working on some new ones and I can´t wait to see how they turn out, but since she is really good at it I´m thinking they are going to be awesome!!

My confession book....

This weekend was very productive craftwise, because thats mostly what I did and it feels awesome, clicking on links today I somehow arrived at Shimelle website and loved the projects and faster that I´m saying it I started making the I have to confess book, it was fun and I had a blast making it, it calls for 6x4 pictures but I decided to use wallet size to have extra space and I love how it looks it took me all afternoon but thats cause I stopped to eat lunch and recharge the mojo.

I´m double happy cause I only used things that I had in my stash nothing new or bought for the project, all of the stuff I used was pretty old and it feels good to see it looking nice in an album, there are several pages so I made a little slide so the post is not huge and also you can see them and read the journaling on My flickr page My confession book.

2Peas Challenge:
Describe one of your birthdays as a young child

The one I remember the most was when I was 5 since my birthday is ver close to Halloween (oct 28) my mom made me a Halloween birthday and I dressed up as a black cat and I remember it was a lot of fun, here in Mexico you get of course a piñata and the food for parties is typically a little tamale, some spaguetti a little roll filled with cheese and a slice of cake and is a total delicacy that your cake frosting touches the tamale and you eat the salty tamale with frosting, I still do it when I can lol.

Hope everybody has a great week and the weather gets warmer where is really cold and cooler where is really hot, take care and be safe.

Ah, sunday!

Yesterday we had our Valentine celebration and we had a blast the food was yummy, I show how to make the Waterfall card and everybody loved it, I took cupcakes, french vanilla and red velvet and they were really yummy. Need to find a way to make my frosting stay as the buttercream melts since Merida is so hot.

Then when we got home I wanted to try making the Accordion Book in a Box from The Scrapbook Lounge and the book itself was a piece of cake, so easy so much fun and you only need 6x6 paper, I used the Lasting Impressions Scrapbooks on the Go set "In the city" and the book is awesome so easy and fast.

Here is the book open and I applied some of the images to cut that the set has and I love how it looks.

Album closed you put the pic in the black space.

Now when it came to make the box I was a complete disaster, no matter what I did it just did not worked, so either I am origami uncapable or my mojo wasn´t active, so instead of ripping my eyelids as I wanted I just made a cutesy little box with my Enveloper that yes has a box maker too.

See the little mopped, I think that is so cute, the cat back is kindly sponsored by Fergie.

And the top of the box with the flowers and leafs. Super cute.

I´m going to attempt to make the box again but not today, today I am making ATC´s, hope you have a great sunday and relax or do your favorite things.

A girl and a sewing basket

So this is the story of a girl (a girl in her 30s) with a dream, her dream was to revamp this little sewing basket that her dgf had, but the mean gf would say no, cause she liked it the way it was, old and ugly looking, the satin that covered it in rags, the flowers that adorned her falling to pieces; no sorry I don´t have a picture but take my word it looked ugly.

So she waited, and waited, and looked at the sewing basket and thought of ideas on how to change it, plans and colors and textures and decorations etc, but would not touch it cause she didn´t have permision to do it and well it wasn´t hers.

Until one day 4 years later that she said "That is it! I don´t care if you don´t want me to change it, I´m doing it anyway, its too pretty to end up looking like this"

And the girl took off the satin that covered it, unstitched piece by piece the flowers that were falling apart, keeping all the pieces to recreate her looks, she thought that pink and black would be a great combination and since it was for dgf and she loved cats she thought a cute cat was the perfect decoration for it.

So she cut and glued and stitched to her heart content, and spray painted black the sewing basket to give her a nice shine back, and covered it in pink felt, added some black beads for some bling and hand stitiched a little cat to go on top as a handle.

She also respected the design and added a pin cushion with some hearts that hangs to the outside when you need it and finished the look with pink and black pins, when she presented to dgf she was so happy she felt bad she waited so long to have this done to the sewing basket.

And the girl was happy, cause her project turned out real pretty and cause she got her way, but mostly cause her dream came true, she revamp that ugly looking basket and gave it a cool new look to be used for years to come.

If only now she could get her hands on more sewing baskets to revamp, cause she has a sort of addiction to it now and wants to keep doing it, but thats another dream altogether.