I had a graft repair to my left thumb's flexor tendon the last weekend of July, and am in my 15th week of occupational therapy to recover use of that thumb and bring the hand back to full strength. The cast is off and the thumb moves now, albeit not as much as it should, and I have been issued some dexterity exercises to pursue: picking up small objects. I passed in the hospital with beads and small stones and even pegs in boards but slips of paper, sequins and the like are evading me and these are often critical in my efforts at paper crafting and mixed media. So I decided to use this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge (September 30, 2019: Let's Get Ready for Christmas) to do some "practice". I can't say it was a total success and I suspect that there are some techniques I will be avoiding from now on but...
I decided to pull out one of the new Tim Holtz holiday layering die sets and see what happens. My first card was using the "Hanging Ornaments" colorize set on four colors of metallic card stock. And I have some issues with the concept, at least with this set.
1. On darker, brighter colors, at least on metallic card, the etched lines on the die cut are not that easy to see. What is more, it isn't obvious (at least to me) where all those itty bitty bits go and, not realizing that this would be a major issue for me, I did not watch any online tutorials before starting. I did find a couple of you tube tutorials after but they weren't that helpful either...
2. How is one supposed to manipulate a pin-sized dot with adhesive on the back to a nearly invisible spot on the base? Liquid glue is messy, often more than needed and squishes out or smears on the surface. Sticky-back adhesive doesn't allow any wiggle room at all. What is more, many of those pieces are too small for a jewel picker or tweezers to manipulate, assuming they were even visible after coming off the die itself (I lost one of the silver blue pieces and just gave up on the pin-point sized dots and tiny thin lines).
3. And finally, not having multiple shades of the same color in metallic card, I had decided to do all the pieces for each ornament in one color and so, while there is a resultant dimension/texture, the ornaments probably would have looked the same without adding the layers. In fact, on the following card, many of those tiny pieces were omitted on the bright green and silver-blue ornaments and you can't really see much difference there between the layers and the non-layers. If they were in different shades, perhaps...
So, as I said earlier, I used metallic card stock and cut the layers for four ornaments. I did not cut the hangers --- I KNEW there was no way I could manipulate those tiny string-llike pieces. Instead, I colored the hanger end of each ornament with a silver gel pen and drew in the hanger with a black gel pen. I added a die-cut "Merry Christmas" from another die set (I dotted the "i" in Christmas with a white gel pen - another of those tiny die-cut dots that got lost in the removal of the diecut) and layered all the bits and bobs on an A2 "kraft" notecard base.
In my opinion, the following card was not a happy success... although I suppose a recipient might not realize this as it wasn't that bad looking. Just not what the die set promises. Nor was my ability to use my left thumb in the assembly of this card a success (you don't realize how important a functional thumb is until you don't have one, even if it is NOT on your writing hand!) - in fact, if might well have been a contributing factor to my frustration with the die set itself.
I decided to pull out one of the new Tim Holtz holiday layering die sets and see what happens. My first card was using the "Hanging Ornaments" colorize set on four colors of metallic card stock. And I have some issues with the concept, at least with this set.
1. On darker, brighter colors, at least on metallic card, the etched lines on the die cut are not that easy to see. What is more, it isn't obvious (at least to me) where all those itty bitty bits go and, not realizing that this would be a major issue for me, I did not watch any online tutorials before starting. I did find a couple of you tube tutorials after but they weren't that helpful either...
2. How is one supposed to manipulate a pin-sized dot with adhesive on the back to a nearly invisible spot on the base? Liquid glue is messy, often more than needed and squishes out or smears on the surface. Sticky-back adhesive doesn't allow any wiggle room at all. What is more, many of those pieces are too small for a jewel picker or tweezers to manipulate, assuming they were even visible after coming off the die itself (I lost one of the silver blue pieces and just gave up on the pin-point sized dots and tiny thin lines).
3. And finally, not having multiple shades of the same color in metallic card, I had decided to do all the pieces for each ornament in one color and so, while there is a resultant dimension/texture, the ornaments probably would have looked the same without adding the layers. In fact, on the following card, many of those tiny pieces were omitted on the bright green and silver-blue ornaments and you can't really see much difference there between the layers and the non-layers. If they were in different shades, perhaps...
So, as I said earlier, I used metallic card stock and cut the layers for four ornaments. I did not cut the hangers --- I KNEW there was no way I could manipulate those tiny string-llike pieces. Instead, I colored the hanger end of each ornament with a silver gel pen and drew in the hanger with a black gel pen. I added a die-cut "Merry Christmas" from another die set (I dotted the "i" in Christmas with a white gel pen - another of those tiny die-cut dots that got lost in the removal of the diecut) and layered all the bits and bobs on an A2 "kraft" notecard base.
In my opinion, the following card was not a happy success... although I suppose a recipient might not realize this as it wasn't that bad looking. Just not what the die set promises. Nor was my ability to use my left thumb in the assembly of this card a success (you don't realize how important a functional thumb is until you don't have one, even if it is NOT on your writing hand!) - in fact, if might well have been a contributing factor to my frustration with the die set itself.
Products used in the making of this card were:
- Dies: Sizzix Thinlits "Hanging Ornaments" (664197) and Home for the Holidays" (662419)
- Inks: Sanford Uniball gel pens in "silver' and "white"; Ranger OHTO FufeBall "black"
- Papers: The Paper Studio A2 Notecard "kraft" (697227); scraps of metallic card stock in red, silver-blue, bright green and light green; scraps of card stock in white
- Adhesives: GinaK "Connect" Glue
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