Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Stamping’ Category

I picked up a set of True to Life Crayola pencils a week or two ago.

I love them! Forget about using single colors and blending… these pencils do it for you. I’m just sorry that they don’t have more combinations.

Link here: http://www.crayola.com/products/list.cfm?categories=PENCILS&categories=Specialty

Now I just need to put my hands on a regular good pencil sharpener again. :)

Vyx

I recently bought a new in box Xyron 510, complete with all the sample cartridges. Great deal, because the new machines don’t come with all those sample cartridges that I’ve seen.

I owned one of these a few years ago, altho I think it was a slightly different model. I don’t think it did anything but adhesive. Gave it away because the adhesive around the edges of stuff bothered me.

Well, now I was thinking I’d like to have one to do some small laminating with. So, when someone offered up this NEW in box machine, I snapped it up. It’s not HER fault I have had such bad luck.

First thing I did was feed a couple bookmarks into it, as the double laminate cartridge was already loaded. That was a mistake. The machine promptly started crumpling my bookmarks and messing em up. I tried to rescue them, but it was no use. They were ruined. And so was the new Xyron. Somehow with my trying to rescue my bookmarks, I broke something inside. I could pull things thru, but cranking the handle didn’t do anything at all.

Well, I’m not going to let some machine beat me. I took it apart, saw the problem, and used some super glue to FIX the problem. I’d cracked the gear attached to the bottom roller so that it wasn’t able to make the roller go. (the top roller moves freely, only the bottom one is geared) I used lots of gel super glue, and glued that plastic gear to the metal roller. Let it sit over night, and instead of testing with laminate… I put the adhesive cartridge in. Works good.

So, it works again. Sort of has a hitch when you turn the handle as it gets to the part of the gear that is cracked, but I can deal with that. I do a bunch of things with adhesive, no probem. Go to put some bookmarks through with the double sided laminate again, and boom… this time I’ve got horrible wrinkles AND it grabbed the bookmarks unevenly so that they almost overlapped at the end. Sigh. Ruined more bookmarks.

I try the magnet laminate cartridge. Works fine, except that the adhesive on the magnet top won’t stick to anything. It sort of sticks to the laminate, but who wants big black borders around things? Yuck.

Now, my idea was to make a bookmark for everyone that joined my bookmark swap. I’ve already ruined a bunch messing with the Xyron. But I gotta keep trying, because the other way is to use laminate sheets, and those are not as heavy as they used to be. They’re okay, but not as nice as I like. Time consuming, too. Not to mention all those fingerprints I get on things sticky. Heh.

Okay, gonna try this again. I manage to get 6 bookmarks through the machine without anything messing up too terribly. Got some curl going on, but I cranked it out to start a bit to make sure I had all the wrinkles gone. I’m feeding the last 2 that I have ready to go in… get to the end, make sure they are sticking out enough, and slide the cutter bar across. It cuts the bottoms off my bookmarks AND at an angle. What? They were past the outside edge of the cutter guide, or so I thought. Sheesh.

I swear, I think this machine is possessed. But more likely, it’s just me and my inexperience with it. So when I was over in the big city last week, I bought a new double laminate cartridge, for the next time I want to do bookmarks. But next time I’m going with something square, like Debbie B in CO did. I’ll waste less laminate and won’t have to wrestle with trying to put 2 bookmarks through the machine at the same time.

That’s my story and I’m um, laminated to it. LOL!

Vyx

Here we go… a better print of the rat first of all. I fixed the sizes of the previous post so that the images show full size without clicking. But these are all a bit larger.

I just mailed a rat print out tonight… and I made 3 more if anyone is interested. :)

Next up, this years carving for Year of the Ox. Rat was my first year participating in the collaborative book swap hostessed by my good friend Rabbit. Because I played last year, I was invited to play this year. And will, forever, unless I mess up and don’t make my pages on time. Next year is going to be a lot tougher of a carve… Year of the Tiger I think. I of course don’t HAVE to participate, but I think it would be cool to have a whole set of these books.
Oh, and this scan is of my page done for the book, not the gazillion postcards I sent out as RAK’s.

Just one more for tonight, a carving I started probably 4 years ago. I think I was working on this the last time I went to Grapevine, which was probably in 2005. I think. I never got around to finishing it until recently. And yes, the black eye dots are drawn on. I think it looks better that way.

The original drawing for these fish was done by Beans Barton, who does the artwork for a band called Trout Fishing in America. I wrote to Beans and asked if I could do a stamp and he said okay.
I also sent a few of the fish out as RAK’s, and still have some to send… but they are earmarked for Erasercuts friends.

And this is it for tonight. Pretty much the best of my carvings. I need to get to work on something new… I have a cat I’d like to do that should be fairly easy… and I also want to carve myself a return address stamp.

hugs,
Vyx

I’m not a very prolific carver, and I haven’t got all my carvings scanned yet, so…

Above is one of the first stamps I carved. I still like it so much that I used it for my theme here. :)

Next up, Mavis the Merhare. I was going to use her for bookmarks as the carving doesn’t fit on a regular sized card, but decided to go with something else. I drew Mavis myself by tracing the outline of a rabbit head from a christmas cookie tin and then adding in the somewhat fishy body. She has fur like a seal, rather than scales.

Mavis is friends with Vandalin, also part of Myrth. My daughter drew this one for me, she’s an excellent artist. Sarah is also a scientist, so Vandalin’s feet look like real turtle feet.

Year of the Rat carving that I did last year. This isn’t that great of a scan, but is all I have on hand.
After I finish this post I’ll go scan a few more prints.

To be continued…..

I didn’t sleep last night more than an hour or two. So, you’d think tonight I’d be dead tired. And I was, but I guess I stayed up beyond tired.

Been laying in bed for an hour, can’t shut down. I oughta just go cut cardstock for more postcards, and I probably will in a bit. But first a question… Should I keep sending out Happy Moo cards? I have 6 of another carving I finally finished ready to go out, but I’d like to send more Happy Moo Year… even if it IS a bit late now.

What do you think?? I think I have a lot to go to send everyone on the list a card… and I want to try.

hugs,
Vyx