Cuttlebugging

So, I got to use my new Cuttlebug! I put a piece of sticky-back canvas in the wrong way the first time I tried, so I guess that means I got a deboss effect instead of an emboss, but it still looks pretty. The debossed one is on top, and the emboss, which was what I intended to do the first time, is the bottom one:

Putting the paint on was very easy to do; I was surprised at how well that part went.

The other technique I've tried from this week's class is transferring a paper image onto sticky-back canvas. I sort of messed it up but not too bad - it just looks a bit more distressed than I really wanted it to! I'll post a picture of that later.

I have one more technique from last week's class to show:

This is reverse-stamping - you paint your surface with paint mixed with slow-dry medium, and then you use a stamp to take some of the paint off. The trick, apparently, is working fast, because even with the slow-dry it was wanting to dry faster than I was stamping. About the only place you can clearly see the stamp I was using is in the bottom left corner - it was a flower stamp, a single flower, but I overlapped it so much it's really difficult to tell. I was going for a sort of background effect and while I think this color is a little bright for a background, I really like the effect, overall.


In other news... I found a style of storage box lately that really works well for storing craft supplies -  it's a Sterilite 2.7 Qt box (according to the label), and it's about 3" deep by 8" wide by 11" long. I got mine at Wal-Mart but I know lots of other places carry that brand. It's big enough to hold bottles of Claudine's Studio paints:

I wrote the names on top with a paint pen, so I wouldn't have to fumble around looking for colors, and it holds all 15 of them handily, with a couple of embosser bottles thrown in for good measure. The one here is pink (as you can tell); I also have a clear one, and I think maybe they also came in lime green. I have stamp pads in one and some of my flatter punches and brayers in another. They are the kind of box where the handles snap up and lock the lid on, which I like, and they also stack very nicely. I think if I had more I would definitely be able to find uses for them (especially considering how my collection of paints and things is growing). I should add that the taller bottles don't fit in these, even Claudine's gesso, etc, doesn't. There were some more sizes, though, so there might be options for storing other sizes of stuff in matching containers.