Washi tape might not be all it is cracked up to be!

The pack of washi tape rolls arrived very quickly.  I was a bit taken aback though by the sizes of some of the rolls, 7 are very narrow, 7 are a bit wider and 7 are a usable size.

I am making a card for my eldest grand daughter right now and I want it to be special.  She is the mother of my only great grandson and a treasure.  I love her dearly.  I decorated the front of the card and I am extremely happy so far with it.

I decided to use the thinner washi tape on the inside and put a couple of pinstripes down one side.  It went on easy and looked great.  However, when I went to check how it held up I was very disappointed to see that it had come loose on both stripes at the top.  I pushed it back down and put more pressure on it and left it.  A couple of hours later it had started to peel off again.  I pressed on it again and left it once more. Now I guess I can glue it but it is supposed to be self adhesive and as it is very narrow I don't want to try and glue it and ruin the card so I think I will just peel it off.  I am disheartened as I had great plans for this tape.

Now Sod's law after the third time of trying to get it to stick it appears to have done so.  I will leave it as is for now and see what happens.

It seems every time I venture into something new on the card making I either can't do it well as in the stamping or it doesn't work well as in the washi tape.  The only thing I seem to be able to do quite well is the decoupage so I will be sticking mainly to that.  I will still be stamping envelopes as I really like them decorated.

Since I started into the card making I have found that I can get the dies very cheaply off of Amazon.  They come directly from the orient so take several weeks to get here.  No 3 day shipping lol.

These are what I have bought so far and I bet I haven't spent more than $25 total and they are free shipping.  That is simply amazing.  I am waiting on another 8 or so dies to arrive then I think I will have enough.  Compared to what other companies charge they are an absolute bargain.

With regards to other things here in the hinterlands, the septic/lagoon guy came out on Tuesday while we were away for hospital appointments and cleaned out the lagoon and flushed the lines.  He charged $500 which is money well spent because no way, even in our fittest and healthiest days, could we have done that.  Specialist equipment required which we do not have and the know how.

My husband's hand is improving slowly, we had to go back to see his doctor because it became very sore.  She prescribed antibiotics to ward off any infections.

It is 4.30pm here so as I have had quite a busy week I am going to sit and watch a TV show I recorded.  Dinner is already made and just needs nuking.  Oh and for tomorrow, Go the Toon!  Newcastle United play Manchester United in the Caribou cup final and my son will be there to cheer Newcastle on.

How did I not know about Washi Tape????? and weekend trauma!

The weekend has been a tad traumatic.  We live in the middle of nowhere so our water comes from a deep well and the waste water goes into a lagoon.  If you have followed my blog for a while you know we had to have a new well dug and new pipework put in leading to the pumphouse two years ago to the tune of $12+k.

Now our sewerage pipes are backing up. Ugh! Can't complain the system has worked flawlessly for 18 years.

I had to wait downstairs so I did not miss the guy coming to check out what was wrong so to pass the time I was watching YouTube videos on card making and I came across one in the Sizzix tutorials and the demonstrator was using washi tape as part of her decorating.  Never having heard about it I was intrigued, so of course I googled it.

My goodness, such a selection and very reasonably priced.

Now it seems that it derives from masking tape but it is patterned in bright colors with lovely designs.  It appears to be quite thin and isn't overly sticky.  As it will just be used for decorating cards and not holding anything together it should be OK and apparently it can be removed without damaging the card.

So to cut a long story a little bit shorter I ordered a pack of 21 rolls for only $6.99.  The link to them is below if you are interested.

Washi tape

I could have done with this tape when working on this card as I got a smudge on the inside from the stamping.  It was the first card I made  in January with the stamps I got for Christmas. To hide the smudge I cut out a frame to glue in.  With the washi tape I could just have just ran a strip of it over the smudge. I will be well prepared next time lol.

Can you see the smudge bottom right of text?

      

Well now you can't!

Prettied up with ribbon and a bow

Stamped Envelope 

The Septic Pump guy showed up and the sludge has to be dug out and the lagoon deepened then the pipes blown out. Thankfully it will not cost any where near what the well did. He will be here tomorrow. Thank goodness. It has been quite the adventure dealing with this, suffice to say when I take the dog out to pee it is a group activity lol.  Good job we have no nearby neighbours and have plenty of acreage!  

On that not so pleasant note I will bid you all a good evening!

Four down now on to the next ones!

Finishing touches done to cards and verses put in, did stamping on the envelopes so four down and goodness knows how many to go.  A bit of ribbon and a nicely printed out verse makes all the difference. Mailed 2 off to the UK, the other two were our Valentine's cards.

Now on to the rest of the year. I have one already made and need another two for March,  then three for April and May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December all have family birthdays, then of course Christmas again.

We had a trip to the ER last week, my husband had a spontaneous hematoma come up on the back of his hand, no idea why, he hadn't bumped it or anything. Here it is a week later, waiting on a call from his doctor to see if he needs to go back. Even the palms of his hand is bruised and he says it really hurts.

Time to make dinner so off I go.  Have a great week everyone.

A makeover, a modification and His 'n Her Valentines cards

I did get the curtains made for one room, two windows so 4 curtains made.  They are nothing spectacular but they are clean and fresh.

Last year we made a drastic change upstairs, we moved our king bed into the room that was my sewing room as the air conditioning works much better in that room. We were in the process of replacing two walls in the sunroom where we usually sleep in the summer so we had to sleep in the main part of the house all year.

This meant some of my work tables and craft stuff got moved into the other bedroom but not all of it.  So our bedroom is part bedroom and part craft room and the other room is visa versa.

This year neither of us are up to moving heavy furniture so the rest of the changeover is happening very slowly. Eventually the computer table and computer will go into the other room and the dresser and tallboy will go in it's place.

In the card making department I did a makeover on the card that I said would languish in the made box and now I am happy to use it.

It went from this:-

To this:-

And I modified the unicorn card front from this:-

To this:-

I added some dragon flies to another card I am working on for my daughter.

I am working on our valentine's cards, I have the fronts done, waiting for some printer ink to get here so I can print out our sentiments which we write to each other.  I do not have any Valentine's verses stamps.

I am really happy with these so far.

So that's what I have been up to since my last post and also helping my husband with his project.  He is self publishing some short stories he wrote in the 80's and 90's.  He has also written several novels but they involve a massive amount of work so we will be busy on those for a long time yet.