Crafting Mishaps #8

Oh, darn... that moment when you've slaved over a mini album for days - WEEKS even - and than you realise that you've made a bit of a boo-boo. I made a pocket too close to the spine of the album, so no tags would be able to slide in or out. The whole page had to be redone. Was that the crafting mishap? Nope...

I had to carefully cut off the pocket and remove the backing paper underneath so I could re-do the page. I managed not to be as careful as I wished, and sliced through the top of the page! I did sort of rescue it with glue and a slither of paper... and managed to glue my fingers to the backing paper on the other side of the page! Was THIS the crafting mishap...? Oh, noooo...

I was stressed about this mistake, I'll admit - and stress makes me a messy crafter. The desk was overflowing with bits of discarded paper, backing card, glue, tools... I had to stand over the project to see what I was doing! BUT I did manage to alter the page  - even though the magnets I bought are too thick, and I had to peel back the paper I just glue'd down because I forgot to place the magnet under it first. So... was this a crafting mishap that was blog-worthy? Oh, dear no...

The page finished, I started to tidy up the extreme mess I had made... and then sat down - heavily - in my chair.

THIS was the crafting mishap...

You see, my desk was such a mess that I had put some tools on my chair because of the lack of room...

I don't think it would have been quite as bad if I hadn't sat quite so heavily. But on the plus side, I was wearing a thick dressing gown because being ill has made me feel the cold. Every cloud has a silver lining :)

Now... does anyone know how to get glue out of a heavy jersey dressing gown...?

Crafting Mishaps #7

Ah, the ATG gun... a little pink devil that pretends to be a helpful tool, when really it sits there, waiting... plotting .... dreaming up ways of defeating the hapless crafter (that's me!)

I mean to say - it looks innocent enough, and I even bought a pink one so that it didn't look at all sinister - but who knew the terrors that could be waiting...?

It all started when I needed a refill. The prices are so high! But then I found it... double the amount of sticky tape for half the price of my usual choice... Thank you, EBay!

I purchased the refill, and it arrived within two days! Great service, I thought - unwittingly letting this dangerous substance into my home - oh, the innocence of the bargain-hunter!

I had no idea what disasters lurked ahead as I loaded the gun, innocent as a baby as I laid my finger on the trigger - hovering above a piece of paper that begged to be stuck to something...

I lowered the 'nozzle' to the paper, pushed the trigger in and tried to glide the tape across the surface. It did not feel right. The tape was thicker than I was used to and it didn't break easily when I released the trigger (learnt the hard way - crafting mishaps #6). And there is the crux of it... the flippin' tape did NOT break! I tried to use a pair of scissors to cut it - and the tape stuck to the scissors. It was unravelling at speed as I struggled to detach the scissors from the tape. How I managed to wrap it around three fingers is a complete mystery! Why I didn't let go of the trigger and stop the tape unwinding is an even bigger mystery! The tape and gun were winning the battle - working together, they had nearly succeeded in overpowering me completely. I tried to drop the scissors - they were stuck to the tape I had wrapped around my fingers and I daren't shake them off - two cats and a dog were in the room (looking at me with smugness and bemusement). I turned around to grab another pair of scissors - and of course, the tape gun went clattering to the floor. My instant reaction was to lift my arm to stop it falling - but that just made the tape unwind even more. I knew then that this was a devious plan - the tape is NOT supposed to unwind when the trigger is released. 

I had visions of my family coming home to find me mummified in ATG tape... the dog sat faithfully by my side wondering how the hell I managed to get into such a sticky mess.

I sat on the floor, and the dog jumped on me and licked my face... then he tried to eat the tape - my hero!

I sat and picked that tape off for almost half an hour... and you know what the worst part is? It didn't stick to the paper properly!

 I hate that ATG gun... and I really hate the new tape!

I'm going back to shop at 3M Direct lol

I WILL defeat the ATG gun and become it's master!

Crafting Mishaps #6

Oh dear! Some people (i.e: ME) shouldn't be let loose with dangerous crafting items. Though, to be fair, glitter is a dangerous crafting item when I'm around (see crafting mishaps 3 and crafting mishaps 1 for proof).

It all started when I saw some retractable DIY knives really cheap in the 99p store. "Hmm", I wondered... "could these be as good as craft knives to use? I'll buy some and find out".

The second important piece of information in this sorry tale, is that I always over-use my craft blades. I'm such a skinflint that I use them until they're totally blunt. And then I'll use them for a bit longer. I know, I know... dangerous and really stupid!

Well... I had packed up my bag ready for crafting night at Pickwells, so my craft knives were jammed into an overflowing compartment and I didn't fancy having to rummage through my neatly packed (!!*lol*) bag to find them. Never mind, thought I... I'll just use the retractable DIY knives I purchased.

I was only cutting photographs - nothing heavyweight at all. Trouble is, my craft knife is somewhat blunt, and so unthinkingly, I placed a lot of pressure onto the retractable knife I was using... and sliced clean through my little craft mat.

It appears that I am not such a weak and feeble woman as I previously thought I was. It could have been worse... I could have sliced through my bigger mat and damaged my desk. I so liked that little mat too - handy for taking to craft meets, clearly indicated centimetres (which was why I was using it instead of my larger mat with inches), and pretty impervious to heat guns. Not impervious to retractable DIY knives though. Oops!

Maybe some glue and double sided sticky tape could fix this problem...?

Crafting Mishaps #5

Just because I haven't written about a crafting mishap since October 2011, does not mean to say that they don't happen any more... just sometimes it's too embarrassing to reveal them! I mean... can one person really be so dumb?

For years I've owned an ATG (Advanced Tape Glider), and have always finished off placing a line of tape on a page with a little flick of the wrist to break the tape. It has limited me somewhat, as it really hurts my wrist joint. Today, whilst crafting and making some more pages for my mini album, I discovered that all I have to do when I want to stop a line of sticky, is to take my finger off the trigger. Why on earth had I not figured this out before???

I really should have dyed my hair red when the kiddies asked me too - I am such a dumb blonde!

The ATG mayhem does not stop there...

Poor little Miss Violet (Baby, one of our kitties) is not happy with me.

I had been making photo mats for the album, and trying to get a sort of conveyor belt thing going? Cutting all the mats, inking them, taping them, then sticking them all onto the bases. Easy :)

I had the photo mats all lined up, ready with the ATG tape  on them to be stuck onto the backing sheets. It was at this moment when Baby jumped onto the craft desk... and placed her little paws onto the sticky photo mats. Oh, she did look a sight, taking a step and violently shaking a paw to get the paper off of it. I tried to help - really I did... but laughter isn't conducive to helping kitties from sticky situations. Oh, my! She glared at me so much!

This glaring was nothing compared to the hisses I got when I took her to the bathroom to gently wash the tape from her pawpaws.

Perhaps now she'll stay off the craft desk?

Not likely - she's here now! *lol* It's like she knows the ATG gun is the source of her sticky paws, and she's sat here eyeing up like it's going to be supper as soon as my back is turned. Time to hide the pink gun, methinks!

Crafting Mishaps #4

Yes, again!

I've finally started making the Christmas Cottage - even though I've a few other projects that need finishing off right now. I seem to be getting bored very easily - and there's nothing to distract me up here in my little craft room... so I flit from one project to another, and keep making excuses to go downstairs and look at the kittens, fuss LilyDog, and cuddle CallieCat. Anyway... back to crafting. I thought I'd just start with a basic square-ish cottage shape, and play around with how I would decorate the roof. The original idea I had of using raffia to make the roof look thatched has really stuck in my mind... and it was an idea I couldn't let go of.

Out came the raffia (after rummaging around for fifteen minutes in the wrong drawer... I really shouldn't tidy up my craft storage, because that's when I lose everything!), and I had to decide on what would be the best method of attaching said raffia to the roof. A strip of good double-sided sticky tape through the middle to hold it in place seemed a good idea... and after looking at what adhesives I had available, I grabbed the ModPodge. I figured I could stick the raffia onto the roof, and then sew it into place more firmly - it would possibly look quite decorative and nice. Raffia isn't very good. It's horrid stuff that doesn't do what it's supposed to. It falls on the floor. It attracts the cat (oh, she LOVED it!). AND it unravels into a huge mess over lovely new craft desks.

Oh, how I perservered with that darn raffia. I tried quick-drying glue, hot glue, clear glue, school glue... if I had it, I used it! Nothing stuck it. The raffia remained, for the most part, unattached to the roof of my little cottage. Then I had a brainwave... I remembered that if I used a covering of ModPodge over a surface, for some reason any glue then sticks down much better when used on that surface. Out came the tatty old paint brush... and I slathered ModPodge all over my little cardboard rooftop.

This is when the mishap occurred. Now, firstly, I should explain something:

My left hand and I had a fight with a stairgate... and the stairgate won. My left hand is a mass of swelling and bruises right now - so this may account for my slow reaction to what happened.

The ModPodged roof started slipping from the table. I reached out to stop it falling to the floor, and instead of stalling it or stopping it... I managed to flip it. High into the air it rose (well, I say 'high'... it was about six inches), turning as it came towards me. I think I managed to say "Oomph...argh...errrr" or something similar. I will not divulge what I said next as the roof landed... on me. It stuck quite well to my top, and my hair.

Raffia does not stick well to ModPodged cardboard. My hair, however, DOES stick... very well indeed.

Ooops.

I'll NOT be using raffia for my Christmas Cottage roof.

*lol*

Crafting Mishaps #3

When will I ever learn?

Back in May I had a not-so-subtle reminder of why I don't like glitter (Crafting Mishap... the first *lol*) ... My dining craft room has barely recovered from the mass suicide of my glitter pots!

However, there is one time during the year when I find glittery things almost endearing... quaint, pretty and (dare I say it) lovely. That, of course, is Christmas time. Or Yule... or whatever you call it. 

As you may know, the Christmas House Mini is coming along quite nicely - all sugary sparkly-ness of it, sitting prettily on my dining craft table. And there lies the crux of it... Christmas... The only time glitter is allowed near me, my house or my family. I decided that the backs of some pages of the mini album needed a frosting - a snowy, glittery border. So there I am  two hours ago, happily splashing paint and glue onto card and paper, and smothering it in Glamour Dust (oohhh... sounds so much more posh than calling it just "glitter" *lol*). It takes some time, as I'm also chasing a tomcat out of the house and away from CallieCat every few minutes (not a moments peace!). Time comes to clear up, and I'm looking around me in wonder. Me, the cat, the dog, dining room mat and floor, handbag, scoreboard, paper trimmer, dining table, everything ON the dining table - in fact everything within a five foot radius of the culprit (that would be... ummm... me then. Oops!) is awash with GLITTER. Everything looks like something out of the cast of Twilight, so sparkly and irridescant are we! The cat is having a hard time hiding from the tomcats... every time she ventures outside, she's just a gliding, stealthy little mass of sparkle caught by the lights! On the plus side, LilyDog scarpering outside glowing like the Hound Of The Baskervilles is doing a good job of frightening the tomcats away (either that or they're having to leave because it's just so funny and they want to spread the word around).

As I type, I notice little sparkles glinting from my keyboard. In fact, every time I move I send a hail of glitter into the atmosphere! The end of my nose  is so distracting!... it's glittering and catching my eye constantly!

I've just noticed a trail of sparkly-ness from where I'm sat through to the kitchen and all over the kitchen floor. It's pervading the whole house! Can glitter multiply? Perhaps it's like a virus or a germ... waiting to take over the world! It's under my nails, in my hair, over the sink, stuck into the carpet...!

Glitter. Hmph! Never, ever again!

Crafting Mishaps #2

After the whole terrible episode with the glitter, I thought crafting errors would be avoidable - I am trying to be careful! However... there is one crafting tool I now know that I cannot do without. A hairband.

Yes, a simple little piece of elastic would have saved me a lot of trouble yesterday. I was finishing off the pages of the mini-book I had been making, and was using my hot glue gun to seal the bottom of the pages.

Yes, I can hear you now - warning me of the dangers of blistered thumbs (that was last week... and it still hurts!). So ... what has hot glue got to do with hairbands? Well, you have to also place into the mix a little bit of utter stupidity :)

There was I, fixing the pages of the mini-book, leant over the desk squinting with concentration (and, yes, I DID have my tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth... it really does help!), when my glue 'blobbed'. This little hard lump of glue splattered from the nozzle of my glue gun. Of course, I turned the nozzle towards me to look at what had happened - and forgot to lift my finger off the trigger. Hot glue squirted into hair does NOT come out easily! If only I'd had a hairband tying back my hair... then I'd only be picking set glue off of an old apron *sighs*.

Is this the end of my tale of woe...? Not likely!

After this "glue vs. hair" fiasco, you'd think I'd be a bit more careful....? Not I! Some may call it bravery... most would call it just plain old dumb! But I was on a creative roll... I was getting this mini completed, and my mojo was jiving! Paper needed trimming, so out came my guillotine. Oh... I can hear the groans now - someone as careless as I actually owning a guillotine cutter! Yes, I do... it has a sliding paper trimmer too :D

I leant over the guillotine, measuring up carefully (measure twice, cut once... as my granddad used to say). The paper was definitely round the wrong way, I thought... so I slid it out, turned it round and slipped it back under the guillotine blade. And somehow got my hair slipped under too. Hair and guillotines don't work well together - this I should have realised when remembering all those old films about the French Revolution. There is a reason the axe-man has his victims hair tied back before bringing down the blade, you know! Yes... my hair was pulled by the blade - and if it was the side with the glue on it, I wouldn't have minded so much. Luck was not on my side. So Now I have a sticky-together hair piece on my left, and a baldy patch on my right... *lol*

Crafting Mishap!

My craft area (a corner of the dining room) is somewhat... bijou i.e small and cramped! As well as my 'system' of stacked boxes and things scattered on shelves, I've also taken over the sideboard, wall cupboard, and several other items of furniture that have spaces to jam my craftyness in... oh, and I also store 'stuff' under things too - space under the sideboard? ... crammed, thank you!. Lovely... lots of stash to keep a scrapbooker happy. Well, at least I was happy until last night. As many will know, I am not a glitter-loving-gal. I like a little sparkle every now and then, but huge amounts of glitz just isn't my style (I just wish I could use glitter as well as some of you girls and guys out there in blogland). So, my glitter collection (about 30 or so pots) has lain idle in the back of a drawer. Now... let me just give you a little sneaky peek as to how these drawers are ...

STUFFED!

Not much room left for anything... and as I think I need (and therefore buy) more 'stuff'... well, the 'stuff' gets stuffed... into any space left in a suitable drawer (there is some method in the madness of what's in the drawers... honest!)

And so, last night I was looking for some brads I knew I had - they're kept in the "brad, buttons, and sparkly-things" drawer. "Sparkly things" include bling and glitter. That's when I noticed... as I was rummaging, I got sparkly spots before my eyes... I thought I had some strange crafting disease (other than a critically ill bank balance!). I looked at my hands... oh, no! they were covered in tiny, tiny black spots... that glittered. I must be infected with some arty-farty illness that's crept up on me unexpectedly! Nope... on further inspection, I realised that some of my glitter pots had finally been crushed to oblivion in my drawer... expoding their sparkly contents with abandon over my brads, buttons, and other sparkly things. A deeper delve revealed the green glitter had also succumbed to the crush... a pretty little rainbow of glittery-ness in my drawer. Only it wasn't so pretty - or little! I had to empty everything out by hand (no tipping it onto the floor this time!) and clean off all my packets and boxes. After cleaning the drawer itself, reloading it, and putting it back in its rightful place, the dining room had been well and truly glittered. No amount of being careful stops glitter travelling around a room and getting stuck everywhere. I had a sneezing fit this morning and glitter sprayed from my nose!

Ah, well... it's all done now - I just need to find a safe place to put my glitter pots now - somewhere hermetically sealed with a time lock might be useful :)