Technique of the week - BYOB - Bring your own basics Level 2

BYOB - Level 1 was about some of the basic tools you will need.  BYOB Level 2 is about the next level of tools and things you will need to have to make cards or pages.

The first 2 things I would add to the list:
Craft knife and ruler.  The craft knife is helpful for the Cricut items that don't cut as clean as you like.  It is also useful to cut around things in that are too small or tight for the scissors.  If you don't have the VersaMat, you will need a self-healing mat of some kind.  A metal ruler is better as you can use it with the craft knife as well as for measuring. 

Next we start into the items that are personal to what projects you want to develop and work on.  Close To My Heart has a variety of stamps and inks.  One of the greatest things is that the My Acrylix stamps fit into a much smaller space that stamps on blocks.  They come in 6x6 plastic envelopes and you can see the stamp step clearly.  They come in A, B, C, and D sets.  The letters tell you the number of stamps that you are getting with each set.  There are also 3x3 small sets as well.

Look at the stamp sets to see what you need.  Think about the projects that you will be doing.  If you are working on cards, you will need smaller stamps and sayings.  If you are working on pages, you might get larger alphabets and larger stamps.  If you work on both, you will find that you will need a combination of them.  If you are doing scrapbooks of your kids, you will want more school things and youth things.  What you are doing will depend on what kind of stamps you seek to buy.  You can go to my website and shop around for stamps.

In order to use the stamps, you need to get the My Acrylix blocks.  You coose the block that fits closest to the stamp you want to use.  Excess block means that you will often get ink from the stamp pad onto the block and wind up making marks you didn't intent to make.  The blocks come in sizes 1x1, 1x 3 1/2, 2x2, 3x3, 2x 3 1/2, 2 x 6 1/2, and 4x5. 

You will need cleaner and a cleaning pad for your stamps and blocks.  The basic ink pads with Close To My Heart are water base.  There are smaller ones that are pigment ink.  The water base are good for projects that are protected.  If your project is out on a wall or table, you will want to use the pigment inks.  The scrubbing pad has little bristles that are best to clean the little grooves of the pigment ink.  Close To my Heart also has Archival Black StazON inks and cleaners.  These are waterproof, fade-proof and non-smearing . 

The Close To My Heart inks match the paper colors.  You will not only need to clean the stamps but the blocks after each use as well.  The next thing to talk about is paper and projects.  The places to go are varied from here as to embellishments and bling.  Stay tuned to how you can really make things Pop!