Linen Thread | The Maui Stamper

I think I am officially obsessed with the Flowering Fields stamp set available through Sale-a-bration. I’ve done a number of variations on the same theme – the most recent one is in Blushing Bride:

Stamps: Flowering Fields, Timeless Texture, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Color Palette: Very Vanilla, Blushing Bride, Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Rose Red, Sahara Sand, Old Olive, Pear Pizazz
Accessories: Linen Thread, Stampin’ Write Markers, Uniball White Gel Pen, Wink of Stella

I love coloring in these images with my Stampin’ Write markers. Sometimes I use the fat, brush end, and sometimes it’s the pointy writing end, but either way it’s something I find relaxing.

I mix and match the backgrounds from Timeless Treasures – it’s one of those sets I know I’ll reach for again and again. And speaking of reaching for something, my Wink of Stella brush is always on my craft table these days. I’m thinking of getting one for my bathroom too – don’t you think a little {wink} would be just the thing for those too-early-Monday-mornings?

Here’s how I start…the backgrounds are stamped off and I do 3 of each one. My tiles are 1 3/8″ x 1 1/8″ and I have to stamp twice, but I’ve found it easy to line up the images by eye.

Once I have a set of images I like, I move them around until I find a sequence that pleases me. The rest is just Fast Fuse (and a bow with the Linen Thread, but I’ve done hundreds if not thousands of those and it’s No.Big.Deal.)

Here’s the original. Keep your eye out – there are more to come!

We make a real effort to recycle in the Maui Stamper household. I spotted a great way to re-purpose a couple of Stampin’ Supplies, and the best part was that this little trick solved an annoying problem for me.

I’m not a fan of the way our Linen Thread and Baker’s Twine are packaged. You know, the ones wrapped around the card and stapled into a cello bag. This nifty solution appeared on a number of blogs:

Yep – those are little embellishment containers. I can’t bear to throw them away because they just seem so useful! They’re just right for dispensing twine and thread. Do you see the eyelet on the side? The Crop-a-dile punched a hold in the side of the container with no problem, and I set the eyelet there just because. I confess to still having a couple of containers full of eyelets even though we don’t offer them in our catalog any more. (Boo.)

Here’s the container for the Linen Thread:

I had to dress it up a little bit, and the little tags with the name of the thread are for those late-night stampin’ sessions when things get a little giddy.

Aha! Double recycling! I used an empty ribbon spool (this one is from the new In Color ruffled ribbon) to hold my thread so it wouldn’t snarl. I cut the cardboard ring from the ribbon spool down to fit inside the container – unfortunately, there isn’t a circle punch that fits right, so I used the 1 3/4″ circle and then trimmed it down. I put some pretty DSP on top with a little Tombo to dress it up, and when I punched the circle out of the middle of the DSP I saved it and stuck my needle through it. I always keep a fat needle with my Linen Thread and my Baker’s twine, and having it inside the container means I’m less likely to stick myself with the needle while rummaging in my drawer.

I’ll bet you have a couple of these little embellishment containers sitting around. If you don’t, you have two choices: hurry up and use a whole mess of buttons or brads or spinner arrows or whatever so you empty out a container, or order a set of 6 of them for $3.95 (#103649). You can still recycle the ribbon spool 🙂