For me, it all started back in 1995. My sweet Sissy and her family had emigrated to California. Well, moved to California for reasons of work. None of us knew then that it would become an emigration. We may not have let them go so easily, I can tell you. It's a long way. I digress, already. Anyway, that Easter, Steph sent us a lovely card with coloured eggs, and some beautifully shiny gold text. It was, for you stamp historians, a PSX stamp that she'd embossed in gold. I couldn't believe it when she said she'd made it! At the time I worked in print and knew the technique as 'thermography'. I was fairly confident that it couldn't be done without a large press and certainly not at my kitchen table.
 |
| My now very controlled collection of embossing powders |
Would love to know how you drifted into it all and so eventually found your way to reading this!
Posts
8 comments:
Ooohhh! Julia! What have you started?!! This post is going to be good.
I'll tell you my story later.....
Ooohhh! Julia! What have you started?!! This post is going to be good.
I'll tell you my story later.....
I got into it WAY back in 1987. I was heavily into pen pals and writing letters in my teens, and on a trip to visit my brother living in Somerset, we went shopping in Taunton. Tucked away down a side alley was a little craft shop with a small selection of rubber stamps and embossing powders, and the lady demonstrated using them..... with a toaster as the heat source. I was so fascinated, I bought two stamps and some powder (PSX copper!) to decorate my blank writing stationery. One was an ivy garland, the other a “D”. I don’t use the D so much these days, but the ivy gets trotted out every so often. It was a few years before I got into using stamps for card making but once I did, there was no stopping me. 30 odd years and 1000 stamps later, I’m still awed by the embossing process!
My beloved late sister went to a school fair and met a lady called Carol with a stall of stamps and stuff. Demoing.. She bought some. I played.. Carol came round with stuff to buy. Several thousands of purchases later here I am
Must be pushing 20 years ago now,and is not only how I got into heat embossing, but into cardmaking as well. I wanted a Mothers day card, for my Stepmum. A lovely lady, and we got on very well. Could I find one anywhere? Not a prayer, and I wasn't going to send her one to Mother, as I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have really liked that. She had no animosity to my Mum, (the other way round is another story!) in fact she always asked after her, but still. So, I decided the only way I'd get one was to make my own.
We visited somewhere, I really cannot remember where, might even have been a Hobbycrafts at the NEC,and I saw heat embossing demoed. Just had such a WOW! factor, so home I came with card/heat gun/stamps/embossing powder, and the rest, as they say is history.
I had so much fun that Christmas- I'd bought some large word background stamps- and sat and heat embossed loads of sheets of cardstock. So many, I still find some in my Christmas box, lol. Great question Julia, looking forward to reading everyones replies. Hugs, Shaz XxX
It was in about 1989 or 1990. I had hosted a Pampered Chef party and the demonstrator's daughter came to help her set everything up. She herself was a Stampin Up consultant and I agreed to also host a Stampin Up get together because I knew nothing about it. Well. She brought all her toys over, and oh my goodness. I loved everything but couldn't afford much. But my sister in law also became a demonstrator and I would get bits and pieces from her. She eventually tired of it but I am still loving it!
Hi Julia, I got into crafting when the Slimming World group I went to got a new consultant. I became friends with her (still am). She has a crafting morning every two or three weeks and I have tried all sorts at them. Last time I did some sewing...yeah right. Got to finish off my owl this Friday.
Hope you've had a good start to the week.
My neighbor across the street (Cheryl) took me to her weekly stamping/card making sessions. We exchanged cards each week, but I had NO stamps, no EP, nothing. I made mine from scraps of magazine images, etc. All the ladies were big in Stampin' Up at the time and most turned up their noses at my cards. Another friend worked for a printing company and gave me a lot of offcuts that hadn't been approved by quality assurance. I showed some of them to Cheryl and she went to town, embossing the hearts and teddy bears, etc. Then I had a Stampin' Up party because Cheryl's daughter sold it. Between a few of my friends and the regular ladies at the weekly group, my party was over $1000.00 and I was able to buy some very, very nice items, including one set of stamps, ink, and EP. I still couldn't stamp, but I tried for awhile. Then I got into altered books and the stamping ladies thought it was TRASH. I quit going to the weekly group and found people on the internet who "got" my art. I still buy only wood mounted stamps, because they are so much easier to stamp. People say they take up too much space and often remove the stamps from their wood mountings, but I am old school in that respect. This was a great trip down memory lane. BTW, I still don't use a lot of EP, although I have tons of it I bought at a garage sale one year.
Post a Comment