 Hi everybody, it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching today. So I've recently had a lot of people asking how I clean my tools. So I did mention, I think it was when I was showing the tools that I love that I was showing the scissors I use and stuff and from there people were asking like how do I sharpen them, how do I clean them and so on. So I am actually going to clean all my tools because it's kind of that thing you do at the end of the year and I've reorganised a lot of things in my craft room, I've donated lots of things and just had a bit of a sort out really and started to just get things organised again. I've got new things that I've got for Christmas so I just wanted to kind of go through and yeah just get everything back in order. So I just thought I would just show you a very simple way that I clean what I, you know, the tools that I use that you see me use regularly. I use surgical spirit and I believe it's the same as rubbing, rubbing, rubbing alcohol and you can pick this up it's pretty inexpensive I get this from Boots the Chemist and I think it's about three pound but I'm sure you can get it cheaper and you can probably get it cheaper on Amazon. I'll share some links anyway but yeah surgical spirit, rubbing alcohol, I believe they're the same thing. So as you can see I'm nearly at the end of this one and I will probably, by the time I've cleaned my mat as well because I'm going to show you how to do that this will probably be gone. So what I always use is these microfiber cloths are lint-free so they're brilliant I use them for cleaning my stamps because you don't get to see any lint on them. I've stopped using wet wipes you won't see me use wet wipes unless there's maybe a technique because you can do some fun techniques with wet wipes and you can use them when you're doing like those silhouette kind of cards and things like that so you know I don't want to kind of write off wet wipes but we know there's a big thing with them with the environment and I don't put mine down the toilet and nobody should be doing that because that's half the problem but you don't really need to have them in your craft stash I don't think anymore unless you are someone that does a lot of techniques and you like to do like I said the effects that some of them can do I'm sure you can get that with just like a damp cloth and yeah who knows but that's just my view on it anyway so I love using microfiber cloths and I believe it or not these are clean they're just heavily stained this one probably could actually wash up a little bit more but I know that one's been washed these are the Spontex they're just you can buy them in packs very inexpensive and put them up from the pound shops supermarkets places like that but they are literally used for everything in my craft room I clean with them you know I use them for my stamp in so when I've stamped I just spray them with my spray bottle that I have here and clean the stamps and put the stamp straight back onto their pad and put them away so yeah some people you know they go out and buy all the specialty cleaners and stuff I'm not saying don't but I don't think you have to save your money and put it into buying you know stamps and dies and papers and things like that because you can just clean things just as well with good old hot soap and water which is you can do that to clean pretty much everything here it might just take a little bit longer what the surgical spirit does rubbing alcohol things like that is it gets everything off I mean they use them in the hospital so it's just it's spotless you know there's nothing on the metal and it comes off very easily so stickers things like that just kind of wipe off it's like it's really really good whereas if you're using hot soapy water you might have to just maybe sit all of your scissors in the bowl for a while and then you know clean them off with you know a rag or something the other reason I like using these is when I'm cleaning scissors obviously you have to be very careful because they're sharp but because this is so thick and padded I can you know get in there and kind of clean everything off the blades without worrying that I'm going to cut myself if you're using toilet tissue and kitchen roll things like that do take extra care because once you've kind of cleaned these and obviously the blades are sharp it's just going to cut straight through things like that so whereas these don't seem to get cut up at all really so and I've also got my some microlic blocks here these are just terrible I mean these haven't been cleaned since way before Christmas and they've got VersaMark on there and you know bits of embossing powder stuck to it stays on and things like that so I'm going to clean those as well so first of all I want to just clean I've got my metal rulers as well because they've some of them have got glue that one there's really dirty and I'm going to show you just how to clean you know a pair of scissors and then I'm going to go and put it all on high speed and get these all cleaned I've got a movie ready to watch and and then the mat is pretty much the same way but what I do with my mat is I actually tip tip this on as it is into like the areas because a lot of the calow and if it you know I get it on my finger I'm really bad and I just wipe it on here so there's like calow there you can see it's just a bit shiny I can't even really pick that off but if I just tip that on neat and leave it for a few minutes it just breaks down and then I literally just wipe it with that and it comes away straight away first of all let me get these ones here because these are very mucky some of these aren't dirty with glue but I do want to sharpen everything as well so this is what I use here this is just a knife and a scissor stock sharpener I've had it for ages so it's very very well worn and it's brilliant so once everything's clean then we'll go through that so I'm just going to grab one of my rags here and I'm just going to pour some of this just in the corner and then very carefully you can see that one there look at it absolutely I'm so I'm so ashamed of this because these are my special most favouritist it's not even a proper word but they are just I love these scissors and I have just let them get absolutely neglected over Christmas so I highly recommend these scissors they're beautiful but yeah don't don't do what I've done with them and then I just start kind of rubbing it through if you kind of put it in you know like so you wrap it around and it's come off straight away I mean you can do it upside down again if you're worried that you might you know you don't want to cut yourself then do it upside down that way because then it's not going to cut through anything so but just do take extra care but already it's just so look at that it's just wonderful and show you that side there that's a little bit of like it's almost like a bit of rust I think that was there I remember I couldn't get it off last time but it hasn't affected the way the scissors work and they're just right at the ends there just gonna get right down into that blade make sure there's nothing yes see there's some glue just up on the edge there so I'm just gonna very carefully but this just breaks down through all of the the stickiness so it just comes off so easily there we go so that is now clean apart from like I said that little rusty mark which I just can't seem to shift but now you know what a difference you can even see the shine again and again that side there that's just like scratches and stuff but there is no stickiness on that at all now I can just run my finger over that really nicely so just do the same that there's all really sticky so I'm just gonna pop it back in there again like I said you can either do it that way or pop it upside down just do take you know care with them you can get those gloves as well there's like chainmail gloves again if you're someone that's really you know I'm very nervous with a cutting knife I'm in a lot more control with this so I know I'm not gonna cut myself cutting nice petrifying me that's why I've got that ruler that I use that triangular one but now that is again spotless all of that's come straight off so you know you can do this with hot soapy water I just say to leave them soaking for a while and then you should be able to just buff it off but I've also got some stickiness on the handles so I'm just gonna go around just kind of buff that all off plus it gets rid of all the germs as well so if you're someone you know doesn't like germs and does like to clean everything off or maybe you've had people using your craft supplies and the the kids have been around and just been taking things you know give them a nice clean with the the rubbing alcohol and the surgical spirit and stuff and it just gets rid of all those germs so but now I have a clean a pair of scissors now once I sharpen these they're gonna be just like new again so I mean they're pretty sharp now anyway you can you can sometimes I say you can hear the sharpness you know I mean they've just got that sound to them again I've got a bit of a scissor problem because I've got loads but I'm happy now that all the glue is off you just want to check the top of the blades just there I think there's a little bit along the edge of that one am I the missing or it's just oh no there goes come off I think I just missed it before there we go yeah that's lovely so that's what I do so I'm gonna sit here now and a few these snips are terrible look at the state of those really really bad in fact they they don't even you can they just kind of stick so I'm gonna do those next a lot of them are okay I don't even think I've used these since I cleaned them last these are like cheapy ones but they're really good sometimes you know just if you just randomly cutting up it's a paper and trimming things my snips I want to work on and yeah just work my way through those the metal ruler just do the same way I'm just gonna pour some and just you know wipe it up and down there you have to be careful with some things you use because they might rub off the you know your writing and all of your markings but this doesn't do that on this one so I've used it before but that's pretty dirty so I do those and the same with these again you can just tip some of the you know what you're cleaning them with again or just sit them in some hot soapy water and bleach works really well getting the Versa Markoff and things like that and it obviously won't damage those because be careful with bleach if you're gonna use it neat then I would put these in the sink put the plug in and just tip some of the bleach over them and then just let it sit for a few minutes and then rinse it all off I've done that before or if you would rather just dilute it slightly with some water and again just leave them sitting in there as well and that's what I sometimes do with these when I've washed them if I do want to get some of the color off I just put them in some bleach and it just kind of bleaches the color so I'm gonna pop my movie on I'm gonna get all of these cleaned and then I will show you how to clean the mat quickly and then sharpen the scissors I'm gonna do the mat in a minute I'm just gonna move all this off but you can see just how nice the blocks come up nice and shiny no stickiness at all and they take everything off you know stays on your versa mark even like those sticky very thick metallic inks I've used those those have been on it just everything comes off so you know it's a you know relatively inexpensive and it does last a long time I only kind of kind of topped up this a few times with just a very small amount so you you know it does last a very long time so that's the blocks all done and all the scissors are done but we're gonna sharpen them actually I'll quickly do it now while they're all on my desk with me because and then I can put away and clean them at last but basically all you do with this I get my long ones again because it's probably easier to show you with these so depending on what you've got some are just scissor ones some are just knife ones but you see there's a little symbol of a pair of scissors and then there's your knife so you just want to follow this the shape of that with your scissors so if I open these ones up here so you can see there where you've got the blade kind of you know on an angle you want to sit that in so it's within that section there obviously do take care with this you hold it there and then the the blade if you do kind of flip it off and it slips it will hit onto this so it won't hit onto you okay so that's yours like safety piece there but you just start right from the inside there and just and you can hear it like so I mean it's up to you how many you do you basically just you know shaving off some of that metal so you just you know so that a nice new bit kind of appears so if I go around to this one here what's that about five or six times and then again you can do a test on it a scrap here lovely lovely nice sharp scissors perfect so that's that's it that's all I do so those ones I can pop back and again just get your next ones and these don't really need it so I'm not going to go over it too much but I've got my fabric scissors there which I've used on paper so I'd always recommend that if you've used them on paper sharpen them again and then put them back with your fabric because yeah you just don't want to be mixing your scissors really your fabric scissors and stuff because it does paper will blunt you know very quickly so you can also use you know just cut some rip off some sheets of foil kitchen foil and and do that it does kind of work I don't I wouldn't say you get as good a result as you would with using proper you know sharpening blade there but again I always like to just check yeah nice and sharp no like feathering no fluffiness yeah really nice so I'm gonna quickly go through and do this pop my rulers away clear all this up and then we're just clean this mat to finish okay so now I'm just gonna clean my mat so I've just got I don't know how well you can see about those sticky marks there here here here it's a lot of it you can't probably see on camera but I can feel it so like I said you can pull this on or you can just you know saturate your cloth a little bit more but I'm just gonna probably end up well no I probably won't use all this actually but just kind of just let it kind of get into the the glue because that's what is mainly really on here I've got a little bit of stain in from some of my inks and stuff this mat's a little bit warped so it's kind of running off a little bit there I'll just kind of bring that back in a bit but just kind of dab it on some areas and just leave it for no not long just like you know a minute or so just so it can actually you know do its thing with all that stickiness and then you just want to rub it a little bit and that's it and it really does bring your mat up lovely and clean I mean I do look after my mats so I've even got my older ones the green ones that I've used in old tutorials and things like that and I do I prefer a self-healing mat to a glass mat I've got a thing about glass mats even in the kitchen I don't like them I don't like cutting on a glass mat you know with that using a cutting blade and then I just it's kind of like when you rub cotton wool together it kind of yeah it just goes through me so that's why I don't like them I know loads of you do love them and that's great you know it's all about finding things that work for you and what you enjoy so but I do prefer a self-healing mat and yeah so that's why I've got them some people do ask and they say you know do you recommend a glass mat or I recommend both because they're both very good but for me personally it's more of a I just don't like the feel of it I don't like working on something so hard this is great because it's I can hammer on this when I'm making mini albums I can cut into it and you know self-healing so the the cuts just kind of you know disappear again I can flip this over this is the Arteza ones it's got inches on both sides so what I do is I do rotate it so I'll clean this all up in fact I might flip it after this one so I think I flipped it maybe about three or four weeks ago and it just yeah it just getting even where then and it just lasts a bit longer and I really like this one so yeah so I've just left that kind of sitting there while I've just been chatting and whilst it's still very wet there there's some glue and it's just comes straight off and yeah it just goes to like mush it almost goes back to a glue form again and then the you know the surgical spirit just breaks it all down and yeah just comes right up so I'm just gonna go now and give this good clean carry on watching my movie okay so that's my metal clean I did flip it as well and give it a wipe on the other side I also went over and just wiped my bone folders this one never gets anything on them anyway but that one was a little bit dirty so just wipe that and you can do anything I've got my IKEA pegboard in front of me so I just go and wipe all like the bottoms of the little kind of holders that I've got all like pens and glues and stuffing because sometimes things catch on that and your crocodile handles all that kind of stuff you can just yeah wipe over anything really it's a good way just to give everything a clean I'm gonna wipe the rest I'm gonna wipe the rest of my desk as well I've got some stamps that I need to just give a quick clean and yeah that's what I do so I do that maybe every six to six weeks two months it's just good to kind of keep on top of everything and yeah you that way your tools last you know I've got those most of those scissors I mean these fabric ones I've had for years those snips I've had a long time but you know they're good they still work but just you know even just giving them a little sharp and just prolongs it a bit longer after time I guess they're just eventually not going to be as great as they were and then I would say that's when you've got a you know buy another pair but these are just every time I do it I'm like right I will not use these to cut anything with glue on but unfortunately it does happen but now they're just they're lovely again so it's nice everything's so clean again and now I'm gonna think what shall I go and make so I hope you'd like this quick video just to kind of give you a few hints and tips on you know how to clean stuff and what I do I'm sure many of you have got other great ideas as well pop them in the comments below because I know others like to read them and yeah thank you for watching I'll be back again soon bye