 Hi everyone. Welcome to Espresso Press Design. I hope you're all having a great day. Mary here. Let me get seated. Today I'm going to do a little project that got pretty well received in one of my groups. And that was basically a salvage operation and a save. And I made, let me get a variety here. I made these little embellishments. Move closer. Made these little embellishments from my fails from the last project. And then I realized I had another stack to do. I showed them in another video. Those were the inking and the embossing that just didn't turn out very well. So I cut them all out of the cord base size and jessode acrylic on top and then inked and then that was how they turned out. And I kind of got the inspiration from a couple places. One was in a group of like doing some whimsical acrylic type flowers where you just kind of like swirl the paint and the gesso and make a little rose from craft emporium. I think it's, or no mixed media emporium. And then the stamping the text on top came from another photo. So I thought we would do that. And I'm still, I'm still in housekeeping mode. Really I am. I swear 90% of paper crafting is housekeeping. So what I was planning on doing was my one, my, was my gatherings inspiration from those polymer clay. And I did do it kind of like a masterboard. But they are just too time-consuming for a mass make. And I started them. They're not finished. I have to add the final details. Gloss them. So I'm just going to turn that into a blog post with photos. And I did finally quit being lazy and cut out all these little die shapes. And I wanted to probably shake the camera a little bit here. I wanted to show you my box bag that I got ready to go out the door. More things will be added to it. You know, I went through my paper packs. I got the paper that I liked. Decided to leave the paper packed intact. My Tim Holtz, some punches, this little, you know, ones I showed you. I didn't want to cut out what I wanted. So all that, as soon as that bag gets full, it will be going out. So then another housekeeping chore I had to tackle. This little box, which was getting full, you know, I put these behind labels, behind words, make fishtails. If I need a tiny little border, whatever, those tiny little pieces go in there. And it was getting way too full. So I had to tackle that. And I kind of got an idea from Gail Augustinelli, who always does a lot of collaging, which I do too. And then I make my papers. But I usually don't cut them out. I usually save them. And then I scan them. There's another one. And then I make my own paper that way. I always have it. I can put it in a product, collect enough of them that look similar in town or whatever, add them to a kit, whatever. And yes, you can do this. You're not violating any copyright because you're creating something new and it is not representative of what the original product was or intended to be. Because you've created something new. And if every mixed media or whatever person got taken to court for copyright violation, there would not be any mixed media projects in museums. So no, creating something entirely new is not a copyright violation. No one owns a line. So what you'll need for this is any shape you want, circles, squares, whatever, and some gesso and whatever colors you prefer. Since I already have a lot of pale colors, the only one I don't really have is lilac, violet, whatever. And I want a neutral. I want more neutral. And then you'll need some kind of a text stamp to go on top. So let me get my gesso here. And then I will be, oh okay, I forgot something, sorry. As I was going through my little box, I decided to, I usually sort things out, grabbed a handful, sorted them out by color. And then when I sit down to do things like this, it makes it a lot easier. Okay, let me get my my trusty plate and to save time I just have another little palette to put my gesso on. And I probably shouldn't save the talking while I'm waiting for the gesso to dry. Those two are probably going to get mixed because I don't really want brown, more of a neutral. And this gesso, I can't even tell you how old it is. It's still good. Probably, you know, I don't paint with acrylics anymore hardly. It's probably 15 years old. Let me get my tray here so you can see. So the first step was covering everything with gesso. And I don't know how much the ink is going to show up on the edges of this blue one, but you might have to use black. So this side, oops, that was a little too much. Wipe off your finger so you try to preserve the texture. This is, I mean, they all come out different, but I really, some of those kind of looked French to me, just the blend of colors. And I don't know if you've ever seen those journals by Moonside Parlor, but she often combines those, like those green ones with a little bit of red in it that was left over from the ink. She often combines those types of colors. So that's kind of what reminded me of something French. And that one's kind of pretty, but, you know, it looks covering in any way. And then I'll probably use that paper in one or two of these, and I'll make a tag and end below for something with it so you can see what they look like on a finished project. So this one might end up looking kind of French because it has the green and the pink. It's way too much gesso. But yeah, I swear if you don't keep up with stuff, you end up having to do a week or two of housekeeping and then see I cut all these little emboss. I'll use those for something. I don't know why yet, but it's a curse. I keep everything and it's probably a bad habit. And actually I've gotten to wear like these to keep even this stuff to punch out tiny flowers, tiny leaves, whatever with a punch. And I don't even do that anymore because I have 10 million tiny flowers that have to be put together. Well, that's pretty. That's going to be pretty. This one's going to be different. It's like a box of chocolates. Never knew what you're going to get. That's half the fun, I guess, also with creating those collage sheets. It's half the fun turning them over and cutting them apart and seeing what you end up with. Background on that one. Keep it neutral. Okay. I think that's almost the end of my little stack. Hopefully the gesso is dry. Okay, maybe I should have. And then I said, you know, if I didn't like save number two, they could always get metallic. And I know I would use those, so I just couldn't see the point of throwing them all away after I did all that work of embossing and eye-cutting. Okay, what color can this one be? Oh boy, should I go for, it's pretty purple. Let's see what happens. So it just swirled in the middle, started in the middle and worked my way out. Then I've got too dark because I really wanted to keep pale colors. I added more gesso. All that dried pretty fast. It's kind of similar to the metallic ones. Just kind of smear and smudge and get what you get. Probably look nice as a purple. So other than doing a lot of housekeeping, I haven't started anything major. I think I'm gonna move on to neutral. I'm wiping my fingers between every color. Let's see what. I don't want brown. I just want tan. Even though I like those colors, I know in the end, I'm probably gonna end up needing some neutral and this is pretty with the gray. So that might end up needing a little more gesso. Some of them I put text on, some of them I didn't because I just thought why or do it keeps them all different. I need a little more gesso on the edges. We'll see. I don't even think I really needed any more pink ones. I'm gonna be brave and a little purple on that too. That happens. That looks vintage but it's a different kind of vintage that's for sure. Wait a minute, I don't want to make a mess. Stick with tan for this one. I hope you can see. These also kind of look like a, you know, an old faded sign. I think they're very pretty. I'm glad I was able to salvage them. So I'm just very happy to be back here instead of fixing all my computer problems. I didn't have time to tell you that I've been through how many two operating systems in three weeks. Well actually one, two ahead, the old one, well no actually it's three. Two ahead, one back, and my original. So that's three operating systems. So I think I'm going to just add a touch more gesso to the edge of these so I can touch the text. Just a couple of them. Nice under there. The rest are light enough. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to text these colored base ones. I don't think it's gonna show up. I don't even think I did that one. I think I missed it. Or no it's just so tan it didn't show up. We do a dare go over that with purple. I don't think so. That was just gonna, you know it. Tried brown. Now I mixed my gesso with my paint. Okay. Gesso in this space right there. Good enough. How long are we? 26 minutes. Okay. Let me move that out of harm's way. Namely me. Okay. Going to choose a tiny font. Pretty sure I use this one. I don't have a block to fit it. So that's another thing on my list. The things I should have spent money on I didn't. And the things I shouldn't have I did. Let me make sure it's dry enough. So then I just took a tiny bit of music states on and then just stamped somewhere in the shape. Make sure they're dry. It's quite pretty. Okay. I'm going to see and get some text. I know I got a blob. It's okay. It's all great. It shows up better on the white. That one's not dry yet. That's very pretty. It's very pretty. And you know I still have, well I have to do my nails for one thing. Not polish but trim. I still have alcohol ink on my fingernail. Not dry. Fruit. I swear. Two. Two weeks. And it still has it my way. Forget what I had the alcohol ink out for. But in the end it created such a, I love alcohol ink but whoops whoops whoops don't do that. Some of my bottles have never been opened. In the minute you stick a pen in it to open it, it squirts out all over your hand. You get some text on that. It's a little too purple for me. That's pretty. Okay. This one dry. Yep. Probably better. Keep the text on the white side. There we go. It's pretty. And finally I think I'm gonna add text to all of them just because it appears to be working even on the purple. And normally I don't even cover that much. Okay. Do I have any left? Nope. Clean this off. I'll see that didn't take too long. And that was a successful save of a failed idea. My hands here a little bit. Put this away. So I really, I really planned on doing these ones but I'll include those in pictures in a blog post and I'm sure you'll figure it out if you want to try. But that was not, I don't feel any type of, it's too time consuming and while it's worth it for me because that is my plan to make all my own embellishments in ephemera. Because I really don't like to store bought ephemera. I mean aside from like flowers or something. You know, dimensional flowers and charms, metal charms, things like that. I just don't like it. And even though I see tons of really cute projects from people who cut by all that and cut it out of their paper packs or whatever, usually they're just too bright for me. And I don't like the white edges and I don't, I just prefer making my own. So when I realize look at all that money, I wait while money. Usually I bought that kind of stuff on clearance or whatever or from the Dollar Tree. But look at all that money I spent and I could have, I could have been making my own and been much happier in the process. Well, I'm just gonna leave these on here because chances are good they will be going on another. Save your, you should recycle, repurpose, reuse, idea. Okay, there we go. I hope you like that. Let me get out a few of the older ones. There's some pink. There's a mix. That was on a quilt card. Take a picture of this for the photo where my bank card go. That one's very pretty. That's what the one I mean. That one's kind of French to me. There's my heart. See if I have another blue. I also did blue. Oh, you know what? I forgot to ink around the edges. So these ones are, I don't, I don't think they're going to get blue. They're probably going to get some brown or gray. But these ones I use broken china. So rather than get all that out again, I'll just do it after and you choose whatever color ink. You know, yours are going to be different because you're going to choose your own colors anyway. So you choose whatever ink you want to ink the edges or even just go around the edges with some metallic. That would be pretty. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this one. It's just say, as I said, I'm just house cleaning. I still have some more inspired by jewelry pieces to make. I think I'm going to move on. And this is, this is them, which I kind of wanted it to be like, now my mind is going to go blank. Yeah, it's totally blank. The jewelry with the figure, figure hat in it. Oh, what's it called? My mind is totally blank. It always goes blank on camera. Always. Does it start with a C? You know what I mean? With the lady's head and then the background is like coral or something. I forget. But that's what my next inspiration was. And I'm just going to die cut these and then make a metal frame. And that will be my last jewelry inspiration for these gathering posts, including with these ones. And I'll put those in separate, separate blow purse. But when I move on to the next in the series, it will be something different than, than embossing and acrylic and paint and gesso, because I want to put that away. It's too, I don't do that very often. I want to go back to paper and glue. I don't do, I don't pull out gesso or acrylic or anything like that very often. So okay, this is getting too long, but I just wanted to catch you up on all these inspirational things and the saves. And with that, I am just in the middle of changing my focus and house cleaning before I move on to anything major. Okay, have a great day, everyone. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for stopping by. I'll see you next time. Bye.