Wednesday 1 October 2008

Eight Great Products

I've decided to make like a poor person in the interests of my trip that's coming up in about 5 weeks now. However, this has made me even more excited about all the wonderful crafting equipment that's out there. Here's a summary:

Eight Great Products I'd Like to Get my Hands On


1. Padding Compound - This is the stuff that's used to glue notepads together. All you have to do is clamp some pages together, paint it along the edge and Voila!, you've made your very own note pad. For a compulsive list maker and increasingly enthusiastic re-user like me, it would be very handy. You could probably apply it to lots of other craft projects as well.

2. Diamond Glaze - It's a varnish that pours on thick, like a layer of resin, and it can be used on bottle caps, fridge magnets, paper, fabric, just about anything. You just pour it on, without the time consuming mess, faffing around with moulds and noxious fumes of resin. Well, probably not quite as many noxious fumes, relatively speaking.

3. Gel Medium - This medium is used with acrylic paints to change their properties. It can slow down the drying time and other stuff. I found out from the interwubs (bless it!) that you can also use it to transfer images. Paint it on the image, lay it on down face down onto your surface, and rub hard. Peel the paper off and whammo! The image is now on something else! I know this one is freely available, and less than a 15-minute walk away too, it's just that I don't think my credit card can take much more of a beating right now. But I want it!

4. Glitter - Oh sure, it's readily available in Australia, but have you seen how expensive it is? Why is that?? I wonder if I can make my own.... hmmm....

5. Temporary Marker - It's a fabric marking pen that magically disappears 48 hours after it's applied. How wondrous! I really need that cos I tend to go a bit overboard with the dressmaker's chalk and everything ends up with orange marks on it. You'd want to make sure you can finish your project in one go though. Often that's not possible for me!

6. Double-Sided Interfacing - I'm not sure what the official name for this stuff, but it's iron-on interfacing that's sticky on both sides. You'd think it would be easy to get a hold of, but no. The fact that Spotlight doesn't label anything properly and when it does, it doesn't specify one side or both, makes it quite difficult. Grrrr! (*busts a vein*) Boy and I were there just last Sunday, and we had a very stimulating conversation about why less people are shopping at big chain craft stores and how shopping online is much easier and more convenient. On that particular occasion, I would have much rather have spent a little extra on postage than spend money on petrol and parking, waste time wandering around the shop to find what I was looking for, paw through heavy bolts of fabric that were improperly labelled, spend more time in line waiting to pay, and finally leave with only one of the three things I was looking for.
Okay, rant over now!

7. Stencil Set - I never thought I'd hear myself saying that I want a tool that's used in quilting, but there you go! I can't for the life of me cut fabric into even squares or rectangles. They always end up looking really hinky and thus the end product does also! I'd really love one that can do circles and ovals of different sizes for both fabric and paper projects. There are times when I want my work to look handmade not homemade - and trust me there is a difference! I don't mind if a sewn fabric pouch that I'm just using myself is a little wonky, but if I'm putting them out there for public perusal, I don't want them to be too embarrassing. Not that I would try and sell pouches anyway, probably. There's about 3 trillion of them on Etsy already anyway. It must be a Thing. Anyway, I digress.

8. A photocopier - Colour, of course! Well, a girl can dream, can't she?

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