A Metal Stamp Storage Tip and New Cutters

I'm a beginner at metal stamping. And I'm not rich. So when I bought my stamp set, they came in a nice red case, but the stamps get out of order easily. I needed a stamp holder.

Like this one:

But with shipping, the holder would cost more than my metal stamps! And then there's the wait and well, sometimes, I'm not very patient.

So, I went to Michaels. And for less than $5 (I want to say only $2, but I'm not sure), I purchased a square piece of floral foam and...

Made it look like a porcupine! :P I could have measured our the foam and made the stamps all equidistant and pretty in the foam but.. eh... I'm lazy. The container for the stamps was square so I bought square foam and eyeballed it. Works great!

I was ready to stamp... But first...

How on earth was I to cut this flat wire???

My regular snippers were to small and my other cutters... well, I once used them to cut memory wire and they haven't forgiven me since. So. For Rod and my anniversary, I asked for a pair of cutters. We went to Lowe's and looked around. I couldn't remember the gauge of my flat wire and all I remember reading about with cutters was to get something called "heavy duty wire cutters."

Well, let me tell you. Couldn't find anything that said "heavy duty wire cutters." So. Well. We bought a $9 pair of bolt cutters. I figured, hey, if it can cut through a friggin' BOLT, it can cut through some flat wire.

Look at the size of these things! 8 inch bolt cutters. Could have gotten the 14 inch version for like $3 more but I decided against it.

And they work great. Of course, you still have to file down the edges, but what was I expecting? Magic cutters? For the price, this thing is pretty magical, let me tell you.

Now, I need something to make holes. I have a coupon for Hobby Lobby and I think their hole punch thingy is only $7.99... maybe $9.99. Michaels has theirs for over $20 now. So I will be heading over to Hobby Lobby sometime this week. I'm very excited. It's coming together... slowly, but surely.

Happy Monday, all!

Korean BBQ and Metal Stamps

Did you know I have a little sister? Well, not really little anymore... or even that much younger than I am (we're a year and a half apart), but she's the baby of the fambam. She's the one who calls me "Ahtee."

My Kuya John, Michelle (the baby sister) in blue, and that's me in back. Oh. and the little guy? That's Kai. This was in Hawaii almost 5 years ago.

We have our ups and downs... a lot of downs lately but we're trying. Anyway, she came to visit me yesterday.

We had Korean BBQ. So. Good. Expensive but when do we ever get to hang out like we used to? There was a book store trip and a Hobby Lobby exploration as well. I had a good time and she said she did too so a successful visit, I think.


Speaking of Hobby Lobby...

Remember when I bought these?

I looked up "metal stamping" on youtube the day after I bought these stamps and found some videos by Lisa Niven Kelly that explained the basics of stamping. I also picked up Lisa's book at the library (goodness, libraries are a book lover's best friend when they're broke)... I just need to read it :P

But I'm still missing tools (like a torch for annealing or something to darken letters). So, when I decided to give it a go, I really didn't see results that made me happy...

See! Or well... maybe you can't. Lol. Those two pieces of metal are supposed to say "AHTEE." On the brass square, you can (just barely) see how the last 'e' is up higher than the rest of the letters. Well, I didn't know that these stamps were going to come oiled and the stamp slipped. Oh, the frustration.

I thought maybe I needed to anneal the metal. I thought maybe my stamps were SO CHEAP they wouldn't stamp anything right. I thought I was a complete klutz and not meant to stamp metal.

I wrapped my stamps up in paper towels and let them sit on my desk for a while... intending to wait until I could afford a torch and try again...

But. You see. Today. My anvil was out on the table with the stamps and something clicked in my brain. Lisa says in one of the videos that she doesn't like anvils because they're higher up than a regular bench block and don't have a big enough surface area so when I tried out my new toys, I used my RUBBER bench block. Well, I whipped out the first letter I could find and tried out the anvil...

This picture shows the difference between the rubber bench block and my anvil. The letter came out cleaner! WOW! Then I moved the metal blank to the rubber bench block to try it again and sure enough, it did not work (see purple arrow... yes, the 'b' is on it's side :P).

Oh, the happiness I felt. I'm not a klutz! And the paper towels got rid of all the oil! And I don't need a torch right now! YAY! *happydance!*

By the way. My solution for the height of the anvil and small surface area?

Turn the anvil on it's side. YEP! Still not perfect letters but I'm getting better. For some reason, my hammer strikes have resulted in a deeper indentation at the bottom of the letter than the top. I'm going to try and work on that. Maybe tilt the stamps a little? I dunno yet.

Any new techniques you're working on right now?

PS. The metal blanks? From Michaels. YEP! MICHEALS. They've been getting a ton of new tools making it easier for people to get new tools to give techniques a try. I even saw a disc cutter for $50. When a good coupon comes out, I'm going to grab one. I'm lucky I have a Michaels, JoAnns, and Hobby Lobby all in one county. AND 3 or 4 bead stores I love. Happy girl.