Frugal Scrapper Extraordinaire:)

For those of you who have been following my blog, THANK YOU, I'm still here and as FRUGAL as ever. I'm just expanding my blog title to further reflect my "altered" muse. I'm still the same (sometimes goofy) FRUGAL SCRAPPER that I've always been and will continue to focus on FRUGAL papercrafting projects:)

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Frugally homemade Distress ink tools...

When I first became a HUGE fan of T!m Holtz, I tried a few of my "frugal" tricks including making my own distress ink tools so I could spend more of my hard earned $$ on the inks themselves.

Since there has been alot of discussion on this subject over on the ATT (All things Tim) yahoo group, I thought I'd share a few pics of my version of this tool.

I started with the regular round disk cosmetic sponges, a sheet of fun foam, some velcro (from a fabric/craft store), and some good liquid glue (I used 3 in 1 Beacon glue).  I used 2" square blocks as the base for my tool.  I found these at a scrapbooking garage sale and picked up a set of 9 for only $2.

As you can see, this "distressing tool" has gotten alot of use (notice the ink that seeped up the sides?).  I glued a piece of fun foam trimmed down to size, then attached the "tooth" side of the velcro (this had a self adhesive backing, and I did make sure to buy the heavy duty velcro).  I then cut the other side of the velcro down to size and attached it to one side of a cosmetic foam.  Then I trimmed the cosmetic sponge to square, too.

I do have to say that the cosmetic sponges aren't quite as good as the TH distressing pads, but hey, when you can get a bag of 100 of these cosmetic sponges for under $5, I'm good with the lesser quality.

These sponges do work for a while, and I noticed when they were "done", I could just pull them off of the velcro backing and glue another sponge on the velcro using the 3 in 1 Beacon glue (fabric tac would also work).


I even got creative and thought I'd decorate my homemade distress ink tools...but the novelty quickly wore off, lol...


Now that I teach "Tim" classes via my Frugal Scrappin' classes, I have "graduated" to the official distress tools, but I still use my homemade tools as well.  I have found that my homemade tools AND the Tim tools play very well together, lol...

You may notice that I have also labeled my distress tools AND distress inks...this has REALLY been a LIFESAVER and TIMESAVER for me.  I just used a plain white sticker page (with no individual labels) and typed a list using the "table" function in Word.  Then I could cut the strips to size.  I have just about enough "tools" to have one for each color of my distress inks.

enJOY:)

5 comments:

Girlsinthecraft said...

I just love this. Need to make some of my own. And, over on the Ranger blog they have a document that you can download to print all the distress ink colors' name out onto address labels for the pads. Will work perfectly for this. Saves all the manual typing. Thanks for sharing this tip!

inge said...

Hello,

thanks for sharing this tip on your blog.
I don't have the "official" Tim stuff cause I do want to save my money too for the inks etc !

greetings from belgium
Inge

Terri said...

You are one clever chook!
Hope you get a chance to play will all your Tim goodies (post below) real soon

Karen said...

These are great. I would love the tools and holder - might treat myself when my craft area is finished - but also love your quirky fun home-made versions. Very inventive!
I have my pads labelled but also rub a bit of colour on them: I find it even faster to reach for the one I want :)

Gloria Stengel said...

I use the sponges but need some wood blocks! Maybe when I unmout all of my stamps.... brahahaaaaaa! Great frugal tip!