She's Leaving Home

Have you ever been to a crop and realised that you packed more than you need? Perhaps a lot more? Have you looked at your fellow crafters and noticed one has a kitchen sink with her? One more question.. have you, like all of us, discovered that as you leave you take with you bags that were never even opened while you were there? Me too, but no longer!

These days I pack light and I get more done and like my layouts just as much, if not more. I have culled and culled and now I am really happy with what I bring with my to crop away from my desk. I use everything that I bring and it fits in a ziploc sandwish bag (no, I’m not talking about the huge ones, the regular ones like my kid takes to school!).

“Gasp! Shock and Horror” I hear you think, “but WHAT IF YOU NEED SOMETHING ELSE?”. Well we can talk about that in a moment, but first I will tell you about what makes my minimalistic travel kit.

This includes (more details about these below)
1. Scissors
2. Pens (Black, Slick, Glue)
3. Generic pattern Stamp
4. Ink (Chalk and Dye)
5. Date / Phrase stamp
6. Washi and Flair
7. Adhesive
8. Acrylic Block
9. Pop dots

First a couple more photos so you can see what it includes:

1. Scissors I use the Cutterbee non-stick scissors here, so that I can cut paper, stickers, ribbons, etc. A very versatile fine point pair of scissors. I do NOT cut really tough things with these (chipboard, wire, etc) I would use my Tim Holtz scissors for that, they are die-hard, but they are bigger to carry, so they stay home. While out and about, I skip cutting those tougher things.

2. Pens
I bring three pens with me, one is a journalling pen (in this case a Micron .03 black marker). This is my standard go-to for journalling, and I cycle through a few options with this, including the precision pens by American Crafts, Journalling markers by Stampin up, Sharpie fine point markers and Copic journalling pens. I haven’t fallen in love with any of these and switch it up as each needs replacing. Probably the Micron or Copics are my favourites, but mostly I like to have variety.

The next is a slick marker by American Crafts, I love that these write on everything without smudging, including glossy photos, glossy products (like coated chipboard) and specialty papers like vellum or acetate.

The last is a Martha Glue pen, I have also used the ZIG pens in the past. This is a recent addition to my kit, I’m using it to adhere smaller items like little wood veneers or really narrow peices of paper, it is nice to have a wet glue option as an alternative in a convenient size. I’ll keep an eye on this one, though, because if it doesnt see much use, I’ll take it out.

Though not included today, I often bring an aquash brush as well, which is a paint brush filled with water. They are a very useful inclusion, you can paint with inks, watercolours or even acrylics with them, or just use the water to add some texture to your patterned paper. You can use the water to clean things too, in a tight spot..

3. Generic pattern Stamp
This is a Sodalicious wood handled stamp that I started including because it has such a simple and reusable pattern, that would often fill a small gap or weird space on a layout. It is a repeatable design both vertically and horizontally, so it is easy to fill different types of gaps. When you finish a layout, sometimes you look at it and need just a bit of extra colour, or there is some trapped white space between two elements, or perhaps it looks a bit unbalanced, and needs a little something at one edge. This stamp is the kind of generic pattern that could be used for that. You can find plenty of stamps that would fir this, I used to have another sodalicious one before this with an arrow / chevron pattern, and swapped them recently just for a change. An acrylic stamp could work too, but the wood handled rubber stamp is less likely to get damaged when packaged with other hard objects, and doesnt need any extra packaging around it that could then get lost..

4. Ink (Chalk and Dye)
I bring 2 kinds of mini ink pads with me. I will point out at this point that I find stamping to be a great way to meet a number of my needs when I make a page, I don’t stamp on every page, but I do find it a very versatile and flexible option.

The first is my mini Memento dew drop ink pad. This crisp black inkpad is a great ink for stamping with clear or rubber stamps. The small size seems to work just as well as the larger one, and I have never needed to re-ink it though I have used it for some time. I am sure I will need to eventually, but it is a great little inkpad. I have used Black dye inkpads made by Memento, Versafine, Stampin up, Stazon, Distress, Jenni Bowlin and the Ranger, all are excellent and have different properties. I will blog a review and comparison of them in a future post. I chose the Memento in this case for the entirely practical reason – it was the only one I had in a conveniently small size. I received this one in a card kit from Simon Says Stamps (excellent kits if you are a card maker, by the way), otherwise I have full size inkpads of other brands.

I like to ink my edges, and my usual choices at my desk would be brown or black distress ink, while I am scrapbooking on the go, I use a Prima Chalk ink, in the colour “old road” which is a greyish / brownish colour. It is less distinct than my usual choices, which means it can be substituted for both brown and black pages. Because it is a chalk ink, I can easily apply the mini ink pad direct to paper.

You can see I seal the ink with washi tape, the lid is not bad, but it is much more secure with washi tape holding it on. This is an example of how I use washi everywhere, all the time. You see a predecesor of the current washi in my travel kit. My motto is – if in doubt, put washi on it. (or put a bird on it, or BIRD WASHI! LOL I think I’m funny, sorry everyone who doesnt think so hehe)

To give you a little insight into how my travel packing is more minimal than my regular scrapping, I took this picture, At my desk I like to keep two foam applicators, one for each main colour (I distinguish them with the washi to make life easier), and keep them both out on the desk at all times. I really like the blendability of the distress ink pads and use them exclusively for edging my paper or embellishments (as needed). I’ll note at this point, that I dont use these inks for stamping, as they do not make a crisp impression with clear stamps, so I have additional ink pads for that too.

The trick when you scrap away form your desk is to be flexible and use what works and also travels well. The Prima ink is a smokey inbetween colour that doesnt clash with either the brown or the black layouts and is 10% of the size of my usual option. It will be good enough.

5. Date / Phrase stamp
This is one that swaps out, both for other date stamps and for other options too. At the moment I am really enjoying Project life, and I love the cute phrases that a lot of these stamps have. Once I have one of the new roller stamps that are only phrases, I suspect that might replace the date stamp in this travel kit, as I often date my layouts only by month and not by date (mostly because I am too lazy to look it up while scrapbooking, and I don’t think it will matter in one or in 10 years whether it was 21st May 2013 or 12th May 2013). At times this has been replaced with other fun new trends like enamel dots or an alphabet stamp I am loving. What’s that thing you want to use on every layout this week? That’s what I’m talking about here.

This particular date stamp is one of my favourites because the words are quirky, but relateable (“one for the books”, “kind of a big deal”, “quoted” or “epic”), some useful basic ones (documented, photographed on, instagrammed) and it has a few non-word options, like an arrows, dots and stars

6. Washi and Flair
I like to keep at least one roll of washi in there, with a colour I use a lot and a really basic pattern. At the moment I have an aqua dot by bella blvd and a yellow and pink stripe by freckled fawn. These often get used as tape to hold something together or label something or other mundane uses as much as for the layouts. Super useful and super cute. I will often swap these out for others, but try to keep them as versatile choices, so that whatever other kit I have, they would probably match. I love aqua, pink and red, and at the moment it seems I am using a lot of gold and goldish tones, so these 2 fit the bill.

You can see one lone flair badge next to the washi, sometimes there are more sometimes less. If I happen to have one or two at the end of a kit, I might pop them in (not the ones that already have adhesive, that could end badly), other small random embellishment have been known to sneak in here, the ones I really like and want to use on a layout. This one is really neutral and will match almost anything, and just add a bit of punch. It is small and unobtrusive and will get used very soon.

7. Adhesive
I keep one roller adhesive in the bag, depending on where and how long I am going somewhere, I might also bring some refills for the adhesive. I use a few different brands of roller adhesive, my favourites for travel are Tombow and American Crafts DOT roller (I dont like the solid / stripes as much). At home I use the ATG for anything that is outside the page protector as it is a stronger adhesive, however it also makes it harder to change your mind after you stick it down. I have also used other gun adhesives and find them to be quite good, but the adhesive is more like the small rollers, but seems to be more expensive? I want to buy the best value, so the stuff that works, but no more expensive than necessary. I dont get really cheap stuff because I don’t want my things to fall apart. I used to use a lot of double sided tape, I switched to rollers for 2 reasons, the main was that it is just so much more convenient, basically I want scrapbooking to be fun and this made it much more fun, and secondly because it is heaps faster, I think I spent half my time taking the backing off the tape until my nails started to bleed, it was seriously unpleasant. I have no regrets on that increase in expenditure!

8. Acrylic Block
I use this mostly to put stamps on, obviously, but sometimes for other things, like scribbling with a friends marker to use just a bit of colour like a watercolour palette  I have also used it as a straight edge in lieu of having a ruler, as well as using it to line things up with the corner. IT is a fairly small item to bring, but very useful.

9. Pop dots
This is another one that might depend a bit on your style, I like to have some pop dots to add dimension, my favourite are these Stampin up ones, as they are not very thick, so you could add two or even three without it becoming cumbersome, and have multiple heights on the page. They are also easy to cut in half for smaller items.

Trimmer
In addition to the above I have a smaller sized Fiskars trimmer than I bought quite recently at Spotlight on special. I am not 100% sold on this one as I find it harder to measure on than my usual one, which goes out to 6.5inches before I need to swing out the arm, but it is certainly smaller and lighter to put in my bag, so I guess it is a good compromise option. I am using the titanium blade, and despite some criticism on forums, I have found them vastly superior to the older blades, I change my blade a LOT less often than I used to. If I think it is getting older though I would toss a spare in my travel kit.

That, dear readers, is the end of my basic “travel” kit. Sometimes it only travels as far as the dining table, computer desk, front yard outdoor table or even the couch. Most weeks it travels to work with me, and sometimes to a friends place for a crop. That is pretty much all I bring, along with a pre-packed kit (post about kitting supplies to come). The thing these places have in common is that I dont need everything I own to be right next to me. It is not just me and my travel kit, perhaps my whole stash is not far, or a friend’s stash is nearby (who is happy to share tools and other things you won’t use up too quickly like ink, paint, etc). OR I only have a short time, so I wont be doing anything too complicated and techniquey anyway (eg work or out and about) OR I can’t get too engrossed in messy and complicated because I am watching the kids play at the same time OR I have limited space and so there is no point bringing everything (think cafe table, on transport, etc). My travel kit is sufficient for my needs in these cases.

This is getting pretty long, dear reader, so come back tomorrow for Beyond the sandwich and what about the “what ifs”? where we can chat about scrapbooking in other situations with the travel kit, bringing a few extra fun things and when that is a good idea, and what to do if you don’t have that one item you suddenly want. See you tomorrow!