Stamping/Painting on the Go!

In preparing for my National Scrapbook Day crops earlier this month, I had a little bit of a wrench thrown into my preparations.  My mother called and asked me to accompany her and my dad to a day-long test at the hospital.  (By the way, my Dad is doing just fine but I appreciate everyone's concerns over the past few months...he is listening to doctors' orders which is the best outcome possible for him!)

I had quite a bit of work still to do to complete the layouts and cards I was teaching at NSD, from doing some watercolor painting on the new PML cards to finishing the stamped embellishments for layouts and cards.  I need a way I could "take my show on the road" to the hospital and/or Mom and Pop's house since I did not know how long I would be out of town.

As usual, Close to My Heart organizers came to my rescue.  I used my tote bag, with trimmer and the Happy Times paper pack, and needed to bring everything else with me to finish my work.  Here is how I did it.

Here are two photos of my Small Organizer, you can see there is quite a bit of stuff in there....right on top is a tear sheet which is great to use as a sort of placemat when working.  There is a grid for measuring RIGHT ON the tear sheet so that is a huge PLUS! Some of the stamped embellishments required second generation stamping so it was handy to have the tear sheet for that purpose as well.   I also had some paper towels in there to help with cleaning up and wiping my paintbrushes.

In addition to the tear sheet and paper towels, I had three stamp sets with me: Happy Times (of course), April 2016 SOTM and May 2016 SOTM.  There were also a few pieces of scrap paper so that I could do "selective" stamping.  Some gals cut their stamps apart but that is not my style.  I needed to cover up portions of a title for one of my cards so that it would be in different colored inks.  If you aren't sure what I am talking about, ask me at an upcoming workshop and I will happily demonstrate this for you.  (There will also be some selective stamping on one of the Calypso cards if you are attending that event!)

You can clearly see the three stamp sets now, and the scrap paper and also five colors of ink came along for the ride: Pomegranate, Fern, Smoothie, Canary and Hollyhock!

Hiding underneath those stamp sets: my full set of watercolor paints and brushes (I hadn't yet started using our NEW water brushes....now that I have I AM A BELIEVER IN WATERCOLORING!!!), stamp scrubber, scissors and the ink.  Not pictured but also included would be my small spritz bottle with stamp cleaner.

Have blocks will travel...yes, I own the foam insert and have it filled with all the blocks...this photo shows everything that fit into small organizer (again, I forgot to add the spritz cleaner to the photos)! So handy and a great way for me to pack if I am cropping elsewhere and plan to work on a specific project.

If you have questions on how I did this, why I did this or about any of these Close to My Heart products, just shoot me an email, post a question on Facebook or check out my website: www.mariapoole.ctmh.com!