biggest screw up

[Maryann]

Anybody want to list their worst experiment? I just tried to emboss with new white puff embossing powder on black cardstock I had tried to chlorox pen bleach - gahhhhh!!!!
We learn from our mistakes, right?!!!!!

[stampin stacy]

You mean those projects that we wad up and hide in the deepest darkest very secret hiding place so no one will ever see them, I've never had any of those.:noway:

If you don't experiment then new ideas aren't created and without new ideas art gets stale. :)

[Stampo]

When I was young and foolish and just starting stamping, I didn't realize that pigment ink had to be embossed and made a whole bunch of GREAT postcards that had a gold cat's face poking out through a gold background... by the time the post office delivered them, they were just smeared messes... I imagine that a lot of mail that touched it got some gold on it too not to mention postal fingers and machines!

[Daniel R.]

This is non-stamp, but... Back when I was doing lots of stuff with Styrofoam & microwave ovens, I put a whole bunch of pins in a styro ball [don't know why] & nuked it. It made sparks & burst into flame...:lol:

Decided to just stamp on styrofoam after that...:D

[jhitchin]

I think the dumbest thing I've ever done was trying to use a heat gun to heat embossing powder that didn't actually have any ink underneath it. It was silver embossing powder so of course, powder went EVERYWHERE and I had to scrape grains of it out of the cracks of my stamp desk for weeks after that.

Jeff

[inkieroo]

LOLROTFLOL I love these stories--how about when I did not think I needed a heat gun so I used Bob paint remover gun and the card caught on fire! Now that was fun!

[Inky Whiskers]

Mine aren't stamping related either, but my 2 biggest "oops, my bad" crafting moments are both candle making related.

1) After spending the afternoon melting down candle & crayon scraps I foolishly decided that the wax that had dripped into the foil lined burner pan in my apts. electric stove wasn't worth the hassle to clean up. The next day I went to make a grilled cheese sandwich for my son (he was about 4 at the time) and had totally forgotten about the spilt wax lurking below. At least until the drip pan caught fire! I removed the frying pan and turned the burner off then grabbed the fire extinguisher. No real damage done, but cleaning up the extinguisher powder took HOURS as it goes EVERYWHERE.

2) Again with the candle making, this time in my house about 10 years ago. It was about 11pm and I was melting wax to make some candles. I use forcepts to lift the hot cans as they USUALLY stay clamped until I release them, but as I was lifting a half full can of green wax out of the double boiler I must have bumped my arm or something and the can slipped out of the forcepts to drop to the floor. I suppose I should be thankful that the can landed flat on its bottom & not on its side, but the fountain of hot wax that splashed about a 5 foot diameter area of the floor was bad enough. I shrieked in frustration & started swearing a blue streak as I grabbed paper towels to start blotting up my mess. DH came down to see what all the noise was about & quickly backed away when I snarled at him. He sweetly asked if I wanted help (the man does have survival instincts) & gladly went back upstairs to get the blow dryer & spent the next couple of hours on hands & knees helping me melt & blot green wax off the white vinyl floor. Why didn't we just scrape it off? We'd been in our house for less than a year & didn't want to damage the new floors. :))

I've been VERY carefully when making candles since then!!! :noway:

[stampwilly]

I goofed just last week. I was making a clear card and used black Staz On ink that dried well of course on the acetate. I decided I wanted to add some color, so used my glitter markers on the butterfly. I kept the card opened to dry. Well, the glitter marker NEVER dried, so I ended up with spots of color on places I didn't want. I have come up with some other ideas, so I hope they work!:D

Stampwilly

[cmcveigh]

When I was [...] just starting stamping, I didn't realize that pigment ink had to be embossed

The EXACT same thing happened to me! I had no clue that pigment ink wouldn't dry without heat-setting and I didn't know anything about embossing. My very first stamp project was with Ranger's Platinum ink and black matte card stock. I sent it to my father as a birthday note. I believe to this day, it still smears!! Dang, that stuff is unreal. Quickly learned though.

The second biggest oops was after making a complicated acetate panel with multi colors of PearlEx brushed onto the back, putting framer's accent tape all around the inner panel, and carefully mitering the corners.... it was time to apply the multi-panels to the final card. I did. It was on upside down! Straight as hell.... but upside down on the wrong side of the card. DUH!! Good thing it was destined for my mother -- at least she would appreciate the error and understand.

[CatStamper]

I had no clue that pigment ink wouldn't dry without heat-setting and I didn't know anything about embossing.

I had something similar happen to me - stamped 50 Christmas cards with an Encore pad (a metallic pigment style ink that is *supposed* to dry on porous paper - says so right on the pad!). Knew they might take a while to dry so carefully propped up all 50 cards so that they could dry for a day or so. As I was stuffing them in envelopes after a while I noticed my fingers were turning metallic blue (the ink color I'd used), so I stopped and rechecked the cards - still smearing. :( Used the heat gun (no embossing powder, just trying to set the ink) on the remaining cards that I hadn't smeared yet and tried again. Still smearing. :( Finally gave up and restamped the whole lot from scratch but this time embossed the images. Argh! Now if I use pigment ink at all, I make sure to emboss it no matter what the pad says...

Kate

[Stampo]

Glad to hear I'm not the ony one with the pigment problem... now I'm from the dark ages before we had heat guns and embossing was done on a coffee warmer or upside down iron or over an electric burner trying not to burn youf fingers TOO much... then someone suggested a paint stripper and I rushed to Sears and got one... worked GREAT except it was MUCH hotter than a heat gun and you could easily scorch your cards... one time, I was making 56 Halloween cards that had popup steps and about eight figures embossed, colored and cut out for the steps... I got tired of turning the paint stripper on and off so just sat it running on the counter... suddenly I smelled burning paint and the thing had jiggled its way around to facing the wall and cupboards and stripped all the paint off and left a burn mark... duh...

[cmcveigh]

the thing had jiggled its way around to facing the wall and cupboards and stripped all the paint off and left a burn mark... duh...

Yeah, DUH!! for all of us who responded.... that is WAY worse than putting a card front on upside down, even burning a rug which I've read about, too. And all the work in cleaning up candle wax; so far, mine is minor compared to you guys.

And to CatStamper, I agree.. I think mine was Encore Platinum ink. and doing over 50 Christmas cards -- I think I just would've gone to Target and bought them at that point.:eyeroll: :eyeroll: I even called Ranger and asked; they were convinced if it was on matte paper then it will dry. Well, it wasn't coated paper, and it wasn't glossy paper, but it never did dry.

And unfortunately for potential new artists wanting to try a product, there is NO direction given on the back of the package. NONE!! If it weren't for all the stamping mags, specifically in my case Somerset Studio, that gave instructions, and RSM, too -- I wouldn't ever have figured it out. And also, much credit to those who used to appear on the old HGTV Carol Duvall show... learned tons from that show.

But now, we have RSC and the like for openly exchanging learning curves, and whodathunkit??? It's just mahvelous, dahling.

So glad we're all over that stage -- right??:exorcist:

[stampin stacy]

Just be very careful when you have an open jar of Ep powder sitting out, especially if it is green glitter kind and it is a brand new full jar of the stuff. Man can that stuff go everywhere. I still have a green spot in the carpet where it landed. My husband could not imagine why I was taking a shower at 11:00 at nite and made the mistake of asking me what I was doing. :eyeroll: Not that I was mad at myself for making the mess, or that I would take it out on him. Naw, I wouldn't do that, would I.

[Vincentia]

I just recently had a "you don't know your own strength" oops. I was working on cards and adding metal charms and crystal/rhinestones to them. I wanted to make sure they stuck but without a big goopy mess. So I had the Scotch quick dry tacky glue with the purple fine-nosed dispenser which I thought would be perfect, a little spot of glue and permanent placement. I cleared the nozzle from top and bottom and the glue was dispensing but a bit slow, or so I thought. So I thought I just wasn't applying enough pressure to the bottle. I gave it a good squeeze and there was a large popping explosion as the purple tip went flying up and hit the ceiling along with a blob of glue. I also had glue on the carpet near my worktable, on the worktable, but not on my cards! And the glue on the ceiling stayed there, no dripping on my head. Where the glue was wet, it came up pretty well -- off everywhere but the ceiling was a problem. I got a mop to try to wipe it from the ceiling, but the next day husband looks up and asks "what happened to the ceiling?"

[stampin stacy]

Stupid Paint pen! I was finishing up an ATC using the new Stamp in the Hand stamp set I got when it blobbed (word?). The ATC was finished and I was out lining the last side when it bubbles and made a big blob, darn it.

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