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Follow-up to BG stamp question - do you use your wheels much??
I *love* my background stamps and have a lot of them. When I'm using one, I usually make a few BG's using that same stamp and color (might use different color cardstock) and then I have one or two for another time.
But my wheels get neglected! Some wheels are more user-friendly than others, but in general, I just tend to not use them much. So I shouldn't be buying any more, right?? Several of my customers are big wheel people though!
Any tips for wheel use besides using the Wheel Guide? Which I do have and I do like it.
Perhaps you could wheel them all on a piece of cardstock and put it up. That way when you are making something you would see that and perhaps be inspired to use them. I don't have any super tips on how to wheel I think just using them helps. Practice makes perfect or at least good enough for my cards. ;)
I too have some wheel challenges and don't use mine much. Several of mine get a lot of extra ink where I don't want it (edges, for example)---hot to dot comes to mind. Others are sort of sticky and the rubber on the wheel will actually stretch and distort the image....I've gotten some really wonky flowers from the one that matches Buds and Blossoms.
I only buy wheels that I know will make a good background so you can't see where the edges of the pattern starts and stops. I just got Builder Bits and the Bouquet wheels recently. I love to use them with my Versamark pad on colored cardstock. They are both very forgiving if I don't get a perfect straight line. I steer clear of wheels I think would be difficult to get a repeating pattern with. The next wheel I'd like to get is Twinkle which looks pretty versatile. I recently saw a card using Swirl Style that looked really nice, so that just went on the wish list; same thing for Leaf Prints! I just went to a party where we used the poinsettia wheel and that got me really hooked on those jumbo wheels. They cover the card front so fast! Too bad I haven't fallen in love with SU's recent patterns that have come out. I have high hopes for the Winter Mini...
I have about 3 or 4 wheels and I hardly ever use them. I only have about 4 colors of ink and I think that's why I don't get much use out of them. (Of course, I also haven't been stamping much lately either!)
I've never been able to get a good imprint with a wheel -- either it wobbled or the edge gets inked, or something. All of my problems are due to Operator Error, of course, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. >8-[
I finally solved the problems by taking the rubber *off* the wheel, and using it as a long border-type stamp. Now I love them, especially the Jumbos! I use a 'legal' envelope-sized Evo template as my mounting block since I don't have any regular acrylic blocks that large, and it works just fine! They take up a lot less room this way, too -- I can keep a whole lot of them stored flat on plastic sheets in a tin.
I don't have to worry about cartridges, and can ink the stamp up with any color or ink I choose, or use markers if I want to. Life is much better now. I saved the empty wheels for awhile, hoping I'd find a good use for them, but I never did. So I de-cluttered recently, and out they went!
I was going to up-load a shot of a card I did using a Jumbo border, but I don't seem to be able to for some reason. I'll try to put it into my gallery instead.
I never used my wheels until I unmounted them. I take them off the wheel and put them on a piece of wood my husband makes me to fit. Then I just use it as a regular stamp. Now, I use them all the time.
I use them all the time for demos and they sell like hotcakes. Some are harder to get a clean image. So I'm picky in what I demonstrate. For some reason I seem to get a better image if I pick up ink from a pad instead of using a cartridge.
__________________ Jeanne S - Inky Paws SCS Moderator
I don't use cartridges, I just run the wheel accross the regular ink pads. This works and I always have whatever color I want. My biggest peeve about the wheels is that they leave a line where the rubber meets and this doesn't look good. I like the idea of taking them off the wheel and may end up doing that. Thanks for the idea......
For me, nothing beats wheels when I have to cover a large surface, quickly.
I use them for gift wrap, full sheets of c/s (especially helpful when I need to mass produce backgrounds for cards), lunch bags for gift packaging at the holidays.
Whenever "fast" and "mass" are part of the project, I turn to my wheels. And, Jumbo wheels make even FASTER work of wheeling, and my collection of those is on the rise . . .
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
I love my wheels. I haven't bought wrapping paper in 2 years since I found the glory of wheels.
As for the wheel guide, I thought I was going to hate it, but I'm loving it. It stays in place and puts the wheel exactly where I want it. A great tip, though, practice first. It makes the wheel go a little higher than you think when you first start out.
The jumbo wheels are especially fast for gift wrap! I precut the paper to fit the box and then put it on the floor on top of newspaper and wheel away. The wheel guide really helps.
"I never used my wheels until I unmounted them. I take them off the wheel and put them on a piece of wood my husband makes me to fit. Then I just use it as a regular stamp. Now, I use them all the time."
I never would have thought of this! I don't use my wheels either but think i could line it up better if I did this!
I hate my wheels! They just sit in the Pringles can and stare at me LOL. I might just have to look into taking them off the wheel and using them as long stamps, thanks for the idea!
I love some of my wheels more than others. I like the ones I can grab and do a quick gift bag with. I LOVE the stiched plaid for that. You can roll out a quick grid and stamp in the squares of the stitched plaid, customizing it for any occasion or season. It's surprisingly forgiving for straight lines too.
See this Gallery at Splitcoaststampers
then Gallery at Splitcoaststampers
Same technique, two very different looks!
I also found that I have to sometimes use an exacto knife to trim off any rubber that keeps getting inked that's not supposed to. It's easy to tell bc the rubber will be "inky" where it's not supposed to be. I bevel my exacto blade away from the image I do want then cut away the excess. Works great!
I have about 10 wheels now and use them all the time. The best advice I can give is to lay your index finger over the top of the wheel. With the handle under your wrist. I have better control over it this way instead of just holding the handle.
I use my cutter as a guide for my wheel and never have a problem with it.
This sounds really silly, but I find that the jumbo wheels are so much easier to work with than the regular ones. I can't be bothered to pull out my smaller wheels but the jumbo one can cover a card front in just two "wheels". I doubt I'll be buying more regular ones, but the jumbo ones are very attractive to me.
Oh I like wheels. I like them on the wheels just the way they are, I can't imagine taking them off of the wheel. I use them to make tissue paper and matching gift bags. I also have use them to roll backgrounds for cards. And I think they would be great on scrapbook pages, I just haven't done that yet.
K
I have even made some cards with Wheels only doing cutouts of the images
A card done by my sister, with pretty much only a wheel stamp, for stamps!
Hey, I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for posting samples & overall inspiring me to use my wheels. I just got the wheel guid but haven't used it yet. Can't imagine cutting them off the rubber but hmmm... that might be an option.
THanks!
Sorry to take so long to respond to your question -- I've been away on vacation, and am just catching up on stuff. To remove the rubber from a wheel, I just run my X-acto blade along the glued seam a few times until it's cut through. (The seam is usually very easy to find -- any glue on the surface is shiny.) Then work a fingernail under a corner of the seam and start to pull -- they usually come off readily. Sometimes you have to do a little cleanup of the rubber cement left on the back of the rubber, but that's easy enough to do. When I first started doing this, a few of them really *snapped* off like rubber bands, so I'm fairly cautious when I peel and make sure that I'm holding the wheel away from my face. I haven't had any snap in awhile, though. Hope this helps!
Happy trails....
Sue
Quote:
Originally Posted by katrs5
Ok, so how do you all take the rubber off the wheels. I looked at mine and can't fathom........
I too have some wheel challenges and don't use mine much. Several of mine get a lot of extra ink where I don't want it (edges, for example)---hot to dot comes to mind.
Boy, I thought I was the only one having this problem! Hot to Dot was the last wheel I bought (after having given up on them) because it looked so cool in the catty, but it has only served to reinforce my dislike of the wheels. I just find it too frustrating...too many projects ruined because the ink didn't go where it was supposed to, and ONLY where it was supposed to! I haven't tried the jumbos yet, and it's tempting me; there are some very attractive ones out now, but to invest even more $$ in a new, larger handle just to take another chance...sounds risky to me. But, I really like the idea of mounting/remounting on wood...think I'll look into that.
Linda
__________________ Linda
”From the rising of the sun to its setting,the name of the Lord is to be praised!”
I have 5 wheels that I don't use at all. I also have 5 inks for them, one is still sealed. I had a problem where my ink leaked all over the place, so I havent used my wheels since then.
I just got my 1st Jumbo wheel and I love it!!!
For some reason it seems handier than the regular sized ones. Part of it is that it is easier to clean, I think. You can pull the ink cartridge back and put the lid on it, roll the wheel to clean it, pull the wheel out and then take out the ink cartridge WITH the lid still on it.
On my regular ones, I can't do that. I put the lid on the cartridge to clean the wheel, but then in order to get the cartridge out of the handle, I have to take the lid back off of the cartridge!! There is a little tab that sticks out on each side of the handle that does not allow the cartridge/lid combo to pass thru it. It is a real pain in the butt!
Has anyone else noticed this?? Why the difference in handles???
One more thought....why don't they make a Versamark cartridge???
I have made my own with a blank cartridge and the Versamark refill, but why isn't there one that is sold that way???
Well, those are my thoughts on the wheel!
Laurie
I LOVE the jumbo wheels-I can do so much in a zip with those! I also LOVE Hot to Dot so I am sorry others are having so much trouble with it!
The wheel guide has been a big help when I do bigger surfaces, and I also agree that getting wheels that have no specific start/stop or direction helps!
__________________ I want people to be afraid of how much they love me-M. Scott
Follow-up to BG stamp question - do you use your wheels much??
