Unmounting Wheels & Easy 'wet n wrinkle' cardstock (for textured clouds or waves or...)

Do you use up cardstock trying to get even images with your wheels? A wheel guide can help, but some line images like the ones one this Neighborhood jumbo wheel just don't want to stamp evenly. Unmounting your wheels is a popular thing with many stampers. I unmounted these houses, because I just couldn't get them to work for me otherwise. You can still use a wheel-turned-stamp like this one to create long strips for a banner or wrapping paper. You'd just have to use them on acrylic blocks, so you could see where to line them up.


You'll need cushion & an acrylic block (or hardwood) that is 7 inches wide x around 2 4/8 inches high. This block has a clingy grid (called the Block Buddy Set from Close to my Heart.) It makes it easy to get the wheel stamp straight.

Hmmmmmmm... Dewheel or Not Dewheel???

Here's a caveat before you unmount all your wheels--at least something to consider:
How do you use them?

Wheels seem to break into 4 main categories of Style :

1. Solid images (like Scatter Sunshine/So Swirly)
2. Outline images (like Neighborhood/Basics Outline)
3. Text (like Happy, Happy Birthday) &
4. Texture (naturalistic like Rough Texture...or geometrically spaced like Dotted lines)
   

I would unmount the first 3 categories without hesitation. However, I find the last group of wheels--especially the naturalistic texture wheels (such as the Rough Texture or other retired texture wheels)--are more usable to me if they remain on the wheel: I can roll on a quick texture and the randomness of the wheeling is welcome.

Although, texture wheels that are geometrically spaced--like Dotted Lines or even Lots of dots--might be better unmounted because they are very evenly spaced & harder to control. (You can always mount one at a time, if they tick you off with unevenness.) ;0)

Interested in textured cardstock for clouds (or waves or other schtuff?)

Here's how to make it:

A) Cut your cardstock to the width of your project & tear the edge off of it.
B) Wet torn cardstock & crumple it up (more crumple=more texture).
C) Unfold it, lay flat and add an ink-wash if you like

(Here's the wet & wrinkle process used to make flower cards
& 3D blooms)

Or you can add ink with direct to paper method (before/after wetting)
I rinsed this piece above with water again to make it more washed-out
(After that, cardstock won't take two wrinklings though, so just iron after)
I used the backside of this piece since it had more subtle colour

If you iron between two papertowels gently,
the cardstock won't curl & it'll keep the wrinkly texture.
If you want lots of wrinkly dimension, just
skip ironing and let it dry naturally.

Other Card Details:

The houses are watercolored with Stampin' Up!s watercolour pencil crayons (watercolour tips here.) The grass is made by ripping a piece of cardstock & then fringing it (grass tutorial by Suzy.) The windows with a Sakura clear glitter pen & the doorknobs are dotted with the silver end of a Zigainty. The buttons are from SU (Fresh Favourites I) I've added watercolour pencil crayon to the tops of them for depth of colour (used hairspray as a fixitive.)

Other Card supplies:

Cardstock: Cool Caribbean (or it's white-cored twin "Breeze" at CTMH), Soft Sky, Naturals White, Gable Green. Ribbon: is SU's 5/8 grosgrain in Certain Celery.

Happy Craftin' :0)


P.S. Unmounting Wheels Tutorial:
Laura shows you exactly how you can have your wheels and use 'em too! Here's her brilliant Unmount your wheels Tutorial

ETA: P.P.S. You can use the wet & wrinkle technique to make cardstock that looks like the kind used on this stunning card by Shirley (<---scroll down to see it)