I believe that I have officially entered the video age!

(Click on thumbnails for bigger detail)

This technique is an ‘oldie’ called Polished Stone that I have seen less and less these days, so I dusted it off and shared it at my ‘Technique Freak’ club in January.

Polished stone is a technique that is better ‘shown than described’ so I present to you my first ever video (actually made back in January) that is being published after a lot of tears, blood (and ooops, maybe some mild swearing).

Details on materials:  91% Rubbing Alcohol, dye re-inkers, glossy cardstock, gold embossing powder, Versamark pad, Always stamp set (#113620), and the background stamp is Gratituitous Graffiti (#111636).

I used an inexpensive webcam on a tripod and after some minor editing (the drawback of a cheap recorder is that you need to convert the video format to one that is compatible with online services… fortunately I found a terrific FREE converter).  I  uploaded it to OneTrueMedia.com which by the way if you have no editing software, you can do some editing there as well… such as flip it (I video’d it upside down) and you can also watermark it (so if it is shared, it has your watermark in it).  For more information on what OneTrueMedia.com ask my (or any) 14 year old… my Sarah was a huge help, all her friends use it.  I’m so happy that she was in the room when I was doing this… she was very into the process (I can only hope that her and her dingy friends don’t have some videos out there somewhere…).  For networking reasons, I also uploaded to YouTube, but for $25 a year, I got a cool ‘TV’ looking player with OneTrueMedia.com (I’m such a geek!).

By the way, I’ve since moved on to a hard drive video camcorder, Sony Vegas Studio software as well as Adobe Premier Elements and after that huge investment have not had time to go back and use any of it.  Actually, that’s not true, I reshot the video and edited it and didn’t see any different (ouch!), so you are seeing my ‘cheap’ rendition I did first. I will blog this journey and share my video trials with you… what you’ll need and what you don’t, shortly!

I have been an inconsistent blogger lately, I had surgery last week and my website work schedule just gave me no time off to enjoy the pain killers.  (I have a bottle of Oxycotin just calling to me that I am going to flush today).  I have had hearing loss in my left ear for years due to an undetected cholesteatoma in my inner ear that eroded bone and nerve.   This is my second rebuild (next time, I’m going all-body rebuild).  So now equipped with the finest titanium inner ear parts, I hope to hear better (when all stuffing comes out–and if I don’t itch out brain matter).  I don’t think I am imagining that I already hear better even with layers of packing (probably all the way back to my brain, LOL!

If I don’t hear better, perhaps I’ll pick up XFM radio or better cell phone reception at least… so be kind, how did I do?

 My January "Technique Freak" Club features the Polished Stone background technique!  There is still room for you to join (both local and long distance), click here for more information!

The sample above is polished stone background with the Upsy Daisy stamp done in a clear emboss resist underneath.  The other card (below) has the polished stone as the background base and stamped and embossed onto.  Below is a gallery of  images of the projects we will be making (you cannot see the gallery in an email, click here to view it on my site).

I will be featuring this background technique via video!   That’s right, I have come into the video age, and I am creating a video library of the techniques that I will be doing monthly!  I’m so excited and hope you are as well!