I recently gave myself a personal card making challenge. If you have been following my blog, I wrote seven posts, one for each card, and gave instructions for how I made each card. I also decided that I cannot part with any of the cards that I made in this challenge. I put a lot more time and emotional investment in these cards. I had a lot of fun making these cards. For the most part, I let the artwork be my inspiration; I do have to give credit to some new and some old places that I regularly visit for craft ideas.
The first place that I really have to credit is www.paperwishes.com. I have been shopping from this website for years. What I love most about this site is that they have free, online classes every week called “Weekly Webisodes.” This is not a new thing; they have been doing this since the 90s. They also have product demos for a lot of things that they sell on their website. I also find inspiration in that this is a company that is run by a woman, who literally started her company on her kitchen table. This company, Hot Off the Press, has been a major contributor to the growth of paper crafting. I highly recommend that you visit this site and check out their “Weekly Webisodes”; they have past webisodes archived.
http://www.paperwishes.com/webisodes/index.php?page=archive
I discovered a new place to visit. Did you know that the UK has a shopping channel dedicated to crafts? This is a QVC or HSN for crafters of all kinds. It’s Create and Craft TV. (http://www.createandcraft.tv/) They actually will ship some items here to the US. Of course you have to pay a lot more for shipping and there are the little customs issues that slow down delivery, but there’s new crafting stuff. You can actually watch live TV from their website. During the demonstrations they quickly go over the products for the first half hour of the show and spend the last half hour doing demonstrations. The show has a very relaxed atmosphere and there is more of a sense of crafting community. I have to admit that this site is my new obsession, but so far I have limited myself to just window shopping.
Finally, there is Hunkydory Crafts (http://www.hunkydorycrafts.co.uk/). This company makes the most beautiful paper and cardstock. They use high quality heavyweight cardstock that they call Adorable Scorable. They promise that when you score this cardstock that it will not crack or show white. They keep their promise, this cardstock is wonderful, 350 gsm (grams per square meter, I found a nice explanation of paper weights at http://www.paper-papers.com/paper-weights.html.) What Hunkydory is most known for is the foiling on their paper products and their designs.
All of these websites have Facebook pages as well:
prettycolorful 