New Christmas Cards from Past Kits

Part One – Cards 1 and 2

One of the best things about writing a personal crafty blog is that I get to showcase the latest things that I made, and the reading audience can choose to read my blog or not. I don’t have to feel guilty about the glassy stares from the non-crafting population. There is a chance that someone may be inspired by what I made. I hope so; I certainly am inspired by the cards made by others that I find on Pinterest or other crafting blogs. There are a lot of talented card makers out there.

It’s time for me to start making Christmas cards for this year. I am continuing with the tradition of making my cards from Hunkydory Crafts premium cardmaking kits. This year I have chosen the 2015 Winter Wishes one, which is ironic because I live in the desert and snow is very rare. These kits are fabulous, they are perfect for beginning card makers and they add that extra “wow” factor for the more experienced crafter.  The marvelous thing about these kits is that there is always stuff left over. If you are not familiar with Hunkydory’s products, the main claim to fame is their foiling, and the special coating they put on their cardstock which allows you to score and crease without cracking. Seriously, this is true, I have scored many a piece (and embossed) of Adorable Scorable and the results are wonderful.

My challenge to myself before I start dipping into my new kit was to make 10 different kinds of cards from the leftover pieces from kits I purchased over the past two years.  Today’s blog is showcasing two cards made with leftover pieces from the first Hunkydory Christmas kit that I bought in 2013.  It is the Festive Splendour luxury cardmaking kit. All of the kits that I am using pieces from are no longer available for purchase, but some of you out there may have the same kits, or may find inspiration about what I have chosen to make. The difference between the first Christmas card kit and the others that I have purchased is that the first kit came with printed paper inserts, which matched the Adorable Scorable cardstock. The materials in this kit went a long way, and I still have stuff left over.

Red Dress Card

This is the reason that I bought this kit, I fell in love with the sexy red dress artwork. I have made 5 cards from this set, and sold 2 of them in my Etsy shop. This year’s card is the last of the bits that I could put together. What I had left was a small die-cut of the red dress, a couple of small die cuts, which I did not use in this card, and a die-cut greeting “Have a wonderful festive Season,” and a portion of the paper printed insert that has the mirror image of the cascading poinsettia artwork on the dress die-cut.

I made an A2 (4 ¼ x 5 ½ inches) card using a white card blank. I layered red suede paper with silver ornament Dazzle stickers for the background and used foam pads to layer the dress and greeting die cuts. I trimmed the printed insert portion to fit the inside of the card, and put a strip of red suede paper with a silver border sticker on the left side of the image, which just skimmed the edge of the sentiment “Have a Magical Christmas.” This gives the inside greeting a little more visual interest. Here is a link to a previous blog that I wrote showcasing the two cards that I sold in my Etsy store: https://prettycolorful.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/sexy-red-dress-christmas-cards/

Deer Card

The second card is one that has a little different background story. I made a Christmas card for my brother and sister-in-law in 2013, and a large framed Christmas card last year.  I think that I made another Christmas card from this set as well. When I made the large card (which I put in an 8 x 10 matt) I used a piece of printed Adorable Scorable that was a large version of the die-cut on this easel card. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the big card before I mailed it out. Hunkydory usually has at least one piece of Adorable Scorable in their kits that has a large image. You can certainly frame these or even use them as a background in a scrapbook page.

I had a coordinating piece of Adorable Scorable that had a foiled border, and a piece of the matching printed paper insert. I layered the die-cut pretty much as it was printed on the die-cut topper sheet, gluing the silver foil frame on a 5 ½ x 5 ½ inch piece of the Adorable Scorable, and used foam squares to lift the images up from the background frame. I used a 5 ½ x 10 inch piece of dark green cardstock as the card base. I glued a 5 ½ square piece of the paper on the inside and used a piece of the foiled border on the bottom. I used the small die-cut of the deer as the “stopper” and added green pearl accents. I put a large black “Noel” sticker on the inside for the sentiment.

I highly recommend buying Hunkydory Crafts luxury cardmaking kits. As you can see, you get a lot of bang for your buck. And you have leftover bits and pieces that you can find all kinds of interesting creative things to make.

Links:

www.paperwishes.com

http://www.hunkydorycrafts.co.uk/

A Gift of Inspiration

What do you give someone who is going through bad times? I made this inspirational mini-book for my sister who was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Her prognosis is pretty good since she was diagnosed very early, but still, this is a hard thing to go through. It is hard for me because I live in a different state and I am not able to be there to help and support her. Thank goodness she has a wonderful, supportive husband who has been keeping her spirits up.

I searched the internet for ideas on what to do for someone who has breast cancer. Most of the suggestions were for things that you actually need to be in the area: such as doing the grocery shopping, cooking, housecleaning, laundry, and taking them for their appointments and treatments. Some wonderful ideas also included compiling music either via downloading to a playlist or CDs. One thing that I saw a lot of was pink. Pink everywhere! While I have no objection to the color pink, it is a bit too much for my sister who said “after a while it gets a little too much Pepto Bismol.”  Another idea was to give them a journal that they could use to write their thoughts and feelings, appointments, doctor’s instructions and treatment information, and anything that they would be likely to forget due to side-effects from medication and treatments.

I decided to make my sister an inspirational mini-book. I wanted to find words and sayings that would inspire and cheer her up while she was going through some very tough days.  I wanted to give her something that she could add her own inspirational messages and photos.  The mini-book needed to have color, texture and beautiful images.  And I asked her to let me know if this was something that would be worth sharing on my blog as something to make for anyone going through breast cancer or who is having a particularly difficult time.  My sister thought that this was a very good idea and her words were “this is a good thing to look at and try to cheer yourself up and be more inspired.”

If you are a crafty person like me, this might be the kind of project that you could do for someone you know who is going through a serious illness or just a really hard time. This is a project that can be personalized, with phrases and song lyrics that have a special meaning for both of you. You could also make a mini-scrapbook with some special photographs.

I went through my stash of cardstock and paper and then bought more things to create a six-by-six inch mini-book. Well, the cover is actually a little bit bigger, it is a 6 ½ by 6 ¼ inches, so it is slightly larger than the 6×6 inch pages. If you read some of my previous blogs about multi-media techniques, I wanted to use these techniques for some of the pages in this mini-book. I punched holes in the paper and used two small binder rings to keep the pages together.

Materials Used in Construction

• Heavyweight cardstock for the cover and main pages: I used 110 lb. cardstock from Michaels Craft Store and Adorable Scorable from Hunkydory Crafts.
• Inspirational quotes: I used stamps, and printed out saying from Hot Off the Press’s CD of Card Quotes.
• Decorative Scrapbook paper: I used 6×6 sheets of various papers from various manufacturers and I purchased a pack of 12×12 Artful Watercolor paper from Hot Off the Press.
• Paper Tole from Hot Off the Press
• Specialty papers: foiled, suede and parchment
• Dazzle Stickers from Hot Off the Press: Feathers and birds
• Die-cuts from Hunkydory Crafts and Hot Off the Press
• Embossing Paste and Clear Glass Bead gel and feather and swirls stencils

Favorite Craft Supplies and Tools

What craft supply or tool is the one that you just can’t live without?  I would have to say that mine has to be my sewing machine because I have been sewing a lot longer than I have been paper crafting. I have tried various different crafts during my lifetime:  including making my own clothes, knitting, crochet, cross-stitch embroidery, paper mache, decoupage, wreath making, scrapbooking and card making.  I have to say that the paper mache bit was short-lived; I don’t like the feel of wet paper and it was also during my childhood.

Knitting and crochet were my traveling hobbies.  I managed to knit myself a sweater once when I was on vacation in England.  I bought the pattern, yarn and knitting needles in a shop in England and knitted when the weather was too bad to go sightseeing. This does not mean that I am afraid of a little rain. I’m from Arizona and rain is a rarity and the rain was usually very light and it would take a long time before I actually felt like I had gotten wet. I did prepare myself and brought extra socks with me, just in case of puddles.

I started quilting as a side line to my sewing my own clothes. I started out with baby quilts. I had one pattern of a sleeping bear that was frequently requested. They were perfect starting projects for my leftover fabric scraps.  When quality fabric for making my clothes started to become scarce, I bought fabric from quilt shops and eventually just started to make quilts. I still make quilts, but they are small quilted projects like wall hangings and table runners.

During the 1990s I got some software for making my own greeting cards.  After about a year or two I started to embellish my cards with additional bits of ribbon and stickers. Scrapbooking was really taking off as a hobby and I went to quite a few home parties for scrapbook products. I tried my hand at it, but found myself using my scrapbook paper and stickers for making cards. I started looking at scrapbook paper the way I did with fabric; admiring the color, pattern and texture. I also discovered that commercially printed paper appealed more to me than anything I could print out from my printer.

So, while I still manage to make one or two quilted projects a year, most of my creative effort is with card making.  It gives me instant gratification and I can try all kinds of new techniques on my cards.

So, next to my sewing machine my favorite supplies and tools are:

• Rotary cutter, acrylic rulers and self-healing mat
• Designer scrapbook paper and cardstock
• Printed die-cuts
• Computer (for printing out text and patterns)
• Adobe Illustrator software program for creating my own digital designs
• Stamps, inks and embossing powder
• My Sizzix BigKick, embossing folders and cutting dies

What are your favorites?

Embossing and Inking

I am continuing my journey with embossing folders by showing some examples of paper types and inking. In my previous blog I discussed how I used Hot Off the Press’s Rose Corner embossing folder on different types of paper; I am using some of the cardstock for inking techniques. After you emboss some paper or cardstock, you can swipe an ink pad lightly over the surface, or do what I did and use a cosmetic wedge. You get a little more control over the amount of ink you use. I used Clear Snap’s Fluid Chalk Inks for this purpose because the ink pads are nice and juicy and the ink works well on most surfaces.

This example is using Splash Fluid Chalk ink on ivory cardstock. Just lightly press the cosmetic wedge onto the ink pad and gently swipe across the surface.  You can vary the amount of color picked up on the embossed surface.

The second example is with parchment paper and I used Concord Fluid Chalk Ink on this piece of parchment.

For this example, I did a different technique. I inked the front of the embossing folder with Fawn Fluid Chalk Ink and put a light blue piece of cardstock in the folder and ran it through the die-cutting machine. If you look closely at the edge of the paper, you can see the differences between the inked surface and the original surface. This embossing folder is a little more intricate, you would get more of a letter press look if you had a simpler embossed design. What I ended up with was to change the color of the cardstock to a greenish-gray color.

My last example is similar to the previous one, except I used Versamark ink on the bottom of the folder and ran a wine-colored piece of cardstock through the machine.  I then sprinkled white embossing powder on the debossed side where the Versamark ink was and heat embossed it.  I got a distressed-looking image which might work very nicely for a background.

The inks I used for this project should be available at most craft stores:

Versamark Ink Pad

Clear Snap’s Fluid chalk inks in: Splash, Concord and Fawn

Thank you for visiting!

Emboss This!

I have set a goal for myself for this summer. I have been interested in mixed media, and I am planning on working on several techniques. I have a final project in mind, but I will reveal the project after I have had the opportunity to try a few new techniques.  I will be doing a series of blogs showing all the new techniques that I will be learning.

Although technically embossing folders are not mixed media, I will be including some embossed pieces in my final project. I looked through a lot of different embossing folders, including those I have in my stash, and decided on Hot Off the Press’s Rose Corner embossing folder. This folder will work beautifully with the papers that I have selected for my project.

You need to follow the directions for your specific machine when you use an embossing folder.  I have a Sizzix BigKick and it comes with a multi-purpose platform with instructions on which tabs to use for each process.  I did have to make adjustments for the thicker papers.

You can do a lot more with an embossing folder than just running it through your die-cutting machine.  I used a few different techniques on different kinds of paper to see the effects. The only paper that I did use was patterned paper because I was not sure how well the embossing would show up in photographs. I used the following cardstocks and paper:  80 lb cardstock in various colors; 60 lb cardstock with a textured finish; 350 gsm Hunkydory Adorable Scorable cardstock; parchment paper;  Hot Off the Press’s holographic and foiled papers (they are heavyweight, more like cardstock). I would like to point out a couple of tips for embossing heavyweight papers and cardstock: lightly spritz the back of the paper with water, it helps break down the fibers and the embossing works much better. I was not sure how well the Hunkydory Adorable Scorable cardstock would do, but the coating on that cardstock left a gorgeous finish, the embossing looks polished.  There were no cracks.

The first technique I used was to just use the embossing folder with a variety of cardstock.  You can choose to use the embossed or debossed side of the paper.  When I embossed the parchment paper, I put a piece of 60 lb cardstock behind the parchment paper to reduce the cracks. There were still a few little cracks, but they just add a little personality.

The next technique was to sand the holographic and foiled papers. The foiled paper is teal and has a tone-on-tone print. The color in the photograph is a lot lighter than the actual paper.  I used a sanding block to lightly sand the embossed sections to reveal a white core. I did the same thing with the brown holographic paper. The embossing really shows up and both papers are very shiny.

I will continue my embossing techniques in another blog because I took a lot of photos and I don’t want to make the blog too cluttered with photos.  I will end with photos of two cards I made from the embossed pieces: a card using the embossed piece of Adorable Scorable and the debossed side of green cardstock.

References:

http://www.paperwishes.com/products/4106009

http://www.paperwishes.com/webisodes/?id=589