back to my roots

While I am admittedly a fan of almost all things crafty, my first love is papercrafts. More specifically, card making. This afternoon, I was able to spend some time crafting a few cards. After devoting so much of my time lately to quilting, it was fun to sit down and play with paper and ink today.

I am a demonstrator for Stampin’ Up!, and next week I am teaching a card workshop to a group of gals I used to work with. They pay a $10 class fee to cover supplies and my time designing the card samples, and then they get to recreate each of the cards twice. At the end of the night, they have six beautifully hand-made cards – a total steal for the money. Of course, I hope they will buy a few new products as well, but it’s not a requirement.

I let the upcoming Fall holidays be my inspiration for each theme. Stampin’ Up! has lots of great products that are specific to each holiday so deciding on which products to feature was a bit of a challenge.

There were lots of creepy and spooky stamp sets to choose from, but I just love the sweetness of the set that includes this image. The other great thing about this set is that it includes three other darling images. One for back-to-school, one for Christmas and the last one is perfect for Valentine’s Day. It’s great to be able to get a lot of use out of a set. For this particular card, I embossed the card base and cut the curvy shape piece using dies from the Big Shot. The image was stamped with Staz-On ink in Jet Black and then I hand-colored it with Stampin’ Up!’s classic inks using a blender pen. I finished it off with a wrap around of hemp twine.

I think this may end up being our Christmas card this year. I {love} Santas and this one us just the perfect Santa. He reminds me of the Sundblom Santa that was featured in Coca-Cola advertisements. Remember those? The card base is a color called Crumb Cake and it is a nice kraft color. I first stamped the Santa in Crumb Cake ink so I could faintly make out all the areas of the image. Then, I used a blender pen, a few classic inks and a white craft ink to color him in. Then, I re-stamped the image using Soft Suede classic ink to really make the design pop. If you are wondering how I was able to get the image exactly in the right spot the 2^nd time around, I used a magically wonderful tool called a Stamp-a-majig. I burned the edges of the card front using a stiff brush and some Soft Suede ink. I finished it off, by thoroughly inking the edges of the card front (again, with Soft Suede). The sentiment was stamped in White craft ink on Riding Hood Red cardstock that had been made pliable by curling with the edge of a bone folder. I did some light edge burning on that piece as well before I adhered it to the front of the card with some dimensional adhesive. I love how this card looks like it could have been made decades ago. It’s just the look I was going for.

Thanksgiving cards have become very popular in the last few years. One of gals requested I demonstrate a Thanksgiving card next week, and here is the prototype. I must admit, this design has been lifted off the pages of the newest Stampin’ Up! Idea Book & Catalog. I made a few minor changes in color selection, but the overall design is not mine to take credit for. The largest image is actually from a stamp wheel. It was stamped in Versamark ink. I then dusted it with clear embossing powder, which was heat set giving the image a nice glossy tone-on-tone effect. This card is really quick and easy and could be something you could make dozens for and hand out to all those you wish to show your appreciation to during the holidays.

If you would like more information about any of the products I’ve mentioned in this post, please feel free to contact me via email.