Mom's Cards and Swap Cards

I've already posted these as I made them, but I like playing with Flickr Toys so here's a mosaic of the swap cards I made my swap partner:


And, here's a mosaic of the cards I've made for Mom:

My New Swap Partner!

Yesterday, feelix assigned swap partners for the De-Stash swap I'm in. I was soooo upset because my partner asked for a doll blanket or stuffie for her 2-year-old, a reusable grocery bag, polyclay stitch markers or resin jewlery! OH NO! I can't make ANY of those things for her!

I PM'd her last night and told her I was destashing paper, and I can make her handmade cards. Fortunately, she's "quite pleased" with this because she sends her grandmother cards/letters all the time. Oh, YAY! I was really nervous.

I've already made a few cards I know I can send to her, but I'll make her a few more. I think 10 is probably a good number to send plus some mini cards.

Two more cards

I'm still busy, busy, busy making cards, cards, cards! Below are the two newest ones. The top one is made using a new stamping technique I read about in the latest Take Ten magazine (at least the technique is new to me). You ink up your stamp then spritz it with water and stamp it on watercolor paper. The first impression was incredibly vibrant and beautiful, but I made a card for my sick grandmother out of it and didn't get a photo before I sent it to her. The photo below shows what the second impression looks like. I still think it's pretty.




I really like this card. It's loosely based on a Poetic Artistry/Mojo Monday sketch. The sketch doesn't have the ribbon or the scallop, but instead has four pieces of paper behind the center image. If I make this card again, I'll use a square or rectangle for the sentiment rather then the circle. The mats are French Roast dark brown (they look black in the photo, but they're not).



I'll either use these two cards for the swap I'm signed up for or to send to my mom. Not sure which yet.

Poetic Artistry Sketches

Yesterday, I found a set of card sketches by Poetic Artistry called "Mojo Monday" sketches. I played around with them some yesterday. I'm really impressed with the cards people make from sketches, but I'm just not that good at it. My results end up looking cluttered and/or cram-packed on the card.


This first card is almost exactly like the sketch. I think (in the sketch) the little square is more in the center on the right side of the bigger square, but I felt it took up too much space there so I moved it up. Except for the card base and ribbon, this is all scrap materials. I embossed the numbers with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, and I laser-cut the "Make a Wish" and scallop.



The first card in the photo below is also from one of the sketches. I used my new K&Company patterned paper, an Offray brown polka-dot ribbon and more recycled cardboard. The bird stamp is K&Company and the "Hello" stamp is Studio G.


The second card is my own design (though with all the sketches floating around out there, I'm POSITIVE there's one that looks like this, and someone will be PO'd that I stole their idea when I certainly didn't!). Again, this is a K&Company stamp and patterned paper. I love using recycled cardboard now!



I will probably use all three of these cards for the De-Stash Swap I signed up for on Craftster.org.

Bookmark Tutorial Update

I've been getting a lot of hits on my bookmark tutorial. Some hits are coming from Craftster.org, but I just found out the tutorial made it to a website called Bookmark Collector. Here's a cut 'n paste:

Make Your Own Bookmark
A tutorial on making a flat paper bookmark - really a base for creating more artistic bookmarks, by Sew Help Me - Link

That's kind of exciting! Maybe I should make some more and finish them with the fibers at the top this time!

Little Squares Mini Cards

Who's getting sick of my cards!? Sorry, not me! I'm having a ball cranking out mini cards. Here's another set that's going to my mom. They're blank inside so she can use them for anything (well... at least I hope she likes them well enough to use them).

These are truly scrap cards. I used up the last tiny little bits of K&Company paper for the little squares. Even the bases are left over art paper I had from some project I made eons ago. The eyelets are also K&Company.

More thank you mini cards

Mom told me she needs to send some thank you cards out. I told her I'd make her a batch of them, if she doesn't mind mini cards. Mini cards are the PERFECT way to use up all the scraps of cardstock that I've accumulated. Here are the cards I've made for her so far:

Most of this paper is from K&Company, the cardstock is Paper Accents, the ribbon is Offray, the "Many Thanks" stamp is Studio G and the rhinestones are Darice.

The picture is kind of dark because I got up WAY early, and was in the shop at 5:00 in the morning.

Owl Birthday Cards

Here are some more masculine-looking birthday cards that I made yesterday. The owl is a stamp from Sassafrasslass. I think these little guys are WAY cute!


Also, the cardstock is PaperAccents and the eyelet is K&Company.

2009 Birthday Cards

This morning, I made a nice little stash of birthday cards for 2009 birthdays. Everybody's getting the same card this year! The cards are cute. I just hope the ribbon isn't too girly-ish for a male card. Well... I may make another set without the ribbon, just because I'm not sure. Anyway, it's a tag card with a silver eyelet through the top. I pop dotted the "Make a Wish" off the card for extra dimension. Here they are:

The cardstock is PaperAccents and Folia Papers, the eyelet is K&Company, the ribbon is Offray.

Buy-Buy!!!

I ordered two really cute clear stamps sets from Oriental Trading Company. They arrived today:

The first set is called "Build-a-Cake" and has all kinds of cakes and icings and cupcakes. That should be fun. The second set is a baby set that I thought was too cute to pass up. I love the little faces.

This is really hard to see in the picture below, but instead of a "Bye-Bye" stamp, my set says "Buy-Buy"! Ha! Ha! I got a big charge out of that! I called up ol' Orential Trading Company to let them know mine is WRONG. I don't want to return it because I think it's such a cute set, and that's only one tiny little stamp. However, they probably should know they're selling defective sets. The rep. looked it up on the internet, and it says "Bye-Bye" on the internet (and I just checked and it DOES say the right thing on the internet picture)! However, because I had a problem with it, she issued me a $20 coupon to be used sometime within the next year.

Now I need to figure out what I can use a "Buy-Buy" stamp for--surely there's SOMETHING!

I'm drowning in paper!

I'm sick in the head. I bought more paper yesterday at Michael's. I couldn't resist because #1. it's so pretty and #2. it was on sale. I bought two sets. One is French country-looking and the other is Modern/Contemporary.

Card Parts and New Year's Cards

I've been busily piddling around in the garage shop. Rather than full cards, I've been making card parts that I hope to use on cards at a later date (or maybe I should sell them on Etsy: http://www.thelaserbeam.etsy.com/).


Here's what I've come up with so far (there are a couple of others that didn't fit in the picture):



I also worked on some New Year's cards. There were a couple of people who sent me Christmas cards whom I didn't sent a card (and they sent them too late for me to return a card). So, I made New Year's cards that I could send. I worked really hard on a silver glitter card, but I just wasn't very happy with how it turned out so I made a different card out of yellow and red that I laser-cut "Happy New Year" and "2009." I'm much happier with the second card.



Here's my silver glitter 2009:


And here's the red and yellow card: I like that the stars overhang the edges of the card. I popped dotted them off the card, too, to make them stand out.

First De-stashing project: mini cards

Yesterday, I worked some on de-stashing my scrap paper. This is what I came up with:



I made mini cards! Very, very cute. My goal was to use as little new cardstock as possible and not create any more scraps. The "many thanks" cards above are different sizes because I used up an entire 12x12 sheet of cardstock to make all 5 cards. If I'd been smart, I would have measured better so they were a consistent size! The good part is, though, that I had no waste at all! I need these cards for all the beautiful gifts we've received from our friends.

The mini cards below are just random scraps I had. Again, I didn't make any new scraps when I made those cards! Good for me!

Okay... okay...

Well... I posted the photo of the garage, but I also have a photo of my stack of scrap cardstock. I'm embarassed to post it, but here it is (again, I hope that in sharing I'll prompt myself to DO something with all of this):

I keep it all stored in the cardboard trays that cases of canned dog and cat food come in. Shown above are two dog food trays and one cat food tray (the big pieces of cardstock that are definitely worth saving are in the dog food ones and the little scraps I should probably throw away are in the cat food tray). I use those trays for everything (as shown in the upper right of the photo!); they're VERY handy!