Newest Card Party! (Plus Christmas Cards)

Had dinner Saturday night with "the gang." I'm so excited: the ladies scheduled another card party! They initially decided that 10 cards was too many to do so they wanted to do 8 instead. I took 25 cards over, and they decided that each of them would select 2 cards from the 25 and those would be the ones we'd make. Well... Judy selected 4 cards and then couldn't pick which 2 of those she wanted to make. So, she said, "I'm inviting somebody so I'll just pick her two cards for her!" So, we're back up to 10 cards instead of 8.

The good news is they chose some cards that are VERY simple to make: just glue the element to the card, and it's finished. I can intersperse those types of cards with the more difficult cards #1. to keep their interest and #2. so they don't get frustrated.

I'm glad they got to pick the cards they wanted to do. If it had been up to me, I would have chosen cards that didn't suit their needs (like wedding and baby cards because they're CUTE cards). However, they mostly chose thank you and blank cards instead because at this stage in our lives everybody's married already and has grown kids. I am mostly surprised they didn't choose the "cheers!" card. I know Laura liked it, but that's not one she chose for her selection.

Card parties work like this: I bring all the stuff and people show up. The end. And it's FUN! It's just like a Tupperware party or Pampered Chef party or whatnot: drinks and snacks beforehand while people show up and the party afterwards.

The stuff I bring: a plastic table cloth to cover the table, glue sticks and white glue for everybody plus all of the cardstock cards, laser-cut elements, glitter, rhinestones, charms, beads and ribbon to make 10 cards each for however many people will be there. I made a cute display centerpiece for the sample cards; it's a flower pot filled with wooden skewers that I glued alligator clips on the ends of. The cards are then clipped to the alligator clips.

Also... I intended to have Christmas cards to show everybody--hoping to get a couple of orders for those. I'm SOOOOO glad I didn't get around to making them. This way I "booked" a card party of all occasion cards, AND I'll get a chance to sell some Christmas cards as well. I'm afraid if I'd had the Christmas cards available, they would have opted to just make those instead, and this way I can have both. Now that was smart, but only in hindsight!

So far, I've made 6 Christmas cards, but I'm only pleased with 2 of them. I'm running them through the printer to print things on them. I have two "Merry Christmas" ones (the two I'm happy with) and one "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (I don't like the latter one). The others that I'm not happy with are blank. One of those is a row of 5 or 6 different snowflakes that span the width of a winter blue-colored wide card. The centers each have rhinestones in the middle. That card will be more expensive to account for all those rhinestones. It's only an okay card.

Today, I'm working on an engraved cork Christmas tree. I'll put that on a kraft cardstock base and see how I like that... I'm just not sure about that, but it's worth a try.

And, I want to try a white reindeer. The problem with that is that it needs glitter and I don't know how to sell glitter if somebody wants to buy that particular design. I guess I can have a list of consumable items people can buy (like a tube of glitter for $3 or $4--I'm not sure how much a tube of glitter is...???). Other consumable items: dispensers of dry adhesive and tape runners. I just calculated those, and they cost me $2.50 each plus tax. So I could sell them for that amount or $.50 more to cover the tax.

Also... (back to designs): I also have some QuicKutz Christmas shapes I can cut out. I think there's a mitten and a jingle bell. I think there's also a Santa head and maybe a stocking. And if there's not a stocking then I need to find a clipart I can laser cut because that would be a good one to cut out of patterned paper.

Tony's Cards

I forgot to mention that Tony DIDN'T LIKE THE CARDS I SENT HIM! How is that possible? They were NICE cards! Well... he DID like the one with the three squares, but it needs to be in a smaller size. #1. I don't have envelopes in a smaller size, and #2. Smaller sized cards would still be the same price because I'm destroying a full sheet of 8.5 x 11" cardstock to get two cards in a smaller size.

I wonder if the price was an issue. I told him they would be $2.50/cards. Considering I sell cards on Etsy for $3.50 a pop, he was getting a deal on original, handmade cards.

The good news is that I learned alot by designing for him; I wouldn't have thought about engraved cork if I hadn't done this work for him. I've already "booked" another card class, and the engraved cork cards were the biggest "hit". (Ha! So there, Tony!)

Also, another friend asked for a very specific card: one with a quail on it. That left me stumped for awhile. How in the world would YOU do a quail card? Anyway, I was able to do an engraved cork quail, matted in brown with a bronze eyelet beneath it. I pasted all of that on a cream, linen card base. It is a very, very pretty card that he really liked. (Ha! So there, Tony!)

I'm working on Christmas cards now, and I think an engraved cork Christmas tree, might be pretty on a kraft cardstock base. I'll play around with that today and see if I like it or not.

Dollar Store find!

This may be something stupid to blog about, but I'm thrilled!

Yesterday, at the Dollar store I picked up some ziplip bags to package my SewConnected fabric in. While I was there, I tripped across some packages of Miss Elizabeth's adhesive foam squares!!! This is very exciting because for my card classes, I've been having everybody cut 3mm foam and use white glue to "pop" off elements from the card. Now, all they have to do is peel off a foam square!

Well, I HOPE it's a good find. I haven't tried any out yet. It'll suck if the stuff is no good. I bought four packages, though. I'm afraid it would be gone if I went back later.

[Edit:] The foam squares work GREAT! I went back and bought 5 more packages.

Fabric "wrappers"

I finally got all my fabric for the SewConnected group laser-cut. I "packaged" it all together with a little cardstock "belt." I think it looks soooo cute!

I'm also making thank you ATCs to send along with the fabric. I made 1.5" log cabin blocks that I'm adhering to the 2.5x3.5" backgrounds. I'm not all that thrilled with the colors (I HOPE that's not an indicator that I'm going to hate the blocks that get made for me!), but the tiny block is soooo cute. All I need to do to finish is cut the mat board backing and iron everything together (I backed all the fabric with WonderUnder so I just have to iron it to make it stick).

Block for ritapizza!

I finished ritapizza's block this afternoon. I added a ribbon tag in the upper left hand corner and some rick-rack trim to the bottom right corner. I'm pleased with how this block turned out.

Even though it's only October 4, I still feel like I was dragging my feet to get it finished (I have until the end of the month!)! I think I'm nervous about being out of my league since this is quite a group of quilters I'm working with.

Next project is to starch my fabric, laser-cut it and package it to send out. I'm putting scalloped paper "belts" around the little fabric bundles.

Etsy Cards

Okay... maybe if I write this out so the whole public can see it then I'll be motivated to actually do it: I need to relist my cards on Etsy because all but one listing has expired! I haven't given up on selling on Etsy, however, there are THOUSANDS of pages of cards. I just need to post entries every weekend to keep my name at the top of the list.

I also want to sell some laser cuts I've come up with. I can sell them in sets of 10 for $7. I've got some cute wedding dresses and some wonderful wedding cakes. All they need is a dash of glitter or rhinestones and they'll make beautiful bridal shower invites.

Check out my Esty store at www.thelaserbeam.etsy.com.

More Cards for Men

Hard to see in the photo, but these are the cards I've come up with so far for Tony. The two on the right have engraved cork; the top one is a wrought iron fence and the bottom one is a leaf. The top left one is simple with three metallic blue squares with bronze eyelets in the centers. I don't like the bottom left one at all, and I probably won't even send him that one. Even though the three squares one is the most simple I've made so far, I think it's my favorite!

My brother got back to me on some masculine themes I could use on these cards: beer, naked women, hunting, fishing, sports and big screen TVs. I thought that was pretty funny! But even funnier is that I have graphics for each of these themes that I can engrave into the cork!

My goal is to come up with 2 kraft, 2 cream&brown and 2 black&white cards to send him to choose from. I'm debating on including an envelope of "make-your-own" elements that he can pick and choose from to design his own card. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

Funny thing is.... these cards look alot like sympathy cards to me, and I think I may submit them for publication as such!

Ummmm... my paragraphs are being eaten again so this post is one big paragraph. I hate it when that happens!