Hi Card makers! The evening is nearing and we are getting ready for maybe our first "Big" snow of the year. We have had so little that it's kind of exciting that we may actually be getting a good amount.
I don't think I've mentioned that June and I are now organizing and carrying out monthly crafts at a local Nursing home. It has been so much fun and the residents there really enjoy it alot. They are having a Valentines Day Party for family and friends and we had decided that maybe they would like to make some valentines themselves. All supplies are prepared by us and they just have to put together. There are various skill levels but they are all quite limited. Most have suffered strokes or seizure and have lost the ability to use both hands, what use they do have is quite limited on some. Others have various degrees of Alzheimer's. Our craft days are therapeutic for fine motor skills as well as attention spans. So "On with the Craft"!
Budget is of the utmost! To make the cards look professional we wanted envelopes. So instead of card envelopes we decided to make our own and use letter size envelopes. We got a box of 40 from the dollar store and decided to create our cards to fit these envelopes. June is also designing a 4 x 4 card that I will share later and we will make envelopes for those with old paper we no longer want.
So here's what I got so far. I showed these examples to June and I think we might be doing the one on the far left and maybe #3. We can't give them too many choices so it needs to be minimal. These cards fit into letter size envelopes. Finished base size is 3.25 x 6.25. For alittle bling I used sequins. As you can see pretty simple. and can be done with scraps and inexpensive envelopes from the dollar store. Hope you can find some use in these samples. Can't wait to see what June comes up with! I'll let you know!! Til then...........
HAPPY CARDING!
Valentines Valentines Valentines!!!! Time to start thinking! only 2 weeks til the big day.
I don't send out many valentines but I do give one to my lovely husband and my dear children and Grandchildren so I do need a couple. My granddaughter also like making her valentines and I was quite impressed with this years selection for all her classmates. Its a Kitty face made out of a 4.5" heart. The bow was made from a animal print pack from a Michael's Recollections pack....So cute and she had to make 28 of them! So proud of my little 1st grader girls enthusiasm to craft.
I had decided to make my first Valentine a simple one using this years holiday pack from the Recollections line at Michael's. Such awesome prints this year.
Michael's had these on sale when I bought them so I was able to get them 5 packs for $10. Now I don't really care to use the Recollection line for my base card. I find the weight just not right for me so I used whisper white from Stampin up as my base. Though I guess you could use the pink as the base if you don't have any other white or if you don't mind the Recollections weight. I'm just pretty picky so please do what you are comfortable with and the card will look just fine. My base card is 6.5 x 5. I then used the solid red from the pack on the lower right as my next layer measuring 6.25 x 4.75. The banners are next and were cut 1" wide. The length I just eyeballed and cut what looked good to me. Unfortunately I glued everything down and forgot to measure those but I'd guess 3 of them are 3.75" long and 2 are 3.5". The stripe paper was from the pack on the top. The hearts were punched out with a Martha Stewart heart punch from the heart paper in bottom right pack. So nice that they are interchangeable. Anyway the hearts are added with dimensionals. The top banner is the solid red cut 4.75" x 1" and I used a border punch. Any border punch would probably do. I attached a 1/2" x 4.5" whisper white (or you can use the pink from pack on right) that I had stamped my Hugs and Kisses. Add a little Bling and done. Super easy!
I really want to come up with something for the black chalk pack next. I love that paper!
Well I think I'm back on track so stay tune for more valentines!
HAPPY CARDING!!!!!
Oh my goodness I finally was able to get back to my blog only to discover that I had written this and never posted it. What a Ditz! Life can sometimes get so crazy! Sooooo....sorry but here is my very very very late post OR my very very early Christmas 2015 post...LOL!
Well I'm backing up a bit here to the beginning of November. Halloween was over and Thanksgiving was on it's way but I was still in "Christmas" mode. My husband was out for the evening with our son and a friend at a "Cigar Box Guitar" event. I was going to just mope around the house but instead decided to invite my friend June over for some card making (what else!). It's so nice to have someone willing to just spend a quiet evening card making. I think we achieved 4 different card styles resulting in 6 total cards and in only 4 hours. Plus there was alot of talking in between. So now on with the results......
1st card
June brought the supplies to make this cute folded Christmas tree card with present pop outs inside. So adorable. We made 2 of these and they were easier than I thought. Love love this card!
2nd card
This one I actually designed for my Daughter-in-laws 5th grade class to make during their after school craft event. I had some pieces left over so we each got to put 1 of these together. So easy even a 5th grader can do it! LOL I don't think the school kids did the stitch marks around the squares but I thought it added to the card.
3rd card
Another one that June brought supplies for. Love this stamp and framelit set. I believe its from Stampin up. This card was so pretty
and easy due to the framelit doing the hard work of cutting out the tree on the red panel that we dimensional. we made 3 each of these. That's how quickly we were able to put them together.
4th card
The lighting does not do this card justice. I made this using the Martha Stewart border punch and a snowflake border embossing folder. If you look closely every other circle in the border punched out area has a little sequin that shows up. the sequin is actually adhered to the inside of the card. The front had some added sequins to the snowflakes. Pretty much a simple card.
Well there you have it 4 relatively simple cards you could whip up before the holidays. Take the basic idea, change up the paper, use stamps with ornaments instead of trees and maybe a Santa instead of a snowman. It'll work no matter what you choose.
June and I had a great evening! You can get alot done when all the elements have been cut, scored, embossed, and gathered into kit like projects before you even get together to start making.
Later!!!!
HAPPY CARDING
The New Year is upon us and I am hoping you all had a joyous Holiday! Ours was filled with a ton of joy and laughter. My nephew and his wife had brought their new addition to our family celebration and it was such a blessing to hold a little bundle again. The grandkids and nieces and nephews as well as grand nieces had a wonderful time enjoying the festivities. Not very much card making got done since I was more focused on holiday decorating and gift making.
One of my simpler yet best decorating item was a log centerpiece. Two of them were on my dining table while a third adorned the kids table. They were such a hit that I'm gathering supplies now to make them as gifts for next year.
I made 2 of these. The birch log came from my stash from up at our cabin. I love the burlap poinsettia but unfortunately I was only able to find 2 of them. I had my husband drill a few holes into the top of the log and stuck the greenery and poinsettia's into it. I filled in spaces with pine cones from some that I had collected for other projects.
This one I had to use red poinsettia's but it looked great on the kids table.
These brought just the right amount of wow to the table without taking up alot of room. Plus they weren't very tall so it they didn't block any ones view.
Ive been out hitting up all the craft stores checking out all the clearance items so I can make a few for next year. I just hope my wood delivery guy brings me some decent birch logs next spring. I guess they could be made out of cedar too. I'm pretty sure I have a cedar tree up north that needs to come down and I could use that but I really like the look of the birch.
Well the next up and coming holiday is Valentines Day. I need to get some idea's together for some cards and get back on track. I still need to keep my mind open to craft ideas though since I'm sure the grandkids are going to want to make something soon. I also have teamed up with June and we are now involved in a monthly "Crafting Therapy" session at a local nursing home which has been quite fun so in between my cards expect to see a few crafts every now and then.
Until next time.......
HAPPY CARDING!
Recently I read about someone wondering if a heat tool can get old. Of course there were alot of responses to this question and no one had a definitive answer. So I thought I'd investigate it a bit. I do own 4 heat guns and have access to 1 other one. My oldest one was bought back in the 1980's. Two of the ones I own are the blue Darice. I've had these the longest. The Darice is about 9" long and has 320w. These both take a bit of time to heat up..maybe it's their age?? LOL
The 1 heats a tad quicker than the other and both do an ok job once heated up.
The other one I have is a newer Recollections one that I bought just a few months ago mainly because it's Pink and Black! I'm a sucker for pretty! It really doesn't work any faster than the one I got in the 80's (1 of the blue Darice ones). This is a bit longer than the Darice measuring a bit over 9.5" and it's only 300w. Maybe that's why it doesn't work any faster! It too needs to heat up for a bit and the length of it makes it a bit awkward to hold. Who would have thought a half inch would make such a big difference. So pretty ISN'T always better. NEWER isn't either in this case. I find I let my pink Recollections one just sort of sit and look pretty while reaching for my old ones.
Recently I bought a Martha Stewart heat gun. I have to say it has a bit more sturdy feel to it. If that makes sense??? This one is a shorty being only about 7.5" long. It fits perfectly in my hand and is not awkward. I might even like this better than the Darice which really fit nicely in my hands. This one is also a whoppin' 350w. I found No need for heat up with this one. I had decided for this review to use the heat gun as it's suppose to be used and not just leave it running until I was ready to use it like I do with the others. It is a quick embosser. I'm kind of liking this one. It also has an industrial cord. I don't know anything about cord thickness but I would assume a thicker cord is better???
Two heat guns that I do not own but have used before are the Stampin Up one and the Marvy Uchida one.
The Marvy one has 360w so heat wise it is quite close to the Martha Stewart one. I have only been able to locate these on line at Amazon and directly from Marvy Uchida. Reviews on both sites averaged only 3 stars. The bad reviews were primarily about the tool stops working after a short time. The one I tried looked like an older model and seemed to work fine for me. Personally I've only used it on 2 separate projects consisting of 6 cards each so I'm not very knowledgeable to recommend this heating gun.
The Stampin Up gun reminds me alot of the Darice one. They look similar to me and feel about the same in my hands. I tried to find the wattage on line but nothing out there that I found told me the wattage of the current Stampin Up one. Many places referred to the old one that was 350w and there were quite a few remarks of disappointment that Stampin up reduced their watts by lowering it by 50w on all their new heat guns.
I am not sure if I was trying a new or old heat gun but it seemed to need warming up to emboss.
I have to admit that I keep my heat guns hanging in a non-traditional way. I have an old wooden barrel that I use for trash in my craft room and hang the heat guns on the rim. I also turn on a heat gun and let it run while I'm working on the desk doing the EP. (embossing powder) So by the time I'm ready to heat set, my gun has been running for at least 5 min. I have never had a heat gun that has gotten too hot. The only time I have scorched the paper is when I was nearly touching the paper with the heat gun. (something your not suppose to do anyway! hahaha)
Someday I may try out the Tim Holtz one but for now. I'm loving my Martha Stewart one! No I'm not going to get rid of the other "Not so Great" heating tools after all you never know when you need less heat right? Or maybe I'm just a collector of old but still working tools! LOL YEP....that's it! That's my reason and I'm sticking to it! hahaha
Later
HAPPY CARDING!
Just wanted to share this totally adorable gift idea I had the grandkids make for Christmas presents this year. These plates are "ALL" over the Internet. There must be at least a dozen different pinterest pages that have a bunch posted. So we decided to try them ourselves.
The kids had so much fun. My 3 year old grandson was the funniest. As we were painting his foot he just says "It Gween Ha Ha". He just giggled away. My daughter-in-law and I couldn't help but laugh too!
Doing the feet wasn't as easy as we thought.....painted feet slip easily on glass plates! LOL But doing the lights around the plates was easy. The kids used their fingertips to dot color lights all around. The little one had a bit of help though. We then showed my granddaughter how to connect the lights by drawing the string. Top left photo showed we'd had to try and contain my grandsons enthusiasm! LOL
We used glass paints from the craft section at Michael's and a glass paint marker to draw the string for the finger tip lites and for the writing. These then had to cure for 4 days before heat setting in an oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. The results beautiful and they are going to make perfect gifts! This is just one of a couple upcoming crafts I'll be doing with the kids.
So for this post I will close with..........
HAPPY CRAFTING!!!!!!
Oh my goodness I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since my last post!!! I'm going to call this my "CATCH UP TUESDAY". There has been so much going on over here. Mostly colds sweeping through the household and spreading on to the grandkids and into their homes. :( Then of course the week of Thanksgiving, being grandkid free, I had a ton of errands and though I did not participate in the Black Friday madness I did do alot of Internet shopping which of course made my fingers achy. LOL Ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Anyway "Onward and Forward"!! Cards cards cards!!!
So June and I got together one evening and made 2 really awesome cards I believe both cards are C.A.S.E.'d. The pine cone one was from Dawns Stamping thoughts. I didn't have the Stampin up set that she used but a quite similar one from Hero Arts. But we did the same technique. Which was to versa mark the entire card and emboss it with sparkly embossing powder. Beautiful! I wanted to make more but......life happened! hahaha.
The snowflake one, I believe June C.A.S.E.'d from Stampin up. If I'm wrong I'm sure she'll tell me! LOL The stamp set is from Stampin Up and I love it. I just might have to borrow this one from her.
I had then put together a couple more styles of paper bag cards. I made enough of the pieces for our card group to assemble during one of our gatherings before Thanksgiving.
The first one I really like the simplicity of. I got the Santa's at an Antique store in Door County back in September. I had no clue as to what I was going to use them with and came up with this.
The next one is similar to the one I posted in the post entitled Paper Bag Card. The card group was just shown this example as we instead made the first card listed in the above post.
Then a few of the ladies brought supplies for us all to make the following. Awesome!!!
I love the size of the Snowflake card! And the vintage Children on the red and white card just screamed "Stamp more of these"!!! So I did to do later. Love them all!!
Ok I think I'm caught up. Now I need to start addressing envelopes and get all these beauties into the mail!! But first....I think I need to get more Christmas shopping done!
Till later (and hopefully it won't be a month later haha)
HAPPY CARDING!
