Wax Seal Embellies

 Well here I go again.  Jumping 100% in on a new adventure for me.  Wax seals.  Well kind of new adventure.  Way way back when I was young and it was a "Thing" to have "Pen pals" from different countries it was not unusual to dabble with wax seals.  Those adorable old fashion wax closures you would see on letters in movies, especially ole Victorian movies when special letters were sent through the post.  This was to assure the receiver that the letter or special papers had not been seen as long as the seal on the envelope had not been broken.  My mother being quite a crafty person (probably where I got it from) made me my own seal by taking a brand new Nickle and rubber cementing it to a small spool of thread (as the handle).  I would then drip the wax from an actual candle on the envelope after I had licked it shut then impressed the wax with the Nickle.  

I decided to bring back the wax so to say!  Excited to re-try something old (but not with a Nickle) I hit up Amazon for some supplies.  Valentines Day is on it's way so I indeed wanted a heart stamp and I might as well get an easter one.  Then while I was at it I leaped toward 2 Christmas and then thought I should at least have 2 everyday ones.  Because of course you should never try something new with the bare minimum right?  Then of course I needed wax.  Well there are the candle type ones that you light and drip. But I think those are more for letters.  I want to do embellies so I kept looking.  Well they had these chips.  Well ok....but then you need the spoon and the warmer base and the tea light candles to melt the chips.  Ahhhh...here we go I found wax glue sticks.  I have a bunch of glue guns so I could dedicate 1 to wax.  So I bought a pack of pink for Valentines day and a pack of metallics just because I wanted them.

So my supplies come in and I think I'm ready to go.  Well...Slow down Susan.  This is harder than I remember.  I had a silicone mat to use and melted some pink wax, went to impress it and...hmmmm.  How long do I have to hold this?  When I lifted it was stringing.  So I set it back down and let go of the stamp piece and it sunk so far that when I was able to pull it off the stamp it was nearly translucent.  Try again  This time I held it. Dang it when I lifted it wasn't cooled enough on the bottom and it got a ripply bottom.  Try again.  Hold......hand tired....this is dumb.....can't be right....how long does this take?  I think I need YouTube.

You can see the seal on the far top right how thin it is that's my first.  Then the one on the middle left is the bottom with the blubs from when I lifted too early before it was fully cooled.

Instead went out for coffee with my BFF and had a long talk.  Certain things came to light.  One was that the pink sticks were not wax at all.  They were labeled Acrylic.  The metallic ones are labeled wax/resin.  Still have not tried those.  Another thing we talked about was real glue sticks.  Could those be used?  Could you then use Mica powers to highlight them?  Hmmmmm interesting.  So home I went to check out these ideas.  Interesting....glue from your normal glue gun works!  Mica powders work great too and so do Dollar Tree Mermaid eye shadows.  Its subtle but pretty.  I also found that the metal stamp pops right off quickly if you are using both a low melt gun and if your metal stamp is cool to the touch.  So I kept it on top of a bag of ice and rotated which stamp I was using.  I then took off and tried an entire bag of Dollar Tree mini glitter glue sticks with excellent results.  The less intricate the design the better with those sticks but it worked!

Regular hot glue before using eye shadow

or Mica powder

I can't wait to show you what I make with all these as soon as I figure that out Hahahahaha.

For now this is it. I need to make more of the Pink ones for Valentine cards I want to make.   I'll be back next time with what you can do with these beauties.  Til then Happy Crafting!

Accordion Tag Card

 One of the hardest cards I have to make are birthday cards for boys.  You would thing those would be the easiest for me since I raised 2 boys, my sisters all had boys, my brother had twin boys.  I was surrounded by boys.  But I am ALL GIRL!  I love making "PRETTY" things.  Flowers , Butterflies, Birds, Pinks, Purples and so on and so on and so on.  So of course it took me all day trying to figure out what to do for a 9 year olds card.  Now top it off with the fact that this 9 year old has Fragile X Syndrome.  An inherited chromosome disability.  Jack will probably just toss this card aside and never really look at it.  But his mom will and she cherishes the cards I have made for her other 3 children and I do not want to skimp on Jacks just because he won't care.  Though the card may be viewed by him for a brief second I do know that he loves yellow.  Sponge Bob being a favorite of his to see on TV.  I had already made a few Sponge Bob cards so no way I was doing that again but yellow I could stick with.  Bright colors are also a favorite of his so I went through some of the papers I put aside for my granddaughter to mess around with and found some really bright prints.

The only yellow cardstock I had was pretty thin cardstock.  I think I got it from Michaels in a small 12x12 pack that had primary colors.  This may have only been 65lb.  So I decided to make an accordion card so that I could beef up the thickness with layers and make it sturdier.  I also decided to make pockets on the inside to hold some tags.  I chose to hold only 2 but you could fill each pocket with a tag or maybe one of them with a gift card.  One of my tags was just for show the other I used to sign the back.  I then went ahead and used the scraps to decorate the envelope to match.

The finished size of this card measures 3" x 5.5".  I used a standard envelope that I bought from the Dollar Tree and just decorated it.  There is no glitter or sequins on this card so there is nothing that Jack could ingest that could harm him it is all only paper.  Although truth be told he will probably not even open it.  But his mother will love the fact that I have made him a special card just as I have made all her other kids special cards and that's what matters.

Now I can go back to "Girlie".  LOL  I need a card for a friends birthday next week.  Whewwww.  She loves frilly stuff.

Til next time.....................................

G45 Tags Cozy Letters

 With my last 2 collections of G45 Christmas cards I had some scraps.  Not alot since I did not use a lot of papers but some.  so I set those scraps aside and made a couple tags from both collections.  These are overly simple tags.  Only embellies that I brought out were ready made snowflakes and some stickles.  I did not take my time with these.  They were more like "slap them together" and be done.  Usually those type of tags get put on the packages of the little kids who never take the time to admire your work.  They are way more interested in the gift than the tag and the tags usually end up in the trash so why invest a lot of time in them.  But still you don't want to throw out the scraps.  At least I don't.  Even if it will be tossed as a tag at least I know I used it first.

One to the next collection.  Hope I have time.

Til next time...............................................

Graphic 45 Letters to Santa

 Every year for the past 16 years I have been with my grandkids as they write their letters to Santa.  My youngest grandchild will soon be outgrowing this ritual which makes me super sad.  These are moments that we need to treasure as we only get a few chances to enjoy them.  First when we were children then years later when we have our own children and then again when we are lucky enough to get grandchildren.  I absolutely love this collection from G45 Letters to Santa.  Again I was insane and only bought the 8x8 pad and being rushed to get Christmas cards done these are pretty basic.  But with the beauty of the papers they look awesome.

Well at the moment I'm "Speed Carding".  Trying to get as many different ones done from different collections as I can before the actual holidays are here.  So far I think I'm failing.  There are only 3 days left before Christmas and not one single card has been mailed.  Good thing there's 12 days of Christmas! LOL

Til next time....................................................

Lets Get Cozy G45

Blue Christmas.  Do you remember the song?  If you grew up with Elvis you do and I sure do remember swooning as he song this song.  As an adult I had found that on many occasions the song could bring tears to my eyes as I would remember friends and family that had either moved away or passed on in life.  But today on my Blog Blue Christmas is going to take a total turn.  Instead I'm talking about the G45 paper collection Let's Get Cozy.  Not exactly Christmasy but definitely Wintery that can be turned into a Christmas card that you can send to all your non religious friends or family.  It has such a wonderful Nordic theme to it and beautiful Winter Blue/Gray colors.  I and overjoyed at this collection. So as not to get too carried away I decided to just make a couple cards Using the cut-a-parts for my main focus.  Now I foolishly bought the 8x8 paper pack.  My reasoning?  I just so happened to have been up at a LSS and they had a few of these gorgeous 8x8 collections.  They also had the 12x12's but boy oh boy I wanted more than one plus I was there for a whole lots of other things and I had to stick to a budget so I thought I was being wise..  Months later I went back and the 2 collections I had bought had been replaced with 2 different collections.  Again being thrifty and the fact that I hadn't used the first 2 collections, I bought the next 2 also in 8x8 pads.  Now months later I have decided to jump into these collections. So today I share with you the Lets Get Cozy Cards.

The 3 I made with the cut-a-parts are 5x7's.  All I added to these were some snowflakes and stickles.  All of the papers are from the collection except for the card bases and the dark blue layer.  The smaller card is a 4.25 x 5.5 and was made with some of the larger pieces of scraps.  I have a few more scraps that I will be turning into tags later.  All together I only used 2 sheet of background paper I think and 1 sheet of the cut-a-parts.

Stay tune for the next collection and eventually an entire assortment of tags from all the collections.

Til next time...............................................................

Christmas with G45

 It's the most wonderful time of the year. With hustle and bustle, I'm so far behind.  The more I try to catch up the further behind I get.  How is that possible?  So when a LLS offered up a G45 Christmas card class I jumped right on the list.  First because I needed cards and second because I LOVE G45!

These cards were beautiful.  The class used the Letter to Santa collection.  Which made me happy and sad.  Happy because I had a pad of Letters to Santa that I picked up when it was released but sad because I had picked up the 8x8 paper pad size and she used the 12 x 12 sheets.  Specifically, the 12 x 12 sheet of the Cut-A-parts.  So, if I were to make these same cards I'd have to made them in miniature size.  Anyway, we made a total of 6 cards.  Oddly I had found that none of her cards were consistent in size.  At a glance it looks like we made (4) 5 x 7's and (2) 4.25 x 5.5's but that is not what we ended up having.  All cards were off by 1/2" to 1" in some way or another.  Not how I would have run a class. 

But the cards were beauties nevertheless.

Now me being me loved these cards as they are but I will admit that before I mailed them, I did add some stickles to each and every one of them.  I just can't help myself. LOL

Well, I have more cards to get done and out into the mail before it's too late.  Hope you all are more organized than I.

Til next time....................................................

Simple Flat Card Kit Gifts

 Oh my goodness I am so excited for what I'm going to hand out to friends this year.  Little card kits!  This won't be a Christmas gift just a little something to say thank you for being my friend. 

I found these adorable Organza bags on Amazon that had little snowflakes embossed on them and BOING!!!!  Light bulb moment!  I decided that I was going to make up a little kit of maybe 6 Christmas cards that my friends and family members could easily put together and handout to their friends as something they made especially for them.  I wanted them to be different than just normal folded cards so I took one of Sue Campfields ideas and did a super easy fun fold that anyone can do. Super Duper easy!

For this card you need very little supplies.

(1) piece solid cardstock 4.25" x 5.5"

(1) piece DSP 5.25" x 8" scored at 4 & 6. 

Some sort of front add on.  See photos to understand. 

Save your double-sided papers and use single sided for this project.  You'll never see the back side.  Now I also used a large and a medium label punch for my original card kit which is the blue card in the photos.  So I also needed a scrap about 3x4 of dark blue and a scrap 2x3 of white.  But as you can see from some other samples the options are limitless.  Use whatever you have on hand.

Now basically all you do to make this card is score the DSP, fold it in half so right sides are facing each other, take the other fold and fold it back so the 2 white sides are touching.  Yes I just stupefied the accordion fold.  LOL.  I just realized how dumb this is reading.  Well at least I'm entertaining right????

Anyway, glue the two 2" sides together.  It just makes it a sturdier flap.  Now glue the 4" side to the solid 4.25 x 5.5 cardstock.  Done, except for add ons that you choose. If you use colored card stock for the 4.25 x 5.5 piece I would either put another piece of white card on the back for personal message or option 2 is to put a slim 1.75 x 5 strip on the inside flap.

This is more like a Post Card greeting card than a standard card since it will not stand independently but it does fit in the normal A2 envelopes.  Another thought is that if you want to have it stand you could make an easel for it.  I do have a small easel die that I got off of Amazon a long time ago similar to THIS . Or I'm sure you could just make your own.  Hope you enjoyed this quickie Christmas card.

Til next time................................................