Cards Galore

Tonight's post will be dedicated to card making, Christmas cards in particular since that's what I'll be doing this weekend. That, and Kate sent me the most interesting questions. :o)

However, I wanted to begin with a couple of funny Lily photos.


As I wrote Monday, we had birthday dinner with Nana on Monday and it was divine. Lily thoroughly enjoyed herself, snarfing down almost everything on her plate. Hooray!


She also made some of the funniest faces for her daddy. ;o)


She has recently begun putting her entire hand in her mouth like this. Does anyone else have any experience with this? It's driving me nuts!

I have to say as well that I just love her new "kitty" clothes. It's so odd, I'd never have put leopard print on Hannah, but I didn't for one moment hesitate to get it for Lily. There were clothes I loved on Han but just didn't seem to be "Lily". I'm silly, aren't I?

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Now for the cards. First off, the most recent cards I've made:


Stamp set: Crazy for Cupcakes.
Colors: Riding Hood Red


Same as above and the front of the envelope
Stamp sets: Crazy for Cupcakes and Happy Everything
Ink colors: Riding Hood Read, Chocolate Chip, Yo Yo Yellow (flame), Piourette Pink, Staz-On black ink
Designer Series Paper: Bella Rose
Accessories: Riding Hood Red Ribbon, SU! 2-Way glue, Dazzling Diamonds

I stamped the cupcake image on the DSP and cut the part I wanted (the cupcake wrapper) out. I then used Tombow to glue it to the image I had stamped on another piece of paper. I think it came out pretty cute. :o)



Kelsey and I made this card when she was here.
Stamp Set: Thoroughly Thankful
Papers: Pumpkin Pie and Always Artichoke
Inks and markers: Staz-On black, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Garden Green, Ruby Red, Old Olive
Accessories: Pumpkin Pie ribbon, gromits


The first card we made, however. I cased one Woli had created last year and changed the colors. Kels really like the leaf and I was pretty sure she would enjoy the heat embossing used on the leaf. :o)

Stamp Sets: I totally can't remember the names at the moment but I'm pretty sure they have been retired
Papers: So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Kraft cardstock
Inks: Versamark, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: hemp twine, gold heat embossing powder


I'll probably make a couple more Thanksgiving cards Saturday (I'm going to make a few more of those pumpkin cards I made for the auction), as well as a couple of mini-boxes for gifts. However, my main goal is to start making Christmas cards.

Kate, you asked some fantastic questions, thanks!

First off, if you would like to make your own Christmas cards, I would reccommend you begin now. The more time you give yourself, the better and less stressed you'll be. :o)

My favorite materials are the SU! ones. You can get nice papers and stamps and inks at your local craft store (Michael's, Hobby Lobby, local scrapping store), but my preference is for SU!. Some reasons I like SU!:

• I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to colors matching on my cards. Will anyone notice if they don't match? Probably not. Would I notice and have it drive me absolutely batty? Yup. With SU! I get matching colors in stamps, markers, pencils, crayons, etc.
• I LOVE the quality of their stamps. SU! has some of the nicest stamps around. Their holiday stamps are particularly beautiful.
• The ribbons coordinate with the colors as well. I forgot that. ;o)

Materials you will need to get started:

• a decent pair of scissors. (I like Cutter Bee)
• Some sort of adhesive. I like the Tombow Mono Adhesive and buy refills by the dozen. Seriously.
• nice cardstock (See notes above about preferences)
• nice stamps (again, see above)
• decent stamp pad (I would begin with a nice Basic Black)
• Some sort of paper cutter. I use as a Cutterpede and found it works nicely.
  

With these basics, you can make some simple, elegant cards. My personal reccommendations? Get your stamps and papers from SU!. The SU! white cardstock stamps and colors beautifully and is the best I've used.

While I'm thinking of it, there are two types of stamp pads: classic ink and craft ink. The classic ink is water soluable and dries fairly quickly. The craft ink is thick and takes much longer to dry. It can be used for embossing because it takes so long to dry.

Get the supplies (scissors, cutters, etc.) from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. You can also find some nice ribbon at reasonable prices from Michael's. It may not be a perfect match for the colors you are using, but it's not bad. I have also used this site for ribbon. You can find some lovely embelishments (brads, rhinestone brads, gromits, stick on gems) at the hobby stores as well. I got my heat gun and some embossing powders from Michael's, as well as my Staz-On and Versamark inks. I also like to purchase blank white cards and envelopes from my local stamping store. I create card fronts, if you will, and then mount them on the white card. This way I have a white surface on which to write a sentiment on the inside as well as saving cardstock.

A standard card is 4 1/4"x 5 1/2". To create a boarder around an image, add or subtract a 1/4" from each dimension. For example, let's say you are stamping an imagine on a piece that is 3 1/2"x 2 3/4" and you want to mount that on a colored piece of cardstock. You will cut that piece to 3 3/4"x3".

The Staz-On is a permanent black ink that is nice to use when you'll be coloring in an image. The Versamark can be used in a number of ways. One is to create a watermark image as I did in the second Thanksgiving card, on the Pumpkin Pie paper. Another is to stamp the image you have selected using Versamark, dust with heat embossing powder and then hit it with the heat gun, thus creating the golden leaf you see in that same card.

I guess if I REALLY wanted to get some ideas, I would look at the SU! catalog to find stamp sets I liked. I would then visit Split Coast Stampers gallery and type that stamp name in the search box. This could give you some nice ideas for cards.

I helped Nana on Monday night. She will be using the Snow Swirled stamp set (among others) and needed some direction on colors and papers. I reccommended Very Vanilla, Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Real Red, Old Olive, and Handsome Hunter. She can use colored ink on white paper, emboss the image on colored paper, embellish with brads, etc. She will also finish the cards using ribbon to match. :o)

For those uninterested in card making, I'm sure this was arduously BORING. I'm sorry. For those interested, and those who may have even more specific questions, feel free to email me at rachael.davis@cox.net. I will try to answer your questions in as timely a fashion as possible. :o) Please know, my next few days, through the weekend will be rather busy. I'm looking at a stamp-a-thon come Saturday. Don't worry, Lissie, we'll work with Inspired By Nature. ;o)

I hope this information was remotely helpful. Happy stamping! :o)

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Today's Sparklies:

1. I've written lesson plans through December to Christmas Break. Can you believe it? I've planned four the next five weeks. Hooray!
2. Shari very sweetly provided our dinner tonight. hee hee ;o)
3. Please please see Liz's comment from yesterday's post. Liz, you made my evening. :o) Those fifth graders can truly surprise you sometimes, ya know?
4. Lily and I read Knuffle Bunny Too and Bear Feels Sick this evening. I just adore children's literature. :o)
5. Liz, while I'm thinking of children's literature and your comment, we do indeed have the Fancy Nancy A to Z book. Lily LOVES it! ;o)
6. Burt's Bees lip balm. Seriously. You have got to love it during these cool days.
7. I had the privilege of doing outisde carline duty again today. I haven't done it in so long and enjoyed the familiar faces, the waves, the lovely autumn chill. It was wonderful!

No milestones.

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Thank you all so very much for your kind comments about the wedding photos. I always feel so beautiful when all dolled up like that. I know Lil was feeling pretty special as well. And, really, it wasn't about me at all, but about Robin and Lawrence and they were gorgeous!

For now, I'm having a hard time staying awake. I think I'm still recovering from the weekend, lol! Therefore, I'm off! Good night, all! :o)