A Little Update

Hello :) I hope everyone had a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving! Did anyone brave the "day after Thanksgiving sales?" If you did, you are some brave souls, lol! Personally for me I would rather pay more money than fight the crowd. Some of my friends absolutely love it and have made it a family tradition for years. They tell me it is so much fun but the news coverage I see on t.v. begs to differ, lol! The reason for my quick little blog today is because I wanted to take a moment to fill you in on whats been happening on my end since it's been a bit since my last blog post. Of course the holiday kept me pretty busy but as well as my mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly. I have lost many-many-many loved ones, which quite honestly not one of them passed just because they lived a long full life. Pretty much every single one of them died way too young and their cause of death alone was tragic, so from experience anytime a loved one passes away it can be stressful, hectic, emotional, and chaotic but the loss of my mother-in-law has been nothing like I have ever experienced. As you can imagine, I have not had much free time to do any crafting but I will be back very soon with some new crafts :) Have a blessed and beautiful week!!!!

Happy Sunday!

Hope everyone is having a beautiful Sunday! After talking to a friend of mine about her daughter graduating this year, she was telling me how she couldn't afford all the expenses and she didn't know what she was going to do. Her biggest upset was over the expense of the graduation announcements. She thought it was ridiculous how much these companies were asking for announcements especially when most people just throw them away. I too had come across this when my oldest graduated. For me the graduation announcements were going to cost me $250 just for 20 announcements so that was an expense I skipped. My family and close friends were very upset when they didn't receive announcements. So after talking with my friend yesterday I decided I was going to make some announcements to send out, even if they are a bit late. I didn't go all crazy with them because I was also using my design to show my friend how she could make 50 of them for less than $13 or cheaper depending on how many coupons/discounts/sales are applied or how many supplies you may already have. While mine are not super fancy you can still make them just as fancy and beautiful as the professional ones by simply buying some Versa Mark, embossing powder, and a heat gun/embossing tool if you don't have one. (Which by the way those supplies will only cost you under $20 if you use some coupons). If you want to use fancy paper like metallic/pearl/etc or have embossing folders/dies/etc than you really can go all out and still end up making them for way less than the professional companies plus you get to take all the credit for how awesome they are ;) Here is how mine turned out and the cost break down. 

Front of card

Inside of card

COST BREAKDOWN: I bought a package that contained 50 cards & envelopes for $5.99 (the original price was $9.99 but I used a 40% off coupon). I bought a package of card-stock in the colors of my child's school, the package had 5 colors at 10 sheets per color for a total of 50 sheets for $3.33 (the store was selling 3 packages for $10 but I only needed one which is how the cost of the card-stock was $3.33. Also while I could have used all of the 5 colors since they all matched the school colors, I only used one, so it gave me a lot of extra card-stock for other crafts and technically it made the cost of these announcements even less. I had leftover supplies from the other things too that I can use for other crafts :) I purchased some already made cap & gown embossed die cuts, each package had 50 so I bought 2 packages at .49 each = .98 cents, a 4' roll of "Class Of" ribbon at .49 cents, a package of 100 mini brads at .59 cents, package of 1000 foam squares for $1.00 and a double sided roller tape for $1.00. Now if you add this up it comes to $13.38 but I also had a 20% off coupon which gave me another $2.68 discount bringing it down to $10.70, add in my taxes which were 6.5% and my total at the craft store come to $11.40. I then went to the dollar store and purchased embroidery thread for $1.06 (the thread was $1 and .06 cents for the tax). MY GRAND TOTAL TO MAKE 50 GRADUATION ANNOUNCEMENTS WAS $12.46! WOO HOO!!!!
The picture I used was one I took at my child's graduation. I already had glossy photo paper, which I had previously bought at the dollar store for just $1, so I printed out my own pictures for the announcements. (I had chosen not to purchase the professional photographs that would have cost me $150 for only 11 photos. I instead took my own photographs. By taking my own photographs I saved that money plus I can print the pictures in any size and quantity I chose or print in glossy and matte finishes)

Thank you so much for visiting my blog! I wish you all a wonderful and blessed week!

I'm Starting To Find My Groove ;)

Hope everyone is having a blessed day! I received a couple more stamp sets and dies from The Stamps of Life so I of course had to immediately start stamping and play around with different ideas. I needed to make a couple other cards, one for my husband's birthday and another to thank a friend for a sweet surprise she sent me. I took a different approach on my husband's card though and tried my very first digi image. Since I didn't have any Spectrum Noir or Copic markers, I used watercolor coloring pencils instead. This was my first experience with watercolor coloring pencils, but I loved it! It brought me back to my younger days of being able to color and paint at the same time, lol! I could have made even more than these 3 cards but I would have probably kept going until I ran out of supplies, lol! I did however make a realization today that I wanted to share...I couldn't figure out what all the fuss with card making and stamping was until now. I am having an absolute blast and I can't believe I waited this long to try it. I am so excited and beyond blessed that you all are supporting my blog! I greatly appreciate all the wonderful emails you have sent and don't forget comments are always welcome too :) Thank you so much for loving my ideas, creations, and crafts!!! 

Front of card 1 - I made with my new Stamps of Life stamps and dies. The stamp sets I used are tickets2stamp and tv2stamp along with the coordinating die. (The Stamps of Life do have a die to cut the tickets but I simply cut outside of the black line and then used a hole puncher to make the center dips/holes and edges around the tickets. I as well used the Sizzix Tickets dies and the A2 Tickets embossing folder from The Paper Studio. I added a few feathers and a purple pen to make the stitched look around the large blank ticket meant for personalization.

 

Inside of Card 1

Front of Card 2 - Birthday card I made for my husband. I used the Honey Firefighter digi from Sassy Studio Designs. I colored her with Crayola watercolor coloring pencils and then fussy cut around her. I drew all the flames and wording by hand which some were fussy cut while others were just cut with my paper trimmer. I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities 'Picot Edge Circles' die for the 2 circles behind 'Honey Firefighter' and the blinged out the helmet with rhinestones.

Inside of Card 2

Front of Card 3 & Envelope - You may recognize some things on this card and envelope because I used some them on the card seen in my October 28, 2013 blog. The card stock is a butter yellow color and the designed paper was just scrap paper I had from an old project. I used the Framelit Die Set 11pk Card Circle Flip Its #2 for the card (the Framelit Flip Its can be purchased from The Stamps of Life or Sizzix). I had various letter stamps that I arranged for the words and a lip stencil. For the envelope I embossed one side used the Sizzix 'Bubbles' A2 Large (from the Summer Set) embossing folder and on the other side I used The Paper Studio Patterned Polkas A2 embossing folder. All the stamping inks were from Studio G. Which I used the Studio G stamp inks along with an old sponge to add color to the envelope. I simply rubbed the sponge on the ink pads and then rubbed the envelope in a circular motion. I even made the star and dot shapes by using the edge of the ink pad. Lastly I used some old ribbon and a piece of the designed paper to the outside of the envelope.

Inside of Card 3 & back of envelope

A little side note: Some of you emailed asking if there was any way to be notified when I make a new post. I have messaged all of you back so please check your emails, but for those of you new to my blog, you can always use the link under 'Followers' on the right side of my blog to be notified. If you don't want to use this link, then simply message me with your email address and request to be notified of my new blog posts, and I will personally send you an email notification each time I post a new blog. 
Regarding comments: I have been blessed with all positive feedback but we do live in a free speech world, so with that said, please understand that comments will not post until I have approved them. This is meant to be a fun blog for me to share my creativity, thoughts, products I use, etc with you and visa-versa. I also want it to be for families, after all I do most of my crafting with my daughter and I hope other families have a special crafting time too. Therefore inappropriate behavior, rude comments, bad words, etc will not be posted. Thank you for understanding.

Clay Crafts :)

Hello Everyone! For those of you who participate in Halloween, I hope it was wonderful and blessed. My kiddo was dressed as the 80's and actually got a lot of candy considering there were only about 10 houses participating this year. Our town has tons of festivals, activities and gatherings rather than individual houses handing out candy and each year it seems that there are less homes handing out candy, so I am thinking next year we will go to the festivals ;) I am excited because November has begun, that means my favorite holidays are beginning too! We have some wonderful fall events that just set the mood and get you into the holiday spirit, even if you don't celebrate the holidays the events are a a lot of fun. I love that our town has something for everyone and brings the whole community together. Anyway, enough of my rambling, lol! For this blog post I thought I would change it up from sharing my card making projects, to showing you some clay crafts that I have done. Below is a little video of some of them. If you happen to follow me on YouTube then you might have seen a few of these crafts already but I have added some new ones as well. If you ever want to see a video tutorial on any of them, just send me a message and let me know which ones :) Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and watch my video! Have a wonderful weekend!

 (sorry that the video is small as I haven't figured out how to upload it bigger, however you can enlarge it to a full screen view by clicking on the square like icon at the bottom right of the movie. When movie is finished just hit the esc button on your computer to return to the normal screen )

 

  

My very first Tri-Shutter Card & Quilling attempt!

Hello everyone! Today I was inspired to make a tri-shutter card as well as try my hand at quilling. I had seen a ton of people on YouTube showing their tri-shutter cards all beautifully decorated, but I had not seen any made from scratch. I thought for sure I would need all kinds of fancy tools and have to do a billion steps that would take forever just to make this card. Well I was so wrong! This card is not hard to make at all and there are no special tools needed. I made my card from scrap papers and items I found around my house. The only tools you need are a ruler and a blade/xacto knife. For the quilling, again no special tools, you can just use your fingers or find a thin round stick. (If you happen to have a paper cutter/trimmer on hand or a quilling needle, it just makes these projects even easier!) I am so happy with how this turned out for this being my first tri-shutter card and my first time quilling, I can't wait to see what all I can create the more I make these. Once I get this blog more established I will be doing a video tutorial on this card as well as other video tutorials, so stay tuned. Now, let me show you my tri-shutter card and first quilling attempt :)

Full view of card open

Card closed - Front View

 

Top view of card open

This is how I made this card: I used a piece of 12" x 12" card stock and then using my ruler and razor I cut it down to 6" x 12". I then folded the card stock at 2", 4", 8", and 10" (If you happen to have a scorer then instead of folding, you would score). Now turn your paper so that the 12" length is horizontal (refer to my picture and you will see the long length is horizontal). At the first fold/score line measure 1" from the top downward and place a light pencil mark. Do the same at the last fold/score line. Use your ruler and line it up with both of your pencil marks, take your blade/xacto knife (remember blades are very sharp so use caution) and cut along the ruler's edge from the first fold/score line to the last fold/score line. You should now have a long slit in the paper. Next you will rotate the paper so that the uncut 12" length side is now at the top and the cut side is at the bottom. You will be repeating the same steps: at the first fold/score line measure 1" from the top downward - mark it- do the same at the last fold/score line - line up the ruler - cut from fold/score line to the other fold/score line. (after you have cut your slits they should measure about 10" in length) This next step is a bit tricky but you can refer to my picture to help you. At the folds/score lines, you are going to fold the card stock in an fan/accordion style fold, basically rotating your folds. Then grab the middle section of the card stock and fold it in the opposite direction of the other folds using the fan/accordion style fold. Your card can now be decorated any way you would like. I took scrap paper to decorate mine. For the side and top panels I simply measured the area where I wanted to decorate and then cut my scrap paper about a 1/4" to 1/2" smaller all the way around and glued it down to the card stock. I chose to use a Spellbinders die to cut my round piece for the front, stamped it with the sentiment "Thinking of You", I used a glitter pen to place hash lines around the circle and lettering so it looked stitched, added some rhinestones, some of my quilling shapes, and used foam squares to attach and raise it up. I also added some swirl lines with my glitter pen and some other quilling shapes to other areas of the card. I wanted to have place to write a personal note so for that section I used plain paper and took my finger, dipped it in different colors of my stamping ink to give it some design yet still allow my personal note to be read. By the way for my quilling shapes, I simply cut scratch paper to the width and length I wanted. I then took a very tiny knitting need and wrapped the paper around until I wanted to stop or when my paper ended. I slid it off of the knitting needle and pinched the paper into my desired shapes. I used a clear liquid clue to hold them onto my card. My daughter wanted to trying quilling and she simply used just her fingers to roll the paper. You can even mix up the size of the card by using the same method you just simply change the dimensions. I hope you experiment and try making this card as well as quilling. Use your creativity and have fun!

Welcome to my blog!

Good Afternoon Everyone! Welcome to my very first blog post :) I am not new to crafting but I am however fairly new to stamping, card making, and custom made scrap booking. I have some favorite stamp collections that I am just head over heals in love with, one of them being The Stamps of Life by Stephanie Barnard. So of course I just had to join her club :) When my very first Stamps of Life stamp set arrived my mind started going crazy! I had never handmade a card before but I knew without a doubt that I was going to hand make ALL of my Christmas cards this year. I know crazy right, LOL! I must say the craziness worked because here is my very first ever handmade card and the start to my handmade Christmas cards. I am beyond thrilled with the way it turned out :)

Front: The camera doesn't pick it up the sparkle, but there are areas with silver glitter that makes this card super blingy!

 

 Inside: I have not personalized the inside yet, but I will be using a stamp from one of the collections listed.

Here is what I used to make this card: From The Stamps of Life - stamp sets lights4christmas and holly4christmas. I as well used the die set Christmas Lights Dies and the Framelit Die Set 11pk Card Circle Flip Its #2 (the Framelit Flip Its can be purchased from The Stamps of Life or Sizzix). I used 2 different embossing folders - Sizzix Bubbles A2 Large (from the Summer Set) and The Paper Studio Patterned Polkas A2. Other items used - cardstock in various shades s of teal, silver glitter cardstock, VersaMagic Turquoise Gem chalk ink, Scribbles in Shiny White, and Smooch Pearlized Accent Ink in a teal color, and lastly a brush on silver glitter.