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 )