Card of the Week #3

It may seem crazy, that I’m starting on my new 2012 Christmas line of cards, tags, and more. But, lately I’ve been thinking about what cards I want to have for sale in my shop; and, I don’t want to wait until the last minute. For some reason Christmas cards are a little more challenging for me than baby shower cards, invitations, and Birthday cards; so,  I figured designing Christmas cards early this year would save me tons of stress. I tried my best to get super creative with this card and I think I did well in capturing the beauty and warmth of my favorite holiday. 

Here are the materials I used for this card: Cream card stock base, Kraft card stock frame, Recollections New Christmas paper stack, ribbon, Lawn Fawn stamps, Inkadinkado Christmas stamps, Black ink, red chalk ink, and my new crafty toy: my gelly pen! 

I took a close up shot of the faux stitching I used on the card with my new gelly pen. I’ve seen lots of papercrafters use this particular pen and I wanted to give it a try. So far, I'm happy with the results. 

Thank you for visiting today for another ‘Card of the Week’ post. Let me know your thoughts on this design. I’d love to hear from you!

xoxo

Cute Things You Can Make Without a Cricut—Using Affordable Tools

    Every once in a while I’ll have friends over for a visit, and they (and their children) are always immediately drawn to my craft table. I’m always willing to answer any questions they may have about what certain things are, how they work, and how much certain tools cost. But one of the most common statements I get from visitors is, “I wish I could make these cards, or these cupcakes toppers, but I don’t have a Cricut.” Every single time I heart that I’m not convinced, lol. I always say, “You don’t NEED a Cricut to do most of the things I make.” Sure the Cricut can make tons of things—but to be honest most of the time I only use my Cricut for printing out tags, and making Hello Kitty items. I love being hands on with every step of my craft—the items I create with tools and my hands always seem to come out better and I feel that they have more value.

What are those tools you ask? They’re craft punches! –Craft punches, high quality card stock, stamps, ink, glue, ribbon, imagination, love, etc. Here are some of the craft punches I use to create cupcake toppers, tags, cards, and embellishments.

Once I’ve punched out the shape I want, I just use some stamps to decorate the paper and these are some of the items I’ve made using these tools (without a Cricut).

Therefore, you can create some of these too. Perhaps with every paycheck you can buy a craft punch, some paper (when it’s on sale), and other needed tools—to start creating and sharing these things with the world.

Cute Ribbon Stamps for Scrapbooking and Card Making

Hi everyone! I just wanted to share these cute clear stamps I got in the mail. I ordered them for card making and I can’t wait to use them. I’m thinking of making an entire collection of thank you cards using these different types of ribbon stamps. What do you think? Don’t like they look so real? I’ll post pictures of the final product once I’ve created a style I’m happy with. Happy crafting!