January 13, 2016

People like my creations!

I am excited to share this. I made a Christmas card for my supervisor this year. The unfortunate thing is that I forgot to take a picture of it. She liked it so much that she has been asking me randomly to make cards for her for certain occasions in her life. This is a different supervisor than the one I made the set of 10 blank cards for. I change supervisors at work frequently as schedules change and we add more people to our department. I will actually be changing supervisors again in April when I start a new Monday through Friday shift).
Anyways...she asked me yesterday to make an anniversary card for her to give to someone else. I made the card below and was very excited for it. When I got to work today, I just happened to notice all of the anniversary balloons floating at people's desks (we get balloons and a candy bar from our management team in the month of our anniversaries). It dawned on me that I should have clarified with my supervisor, Sarah, whether it was for a work anniversary or a wedding anniversary (which is where my thinking was when I made this card). I mentioned that to her when I presented the card but she loved it and said it was perfect for either. She then came back to me and told me it was for one of our male supervisors and wondered if we could take the bow off. Because of the way I put it on, I was able to untie it and remove the glue dot and it was sans bow.

 

  • The card base and black layers is Recollections card stock from Michael's.
  • The white card stock I bought from Walmart. It comes in a ream in the printer section. 
  • The ink used is VersaFine Onyx Black. 
  • The ribbon is from my stash (I'm pretty sure it was given to me at some point along with the rest of my ribbon pieces in a jar). I don't use ribbon very often so I don't have much of it. It is two pieces. The first piece was adhered to the back of the middle panel, wrapped around and then adhered to the back again. For the bow, I slipped a smaller piece of ribbon under the wrapped piece, tied the bow and then stuck half of a glue dot underneath to hold it in place. This is why it was so easy to remove.
  • The stamp on the front of the card is from Fiskars. It is called Elegant Vine. I purchased it on clearance a few years ago and didn't realize until now (since it hadn't been opened yet) that it is for their Continuous Stamping Wheel (that I didn't know existed until now). I don't have that tool, but I just pulled it off from the plastic backing (this was tougher than I thought it should have been) and used it like a normal acrylic stamp. I stamped this a few different times randomly over the three panels using this technique. I watched videos of this technique and many crafters use non-permanent adhesive to layer their papers before stamping. I did as the person in the linked technique tutorial and just layered them on the table (I put a piece of paper underneath them so that I could stamp off the edges) and stamped.
  • I realized after making the front of the card that I don't have any Anniversary stamps so I improvised. The inner stamp is from the Close to My Heart Art Philosophy Cricut Collection. I used a black pen to write the sentiment.
I am very pleased with how this turned out and I will definitely be using the triple stamping technique again in the future.
I have also now been asked to make another anniversary card and a birthday card for my supervisor as well. I am in charge of my team's recognition for this month and next so I will continue to make birthday cards and anniversary cards for them as well. This gives me goals to meet so that I can book time into my schedule to work on them. If it weren't for those goals, I would put crafting on the back burner and forget to schedule it as part of me-time.

January 11, 2016

Set of 10 different blank notecards

I make cards for special occasions for people on my team at work. My previous supervisor (we switch occasionally as people get different shifts) loved the cards I was making so much that she asked me to make her a set of 10 note cards. I, of course, agreed to make them. This was actually a bit of a challenge for me as she wanted them all to be different and blank inside. No sentiments. No mass production. It was tricky but also very fun.

 

Above is the entire set of 10 cards. I'm pretty pleased with them.
Here they are in detail:


For this card I followed a random sketch I had posted in one of my many Facebook albums. The blue cardstock (I believe from Stampin' Up) and the orange paper is from my scrap stash. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Glam Rock stack.
For this one, the card base and the lighter blue cardstock are from this stack from Michaels. I love these stacks and they go on sale fairly frequently. I used my Scor-Pal to score the three lines at the bottom. The button is a sticker that I purchased years ago on clearance. I made the pinwheel using this tutorial. There are many tutorials out there to make this faux pinwheel. I just happened to use the first one I came across. The patterned papers I used were from my scrap stash.


All of the papers on this card, including the card base, were from my scrap stash. The birds are stickers from a set I purchased on clearance at Michaels a while ago.

This card is on a white card base. The yellow patterned paper is from a stack, but I can't remember which one and don't have any more of it that I could find. The triangles and banners are from a sticker sheet. I am bummed that I didn't write down which company it was from. I just peeled the stickers off the sheet, inked the edges, and adhered them to the card.
The patterned papers on this card are from the DCWV Guy Stack. The three embellishments are from my stash that does not have packaging.
The papers used on this card are from the DCWV My Sunshine Stack. I stamped the image using Close to my Heart Chocolate ink. The stamp is from Unity Stamps. I love their images and they have some incredible sales as well.
For this one, I found a fun starburst card and looked for a tutorial. There are many out there. I came across this one and tried it. I didn't have any embellishments that really went with this card so I left it without any. This is a very versatile technique that I will be using in the future. The patterned papers are from the DCWV Lemon Flower Stack.
At first I thought this card was a little busy, but I have come to love it! The papers are from the DCWV White Ginger Stack. Okay, so I might have a slight obsession with DCWV papers. They are so beautifully designed and sturdy!
The sketch I pulled from my huge arsenal of sketches.

This one is a mess of my ideas. I started by cutting rectangles and ended up with this. The patterned papers are from the DCWV Mod-Retro Stack. The twine is from Close to my Heart. The embellishments are Karen Foster Mediterranean Sparkle Burst Brads.


Although I clearly have an obsession with DCWV, I do not solely use DCWV papers. The papers used on this card are from the We R Memory Keepers Storytime 6x6 paper stack. I purchased this stack at Walmart. The little jewels are from my unidentified stash. The twine is from Close to my Heart. The button is from BoBunny.