Getting Crafty

Sometimes you don’t realize what is involved in an undertaking until you try it yourself. It not always a case of discovering that something is more difficult than you suspected, sometimes you just discover that something has more steps than you thought. That was the case with stamping.

When I made Christmas cards earlier this month, I experimented with stamping on some cards. I didn’t know how to switch ink pad colours on the same stamp without getting the old colour on the stamp except to wait for the first colour to dry, and hope it doesn’t transfer along with the new colour. I tried rinsing the stamps off between uses with water, but that didn’t work. “There must be something meant to clean off stamps,” I thought to myself as I headed to the dollar store this week, and sure enough, there is. I found these solutions at two different dollar stores:

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Well after my initial excitement over sewing on paper, I went into a full blown frenzy last week, staying up until about 2 in the morning several nights in a row making cards. Despite all this work with paper, I promise you, I am not Kari!

Some of the other cards that I’ve made are:

This is my favourite because it was a true labour of love, getting those little squares to sit still while I stitched them down. I learned a trick or two as I went along (put a bit of glue to make sure they stay in the general area they’re supposed to stay!), and I find that every card I make gets better than the last, even with respect to sewing straight.

Another one that copied that patchwork idea.

I have a fair bit of paper that doesn’t have those “Christmassy” colours (red, green, gold, silver) in them, and I wanted to make a series of Winter wonderland type cards. So far I have only made this one:

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As promised late last week, I spent some of the weekend making Christmas cards.

I love simple cards but my poor, neglected sewing machine was calling to me this weekend: “Try out my zigzag feature on some of your plainer cards and see if you don’t love using me!” it said. “Even with the zigzag or just a simple straight stitch, your cards will still have that simple feel that you like!” it said, repeatedly, so I gave in. After a quick practice on some scrap paper to make sure I still knew how to use a sewing machine (it had been sitting unused for literally years!), it was show time. First up was this card:

Very simple, all I did was affix a strip of festive paper with two rows of zigzag stitching! Very quick!

One of my pet peeves when using brads, is what to do to cover up the underside of the sheet that you have poked holes into. One suggestion is to never put brads directly on your cardstock, but rather on a sheet of paper that you later attach to the cardstock (thanks, Kari!) but I find that even when I do this, the bump on the other side of the paper makes it hard to glue securely (and flat) to the cardstock. It gets messy and wrinkled and it looks unprofessional. Not sure what I’m talking about? Here’s a picture of that I mean:

Yuck, right? Well, what I discovered is if I put the brads on the sheet of paper then sew it onto the cardstock, it looks much better, and I don’t have to worry about gluing a strip of paper to the inside of the card to hide the back of the brads! You might think I’d care about covering the stitching marks on the other side but for whatever reason, that doesn’t bother me as much….although, if I do decide it bothers me, the stitching is flat so it would be a breeze to cover up!

Want to see more cards? Have a gander:

All the remaining cards used one of two types of cardstock with the same sheet of 12 x 12 printed paper and brads, meaning they all look pretty much the same, but there were some different arrangements (give me some credit, darn it!). I must say it’s been quite addictive using the sewing machine; now I just need to learn how to sew curves: my attempt to sew a heart cut out of patterned paper onto a sheet of cardboard was disastrous:

(It looks much worse in person, like I was going it with my eyes closed or something. how do you get your needle to follow the curve of the “material” (paper in this case)?

I can’t resist the dollar store for crafting aids, but I have been very good: I mentally slapped my hand every time it tried to reach for something that I already have a million of (brads) and I didn’t come home with even one package of brads, even though I went to three dollar stores and Wal*mart last night (do I get a medal?)! I even resisted the Christmas papers because I really want to focus on simple colours and using all those darn brads I stockpiled to make this year’s cards.

What did I come home with? Just this adorable set of letters:

Aren’t they cute?

Although I have a few stamp pads, I’ve never really stamped. Kari over at All Paper Arts stamps all the time on her cards and does such a beautiful job that I really should have tried this sooner! These letters convinced me to give stamping a whirl, and I took one of yesterday’s cards and stamped five letters onto it in green ink:

What do you think?

At this rate of adding one small piece to the card each day, the card will be elaborate thing by the time it’s sent…well it would be if I wasn’t sending it tomorrow!

I didn’t quite stop with the stamps. I saw these cute chipboard albums marked at a dollar each and I had to buy one three.

I was attracted to the deep yet bright purple shade immediately, but I hope to take a trip soon and document it in the brown one, and the orange one would make a great gift for a couple of my longterm friends. I also bought some gel pens in festive colours for all that Christmas card writing. Nothing makes the monotony of address envelopes more fun than using brightly coloured pens.

So, if you’re seeking inspiration for either decor or gifts, stop by your local store and see if there isn’t something that you can bring home and build upon!

Why is December moving so fast? It’s already six days in and those of you who are planning to make gifts need to look at your projects and decide if you’re going to get them done, come hell or high water, or start something a little smaller in scale or just buy your gift this year.

My goal for this year is to make all of my Christmas cards, but I have already sent one store-bought card. I thought I could make a card or two every day until I have enough but I am now realizing that I have to go on a card-making spree and make them all up at once, or over a day or two. The effort of being creative simply does not justify stopping at one card! They don’t even have to be fancy: just home made and something that makes use of all those supplies that I have.

With this card I tackled those terribly prickly five pronged things (brads) that I used when making my brother’s birthday card, using the edge of a pair of scissors to flatten them down and I got my fingers pinched many times over for my troubles. If you recall, the original brads look like this from behind:

Very sharp, let me tell you!

These are very simple cards to make: all you need is festive coloured cardstock and brads. Put the two together however you want and voila: instant cards! If you like to have words on the front of your cards, make use of rub ons, or if your writing is neat and legible, grab a sparkly pen and decorate the front of your card with your wishes.

Come back at the end of the weekend to see what other cards I’ve created—cards must be made this weekend so that I can send them out before Christmas.