Hello crafty friends, I hope you are doing well! I’m excited to be participating in Spellbinders’ blog hop celebrating their January 2023 club kits.
If you’re visiting my blog for the first time, I’m Nandita and I find paper crafting and painting to be a relaxing, creative break from my day job. You should have hopped over here from Sheri Gilson’s blog, but if you want to start at the beginning, you can jump over to the Spellbinders blog here. Make sure to leave a comment on their blog for a chance to win $25 store credit at the Spellbinders store.
Card Kit, Stitching Kit, and optional Add-Ons
My main crafty goals for 2023 are to use up card kits within a month of getting them and to use up older items in my stash. In my post today, I’m sharing what I’ve made with the January 2023 club kits and how I’m doing on meeting my goals. If you want to jump to the end of the post, you can see everything I’ve created so far.
Spellbinders has eight different monthly clubs and four ‘value’ clubs, which are different clubs in various combinations. You can see all the details here. For January, Spellbinders very kindly sent me the revamped Card Kit of the Month “Indoor Garden”, the brand-new Stitching Kit of the Month “Nested Stitched Burst”, and both optional, a la carte add-ons. This month, for the Card Kit, there is a coordinating die set, “Happy Plant Die Set”, and for the Stitching Kit, there is a coordinating stamp set, “Sentimental Greetings Stamp Set”. Now, unfortunately, the Large Die, Stitching Die, and 3D Embossing Folder of the Month Clubs are sold out. You will be able to join these Clubs next month, in February. Be sure to join, and don’t miss out on the new designs.
I loved playing with all these products and while this month’s Stitching Kit is sold out, the Card Kit, Card Kit Add-On, and Stitching Kit Add-On are all still available. I’m especially glad the Stitching Kit Add-On is still available because this is a very useful stamp set and I highly recommend you pick it up if you need a general, versatile sentiment set.
The Card Kit came with 8 A2 card bases and envelopes, 20 A2 cardstock card fronts in five colors (four of each), 20 sheets of 6” x 6” single-sided patterned paper, 1 sheet of puffy sentiments stickers, 2 sheets of chipboard stickers, 1 sheet of adhesive gems, 12 chipboard embellishments, double-sided tape, foam squares, and lots of die cut ephemera. There is enough variety in colors and patterns that you could easily make cards for any recipient or any occasion. The “Indoor Garden” theme is also flexible and the images work for many types of cards – which you will see when you look at the variety of occasions, I’ve made cards for. The coordinating “Happy Plant Die Set” is great because it fills the front of an A2 card quite well.
The Stitching Kit came with 6 dies that cut a gorgeous stitchable design on an A2 card front. You don’t have to add stitching, but if you do it’s another layer of creativity. If you use all of the dies you end up with a few different pieces that can be put back together to cover the entire card front. In the cards I made with this kit, I used different combinations of the dies, which added a lot of value since there are many options from a single die set. Of course, the part that adds the most versatility is the stitching. Depending on what colors you use, what stitches you use, and even how many strands you use, you can get a unique look.
The stamp add-on is perfect because of how many occasions the greetings could be used for. I also enjoyed the different fonts since I could emphasize if it’s a more serious (get well, simple font) vs a more playful card (make a wish, bouncy font).
Crafting as Self Care
If you follow me on IG (@CardsbyNandita), you already know I cut all the dies a few times from white cardstock while at home. I then took the die cuts, my embroidery supplies, and the card kit with me while I was traveling over the holidays. These kits are excellent if you love to have something crafty to do while you are out and about.
I’m an introvert, so being constantly around people, even when it’s people I enjoy spending time with, can easily stress me out. So during the trip, if I felt even a little overwhelmed, it was helpful to pull out the panels and do some stitching. With the card kit, I found it calming to be able to take a few quiet moments to step away from the group and pull a couple of cards together.
Cardmaking Process
Once I got home, I wanted to keep to my goal of using up the kit and spread out everything from the kits to see how much more I could create. I’m happy with the result, including the cards from earlier, I’ve made a total of 23 cards using both kits. I do hope to completely use up the consumables in the kit over the next few weekends.
Since there is a large amount of included ephemera, I tried to create mini scenes where I was able to use up multiple pieces. With the patterned paper, while I didn’t use measurements, I did mix and match the cut pieces so I avoided having lots of scraps left over. In some cases, I used cardstock mats for the patterned paper out of my scraps folders but mostly I let the paper stand on its own.
I like how the theme is not overly feminine or masculine since it allowed me to create cards for many occasions. Lately, I’ve needed work appropriate ‘Thank You’ cards regularly and I was able to make quite a few using the kit.
I incorporated all of the die-cut panels I stitched during my trip into cards and balanced the colorful threads with color-coordinating embellishments. I stamped out the sentiment set a few times and pulled those in. For the Happy Plant die set, I dipped into my scraps folder and cut the leaves out from various shades of green cardstock. I also pulled out my sentiments stash and used other greetings if I wanted something specific (like for the Mother’s Day card).
For embellishments, I mostly pulled from the card kit, but I do have some Dollar Tree adhesive gems and Recollections washi I’ve been trying to use up and pulled those in when I could. I fully used up the included foam squares (but have some of the backing left, which I will use) and A2 envelopes/card bases. For additional card bases – I used my Neenah and Accent Opaque precut card bases. For extra card fronts, I alternated between Neenah and some colored cardstock (Gina K, Bazzill, PTI). For adhesive, other than the included foam and double-sided adhesive roll, I used my ATG, Bearly Arts liquid glue, and Gina K Connect glue. Most of the sentiments in my stash are cut from white cardstock scraps, so in some cases, I used my Ohuhu or Tombow alcohol markers to match the card kit colors.
You definitely don’t need to pull in extra supplies as I still have quite a bit left from the kit. But as I said earlier, my goal is to both use up card kits AND older supplies. From the card kit, what I have remaining: 6 sheets of patterned paper, a handful of patterned paper scraps, 4 card fronts, a fifth of the die cut ephemera, a handful of puffy stickers, a tiny amount of adhesive gems, and half the chipboard stickers. I also have a bit of the foam square backing, most of the roll of double-sided adhesive, a bunch of die cuts from the Happy Plant set, a few stamped sentiments from the Greetings add-on, and 3 stitched circle die cuts from the Stitching die. I am definitely going to use up the rest of this kit soon and see how many more cards I can get out of it.
Cards from the Kit (so far...)
Blog Hop
You’ve reached the end of the hop, but if you want to go through again, the next stop on the hop is the Spellbinders Blog.
Here’s the full blog hop list, definitely check out all the wonderful inspiration from everyone below:
Nandita Garg – You are here 🙂
Are you looking for more Spellbinders inspiration? Check out my posts on No Scrap Cards, Stretching Your Supplies, and Using Holiday Dies All Year.
Thanks for reading!
Hope you have a wonderful day with plenty of time to craft.
Nandita
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Lovely card! Thanks for sharing! ~Big Hugs! Debbie J
Such a good idea to cut everything before a trip. I have stamped images so my husband and I can watercolor while camping. It’s so nice. But I’ve never die cut beforehand. Smart. I love to stitch. I might need to buy this
Fabulous cards. Thank you for sharing. Love the card kit.
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It was fun seeing how you did the same stitch card in so many different colors!
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WOW!! Look at all those beautiful creations!!! So fun that you took them on your trip!!
Love love love the stitches cards!!
Love,love, love the stitched cards. And backgrounds of the photos =)
lovely stitched cards….
Lovely cards.
wow you have been busy. thanks as always for sharing.
Beautiful! Thank you for the inspiration!
What great photos of your projects! wonderful cards.
Wow, that’s a lot of cards! I especially love the stitched cards and what pretty colors you used.
WOW!
I really like how you challenged yourself to see how many cards you could create with the kit , 23 cards is impressive!
They are all wonderful!
Wow, so many fantastic cards! Thanks for giving us a window into your card making. Each one is great!
Amazing inspiration!!! Those sewing cards look terrific 😍😍😍