Phew, it’s been a while since I posted – a lot happened in my life that kept me from updating. Let’s see, right after my last post I got a long-term contract at my full-time job, which ended up turning into a staff position in 2019. Then, I bought a house, renovated it, and moved in literally days before the lockdown began. During the first year of the pandemic, I adopted a puppy so between him and fixing up my new craft room, I had no capacity for crafting. Last year, I finally started having time/energy to craft and be creative again.
I did have a bunch of half finished posts saved, so before I post on my current projects…I’m going to just quickly go through the cards I made in between 2018 and now.
New Techniques, Existing Supplies
For my birthday in 2018, my parents gifted me a bunch of craft supplies from my crafty wishlist so the rest of the year I tried to limit buying craft items. For the cards I made during Fall/Winter, I focused on techniques that showcased what I had and also used up older supplies. I did a lot of ink blending with Distress Inks, some heat embossing with my favorite Hero Arts powders, and quite a bit of paper piecing using Lawn Fawn nested dies. One major benefit of those techniques was that I was able to use up a lot of older patterned paper that hadn’t been touched. I ended up creating around 40+ A2 cards for all different occasions. I did try to make more that would work as birthday and encouragement cards, since I mail those out most often. For sentiments, I basically just pulled out everything from my stash and only decided on the sentiment after I was mostly done with the card. I also managed to use up some of the chipboard letters and other die cuts included in various Bo Bunny variety packs/kits from 2012/2013.
Frequently, when I’m creating a specific card, I start crafting without having a full idea of where I’m going. This usually means I have extra bits and pieces after making a card, which I end up not using or change my mind about. In November, I made time to pull together these leftovers and extra backgrounds to make another large batch of mostly A2 cards. For example, the rainbow Congratulations card was from when I was experimenting with distress watercolor and created a few extra backgrounds. While the Sending Sunshine card card pulled in a bunch of leftover Lawn Fawn die cuts. I also created several generic holiday cards for my sister to send to her friends. My Simon Says Big Scripty Greetings set got a lot of use because these sentiments fill an A2 card really nicely. I didn’t realize it back then, but building up my stash ended up being very helpful during late 2019 through 2020.
Wedding Cards
In Winter 2018, my parents traveled to India to attend a bunch of family weddings, and I used lots of die cut layers to create elegant cards. Around this time I also started using more embellishments including: Nuvo Drops, Bo Bunny Bling, and Prima flowers. I used a lot of Amazing Paper Grace dies for wedding cards – Becca Feeken is one of my favorite designers and her style I think really complements the look I try to go for. I’ve also always loved Spellbinders’ dies, in general, because they cut well, even the detailed, intricate ones. I made five wedding cards and like always, I tried to pull in colors from the wedding invites. My favorite was the cream card, I followed a YT tutorial from Christina Griffiths for the technique and I loved how delicate the resulting card was. Since all of the cards were going to be handed in person, I didn’t hesitate when adding dimension and layers. I did end up creating card boxes for each of them, which took a bit of trial and error to figure out the dimensions – but the We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board was super useful. I used cardstock from Simon Says Stamp, Papertrey Ink, Bazzill Card Shoppe, and Tonic Studios on all five cards. I also used Lawn Fawn cardstock in the first two cards and Gina K cardstock in the last three cards. I will share a few more details on how I put together the the Wine/Gold card and the Red/Navy card in an upcoming post – since those two ended up very different to the inspiration cards.
Quick Holiday Card
The last card I made in 2018 was very easy to put together – I think it only took me about 15 minutes total. But I was really pleased with the final card. My parents needed to send a holiday card and only gave me an hour notice before it needed to be in the mailbox to reach the recipient on time! Luckily, I had just received an adorable snowflake stencil with the latest issue of Cardmaking Magazine.
I actually used a similar embossing technique in the cream wedding card, where I embossed the diecut with a glitter embossing powder (Ranger’s Snowflake Tinsel – previously, I used Bridal Tinsel). I also used an Elizabeth Craft Designs Evergreen Grove stencil, which added just a hint of bright green to really give it the holiday feel. The Holiday Wishes sentiment is from a Simon Says stamp set, while the sentiment strip is from another Simon Says set.
Ranger Liquid Pearl in Platinum was the perfect shade to go with both the Snowflake Tinsel and the background cardstock (Vintage Cream from Papertrey Ink). I finished it off by layering the panel on scrap pieces of Tonic Studios cardstock in Imperial Blue and Chrome Silver.
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