Handmade Teapot Card

A couple of weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find a decorated envelope in my mailbox. Inside was this lovely handmade card from my friend, Abby.

Unfortunately, my scanner doesn’t do it justice. The dimensional aspects are not clearly visible; both the teapot and the outer row of the daisies are raised.

I have been the blessed recipient of many of her projects and generosity.

Abby refers to herself a paper engineer. She’s very, very good at all kinds of paper creations like tumbling blocks and pop-up things, boxes, and much more.

Thank you, Abby.

Paper Crop

What’s a Paper Crop?

Well, it’s sort of like a quilting bee, except that the medium is paper rather than fabric. Also, participants bring their individual projects (such as scrapbooks, handmade greeting cards, ATCs, altered books, etc.) and own supplies and then share a workroom.

My sister attends them frequently in Oklahoma, but I never have until a couple of weeks ago.

Patti (a friend of mine) took me to the … well, I’m not sure what it’s called in the Methodist Church; in a Baptist Church it would be a Deacons’ meeting… anyway, we went to ask permission to use their community room for a paper crop and they graciously approved.

Four showed up: Patti, her grandchildren and me.

In the ways of the world I guess that qualifies as a failed party, but I count it as a success. We had fun.

Because I wasn’t having to make coffee and do the demonstrations that we had planned or draw names for the door prizes, I had the time to help Patti with her project, and also show the children how to do some things. They were focused on their creations and had a good time.

And when guests at a party and the hostess all enjoy the event – that’s a success.

Simple Handmade Cards

This paper from a tablet didn’t seem to need anything else on the cover; the left page on the inside has a brown stamped coffee cup and I included a bookmark to match.

The right edge of the front has been roughly cut around the flower outlines. It would’ve added some color if I had affixed about a 2″ yellow edge on the inside, which would showcase the flowers a little better.

Here’s an example of an idea that just didn’t work out. This strip of pansy printed vellum looked good inside this card – until the fixative came loose. I used a glue stick and it just wasn’t permanent. Perhaps the peel-off double sided tape or glue dots would’ve been better. And it should’ve been narrower. This page is too cluttered and not enough room to write a message.

This stamped edge would be another good one to cut around the right side.

Handmade Cards for Men

It’s not easy to produce a handmade card for men – at least, it’s not easy to make one that’s not cute or feminine or … I think you get my drift. Most of the rubber stamps and techniques are geared toward women, and that’s fine because we seem to appreciate handmade crafts. But when handmade is important to you, as well as tailoring a card for the recipient’s taste, the field narrows.

These are some of ideas that I experimented with. They aren’t fussy and over embellished (embellishments are something that my husband really doesn’t understand) and somewhat masculine. I hope.

The card above with the trophy is stamped onto plain cardstock, layered onto a slightly larger piece of diamond patterned paper, then onto plain cardstock folded into a card. My sister bought the stamp from the dollar bin at Michael’s (I think) and gave it to me.

(The diamond paper came in a package of mixed patterns and I thought “What in the world am I going to do with this? By itself it’s blinding, but with just the edge showing it really sets off the stamped image.)

I buy my cardstock in a large package at Wal-Mart. 500 pages with recycled content is less than $5.00, which is much cheaper than at the office supply chainstores. Using my paper cutter, I cut the pages in half- but I don’t cut all of it at once because I might end up with too many small cards and too many large envelopes.

Also, I included a matching bookmark.

For this card, I distressed the basic card front with a brown stamp pad (as well as the 3 hole reinforcers). The layered paper is from a large pad of decorative paper. Usually it’s best to cut off the white edge, but I decided to incorporate it into the design. I punched three holes at the top, stuck down the distressed hole reinforcers, and wrapped just a bit of black pearl cotton through the holes and around the top.

After stamping the postcard on the lower left edge, I affixed it to the distressed cardstock.

The finishing bit was to use a dashed stamp in black ink on the sides. My sister gave me that stamp. It was one that she cut off of a larger foam stamp and it’s quite useful.

Now I have a postmark stamp which would’ve worked well on the upper right hand corner. Or, a torn piece from a cancelled stamp and envelope could’ve been used, but that’s getting into embellishments.

I really like to use what I have and not have to buy things for specific projects. The more versatile the supplies are, the more I can use them and make my craft money go further. (Further? Farther? I wasn’t sure even after looking them up.)

Stenciled Christmas Cards, 2010

This is a Using What You Have post:

Yes, I know it’s already December 20th, and I haven’t sent out our Christmas cards.

In fact, until 8:00 a.m. this morning, I didn’t even have any.

What I did have was some white card stock, Christmas stencils of ornaments and snowflakes, white and navy blue acrylic paints, a stencil brush, some Christmas rubber stamps, a 15 year old blue stamp pad (never re-inked), some Stickles and a box of envelopes that my friend Donna bought for me at a garage sale a couple of years ago.

First I cut the card stock in half, then folded each piece once to make the basic card.

Then I mixed about 1/2 teaspoon of navy acrylic paint with 1 teaspoon of white. I didn’t measure it – I just estimated a 2 to 1 ratio because that gave me the light blue I was looking for.

Then, I placed the stencil over the folded card, and using a stencil brush with very little paint on it, stippled the paint on. After setting them aside to dry (which is really fast if not too much paint is used), I turned the envelopes over and stenciled a small snowflake or ornament over the point of the back flap.

Next, I used Stickles glitter glue to highlight parts of the design. After that was dry (and Stickles do take awhile to dry), my sister (who was here helping me by this time) ran the blue stamp pad around the edges of the front of the card to kind of frame it.

Then Fran and I stamped the inside message, either “Wise Men Still Seek Him” or “NOEL” and “Merry Christmas” along the left edge of the front side of the envelope.

Now I just need to sign and address them.

And of course, mail them.