Yay - Submission to CARDS Magazine - Experiment 8

One of the categories for the June 2012 submission call to CARDS was "mini cards".  I figured that might be a good one since I was pressed for time.  After all, the smaller the card, the less "stuff" you need to put on it, right?

As I was falling asleep after making the first card, I had an idea for the second one.  Let me tell you a little story...

My college roommate K was most certainly cooler than I was (still is!).  She let me borrow her clothes, especially when we went out and I needed something edgier to wear.  One of the items I frequently borrowed was a black tank top.  But not just any black tank top - it was styled like a corset, with satin ribbon lacing.  Since it wasn't an *actual* corset, it didn't have those annoying straps for garters and whatnot, and the lacing was in the front rather than the back.

At some point, K realized I was borrowing it for pretty much every outing, and she just gave it to me.  I wore it out.  In fact, I just recently gave it away (finally!).

I wanted to make a card inspired by this corset lacing.  I have a ridiculous amount of ribbon in my supply stash and struggle with how to use more than a few inches at a time as a border or small accent. 

This was an idea I needed to try first, to see if it would really work.  I measured and punched a few paris of holes in scrap cardstock and tried lacing it up with 1/8" ribbon.  It looked pretty cool.  

In a recent Craigslist score of a sticker binder and a bunch of miscellaneous supplies, I found some super-cute Basic Grey patterned paper that had already been matted onto white cardstock.  Two of my favorite color combinations are dark pink and acid green, and brown and acid green.  I found some Stampin' Up cardstock in a delightfully acidic green that looked perfect for the card base.

Since this was a simple card, I needed the circle with the sentiment to stand out.  At first I wanted to stamp and emboss it with the new opaque white ink I bought, but realized quickly that I don't have white embossing powder, and the clear powder didn't make it stand out enough.  (Another thing I'm glad I tested on scrap cardstock first!)

So I settled on letter stickers instead.  But the white chipboard stickers looked a little too plain and had some imperfections on them.  What better way to fix that than with glitter?  Oh, I love me some glitter.  I grabbed my Zig glue pen (OMG love) and my Martha Stewart super fine glitter and got to work.

I put in a silver eyelet to strengthen the hole in the circle and give it a more finished look and tied that piece on with a simple knot.  All in all, it was a pretty quick card to construct, but the trial and error of figuring out the mechanics was what took longer.

Tips and Tricks

• When using embossing powder and a heat gun, you'll want to stop before it's done.  Don't - there's a very definite point when you'll see the powder melt and get shiny.

• For both glittering and embossing, you don't need a fancy tray to collect the excess.  Just use a clean sheet of white printer paper.  Then you can bend it and pour the rest back into the jar.

• You can remove extra bits of embossing powder and unstuck glitter with a small paintbrush.  Be gentle so you don't screw up the wet parts of the design.

• For projects requiring a LOT of ribbon like this, cut twice as much as you think you'll need.  You can always use the scraps later if you cut too much, but if it's too short, it'll just be frustrating. 

I submitted both cards to the magazine online in the wee hours of 12/31.  It was an awesome way to ring in the New Year, especially since the Hubby and BabyT were both asleep well before midnight... 

Thoughts?  Critique?  Should I have put eyelets in the little holes to make it look more finished?  Too plain?  Too busy? 

I've Got Sunshine - Submission to CARDS Magazine - Experiment 7

Happy New Year!! As I mentioned in my last post, one of my Mondo Beyondo dreams is to get a papercraft published in a magazine.  My top choice is CARDS Magazine by Northridge Publishing, because it is so darn pretty. 

I spent some time wishing I could do this, without taking any concrete action. Not surprisingly, it's very difficult to get published without actually *making* and *submitting* an item first.  So during this long weekend, I finally printed out the submission guidelines, and found out (eek!) that the submission deadline for the June 2012 issue is TODAY.

They listed several different categories, including Father's Day, Friendship, and Mini Cards.  Each month they also have a "style challenge" which gives you a few colors to use and a theme.  They also have a "sketch challenge" which has a schematic drawing of a card layout that you use as a starting point.

Since I only had 2 days to work on these, and my whole regular life to attend to in the meantime, I set a reasonable expectation of making 2 cards for this Call for Submissions.  (Sounds like a scientific conference, right?)

The Style Challenge looked like fun - the theme was "clouds" and the colors light blue, navy and yellow.  I figured the obvious choice would be to do some kind of cloudy sky scene with a big yellow sunshine so I tried to find a different approach.  I had some of the lyrics to "My Girl" running through my head - "I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day..."

I took that as inspiration and thought about what else could be yellow, and came up with a couple of things:  a big happy balloon, a bird?  And then it came to me - an airplane!  It had a more techie vibe and I thought it might stand out a little better, since a lot of the cards they publish are very feminine in theme.

First, I cut out the clouds and airplane on my wonderful Silhouette SD diecutting machine.  I wanted the airplane to look "metallic" so I found some bright yellow glossy cardstock which worked well.  I also used vellum to give the clouds some additional translucence and dimension.

I struggled a bit with the actual layout.  I had all the pieces I wanted to incorporate but got a little "stuck" on where to put them. So I turned to my talented Design Consultant, aka TJ, and he made some suggestions that were excellent.  In fact, it was HIS idea to stack up the cloud pieces so they looked more "fluffy" - his exact word.  Dang, he's good.  (Am I ruining his street cred now?)

Nearly all the cards in the magazine are matted - they have an extra piece of paper on top of the card base to "frame" it, which makes it look more professional.  But I didn't want to cover up most of the lovely silver cardstock.

I had a brainwave to make a HUGE cloud out of the navy polka dot paper, which contrasts really well with the super-bright airplane.  And the new metallic tissue paper I bought from Target's post-holiday clearance section made a perfect set of "windows" for the plane.

This was a really fun project - I loved having some contraints to work with.  It let me jump right into problem-solving and idea generation, rather than being paralyzed by the sheer volume of what I *could* do. Yes, I'm a total nerd.

Tips and Tricks:

• I've said it before, but it's worth repeating A LOT - do not glue ANYTHING down with permanent adhesive until you are absolutely sure of your design.  A pencil can help mark placement, or you can use high quality removable adhesive for a temporary layout.

• Remember you're working with paper, and it shows wear very easily.  Try to handle each element as little as possible and don't move them around a ton, esp if you're using removable adhesive to test layouts.

• Buy special invisible tape for vellum.  I thought I had some, but turns out I didn't and needed to make a small design change to use silver brads instead of just taping down the "HELLO!" sentiment.

• Pigment ink stays wet for a long time (the metallic stuff seems even worse) - hit your stamped image with a heat gun tool to get it to dry faster.  Do not handle it more than you need to.

• If you're going to ink/trace/chalk paper edges, do it before you glue it onto something.  So much easier and cleaner that way.

• Spend some time thinking or sketching the look you're trying to achieve BEFORE dipping into your awesome supplies.  Craft supplies are great (I should know) but also very distracting.  If you're not careful to stick to your vision, you can get sidetracked and end up with an incoherent design that looks like your embellishment collection vomited.  (Not that this has ever happened to me...)

• Projects always take twice or 10x as long as you think so if you're under a tight deadline, start early and scale back your expectations of how much you'll get done. 

I may depart from my usual "Materials and Methods" section in my posts, because I realized it was making me *not* want to write about my projects.   It was starting to seem like a chore.  I like writing about the inspiration for the card, who it's going to, and of course, what I learned from doing it.  If you have questions about how I did something or what supplies I used, please let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to answer!

I'm proud of this card, even though it likely won't get picked for publication with the hundreds of submissions (from far more experienced papercrafters than me!).   It enabled me to get started with the process, to practice using the Silhouette a little more, and use someone else's defined parameters to make something uniquely mine.

But, maybe, just maybe, there's a teeny tiny chance.  And if you believe that, then please keep your fingers crossed for me ;)

52 Weeks of Mail: Week 2, Follow Your Dream

Back in October, my friend K and I were taking an online class together called Mondo Beyondo.  It's all about figuring out what your big dreams are and how to make them real.  One of the lessons mentioned a book called The Wishing Year: A House, a Man, My Soul by Noelle Oxenhandler.  I read it pretty quickly, and decided that K might like it too, so I packed it up for her. 

Since I was doing 52 Weeks of Mail, I figured I should also include a nice card.  So I made her one:

Basic Grey has some really cool greeting card kits, which contain all the fixin's for 8 greeting cards based on their paper design lines.  The kits have all the papers, conveniently cut into the right shapes and sizes, die cuts, rub-ons, and chipboard embellishments, plus detailed step by step instructions on how to assemble each card.  You don't even need scissors - just some strong adhesive!

I *love* these kits because it's a quick and easy way to make a handmade card, and it helps me get over the initial fear and paralysis of having a blank page staring me down.  Then I can get creative and embellish and change certain parts while keeping the basic idea.

For K's card, I added some super-cute epoxy letters from KI Memories to spell out "dream" and the little rub-on border with the flying bug (bees? butterflies? No idea.) across the bottom border and a tiny spot at the top.

A couple of things I learned from making this one:

• When applying rub-ons to uneven surfaces, be patient.  It will work, but go slow so you don't break the pattern. 
• Putting letter stickers in a line with even spacing isn't as easy as it seems like it should be.  Use a ruler or make them delightfully uneven by exaggerating their placement.  As opposed to just a little crooked :)

 So, are you doing 52 Weeks of Mail yet?  Share your links!

52 Weeks of Mail: The Beginning

Hello, poor neglected crafty blog!  I've missed you so much.  But I have a cool new project to write about!  52 Weeks of Mail was started by the Etsy Greetings Team, a group of card sellers.  It's a weekly challenge to handwrite a letter to someone and mail it, with real stamps in a real mailbox.

This was a perfect way to push me into making more cards, and of course, spreading a little love around the world, too.  Back in the Dark Ages of my childhood, we didn't have this newfangled invention called e-mail.  We had to write letters, with a pen, barefoot 10 miles in the snow.  Each way!

I loved writing letters as a kid, and my mom encouraged it.  I wrote to my relatives in India, to other kids I had met at summer camps, and even to a penpal or two I found in Metal Edge magazine, who liked the same cheezy 80s hair metal bands as me.  Mike in Calgary, you rock! \oo/

It started back on Oct 9, and I'm a little behind, of course, so I will be playing catchup.  Fortunately Christmas is around the corner and I've already got a bunch of handmade cards ready! 

Standard personalized stationery with a little zing!

But first, the beginning! It just so happened that my friend G bought one of my handmade copper zipper pulls for her diaper bag in anticipation of her baby's arrival.  So I figured I'd include a little handwritten note to her to kick off my 52 Weeks.  I was scrambling around to find a card, and realized I could make one pretty quickly from some personalized stationery I've had since 2005 (yeah, seriously). 

I used my fancy Fiskars Border Punch to make the scalloped border, then found some coordinating red paper with a subtle pattern and glued a narrow strip to the underside of the front of the card to "fill in" the border.

And that was it. Simple, but just a touch of handmade goodness.  I wrote to wish G and her family happiness and sleep with the arrival of their baby.  Because what new parents couldn't use a little more sleep?

It's not too late to join in!  If you decide to get in on the 52 Weeks of Mail goodness, blog about it and drop me a link here so I can see what nifty things you've sent out!

Birthday Card for a Musician - Experiment 5

Yep, I know it's been a looong time since the last post.  Months, in fact.  But I haven't been idle.  I've been chasing around a toddler, starting a new job, and squeezing in a crafty moment wherever I can.  Mostly that's come in the form of supply shopping, but I've made several cards, too.

Back in February, my friend Jenna had a birthday.  We had been lamenting about the fact that we rarely even had time to get a haircut because of the aforementioned toddler-chasing, so I figured the perfect present would be a gift card to a local swanky salon chain.  She just used it a month ago!

I knew I had to make a card with a pocket, similar to the New Mama card I had made.  What I love about making cards individually by hand is that I can personalize each one for the recipient.

Stuff:

I couldn't find all the exact supplies I had used, but these are similar.
Marvy Uchida lever craft punch - 1.25" star
Stampin Up' Curry dye ink pad
A2-sized DCWV textured yellow card base & white envelope
American Crafts Mini-Marks Rub-On Transfers-Celebration Book 2, Color
EK Success Inkadinkado Music Sheet Wood Stamp
Yellow 6X12 Alphabet Stickers (Studio Calico)

How:

1.  I had a new rubber stamp that was a bunch of jumbled sheet music scores, perfect for backgrounds and perfect for my musical friend.  I wanted a subtle tone on tone look, so I used a mustard colored dye ink from Stampin' Up on a pre-cut A2 sized dark yellow card base and stamped randomly to cover the card, re-inking each time.  I let this dry for about 10 minutes.

2.  Using the star punch, I made 5 stars from brown shimmer cardstock from my scrap pile.  I used lowercase cardstock letter stickers in a sparkly yellow that matched the card base for her name.

3.  I arranged the stars in a sort of constellation pattern and stuck them on the card with pop-dots to give them a 3-D look.

4.  My beloved Minimarks rub-ons in a dainty 'happy birthday' make up a border for the bottom of the card.

5.  I cut out a small strip of dark yellow cardstock for the pocket and stuck the sides and bottom down with double sided tape.  I used the same pack of rub ons to add the word "wish" in a corner of the pocket.  I also cut down a border sticker to add a bit of color inside the card, to match the gift card a little better and make it look less plain on the inside.

Tips:

• Figure out a color scheme first.  That'll narrow down your choices of "stuff" to put on the card.
• Lay out all the pieces before sticking anything.  Or use reusable adhesive, similar to the stuff that Post-It Notes use.
• Heat-set the stamped background with a heat gun to be sure the ink is dry and doesn't smear.  Dye (water-based) inks dry pretty quickly, but pigment inks can take a lot longer to dry, and the stamping will smear if it's not completely dry.
• Every now and then, put the card down and sit back and look at it.  Does it look "right" to you?  Is there a big empty space somewhere?  Does it need *something* more?
• I like to add a couple of embellishments inside the card so it doesn't look too plain compared to the elaborate work I've done on the front.
• When making pockets for gift cards or other thin items, remember to only tape or staple three sides of the pocket so that one side is open to slip the item in.  This is a total "duh" tip, but I can't be the only one who pasted the whole thing down and realized my mistake, right?

This was another fun project that just took a couple of hours from start to finish.  I spent most of my time trying to figure out *what* to do, and actually assembling this simple card was pretty quick.  More to come, so stay tuned!

Experiment 4 - New Baby Girl Card

A friend from work had a baby in January, and I found the perfect (totally impractical) gift for her. These shoes from pink2blue on Etsy are breathtakingly gorgeous in person.

I saw them long after BabyT was too big for them, so I was glad to have another person to buy them for. Those gorgeous shoes could only be presented with an equally cute card, so I worked hard on this one. It was a great project because I just sat down one evening and decided I was going to make it, and finished it in one sitting. That's what I love about making cards - they can be completed in a short time.

MATERIALS

• Blank A2 ivory card and envelope
• Coordinating shades of pink cardstock, plain and patterned
• Cardstock letter stickers
• Adhesive metal faux brads - Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft
• Burgundy/gold embossing powder
• Tsukineko Brilliance Ink Pad, Coffee Bean
• Martha Stewart Adhesive / Art and Craft Glue

TOOLS

• Stampin' Up Welcome Baby rubber stamp
• Fiskars Alpine pattern decorative scissors
• Fiskars paper trimmer
• Martha Stewart Hydrangea Punch
• Uchida Jumbo Craft Punch, 1.5" Circle
• Fiskars 1/4-Inch Corner Squeeze Paper Punch
• Ranger Heat It Craft Tool
• Scotch ATG714 Adhesive Applicator for 1/4-Inch Tape

METHOD
1. I cut strips of patterned and plain pink cardstock to fit the width of the card, in different heights, and used the decorative scissors on the piece at the bottom.

2. I stamped 'Welcome Baby' in brown pigment ink onto plain pink cardstock cut in a circle, then quickly poured on embossing powder and tapped to remove excess. I used a paintbrush to get rid of the stray bits (as well as I could), then hit it with the heat tool for a few minutes until the powder melted and became shiny.  It's a pretty dramatic change, so keep going if you don't see it happen.

3.  I mounted the embossed circle onto a dark pink patterned circle, and then mounted that onto a square of textured cardstock with 3 of the 4 corners rounded (I didn't want to be too symmetric!).

4.  Using the double-sided tape, I attached all of the paper strips to the front of the card, then the embossed piece.  I spelled out 'ELLA' using the cardstock stickers, and then used craft glue to stick the hydrangea cutouts to the card.

5.  The card didn't quite look "complete" so I added a row of faux brads along the top strip of paper.
SUMMARY

I'm quite pleased with how this turned out.  I had to restrain myself from using a ton of different pink patterned papers (I've got quite a stash) and stuck with the very cool crown print from my friend Jenn's scrap pile, and then a very subtle dark pink floral for one of the circles under the 'Welcome Baby' stamp.

I obviously can use some practice embossing - there were still stray bits of powder that wouldn't come off, making the design look a little "fuzzy" after embossing.  I tried using a plastic tray to easily recover the leftover powder, but it was very sticky plastic so I ended up just throwing out a bunch of it.  Next time, a plain piece of paper might work better.

The inside of the card was too plain - I probably should have used a bit of the patterned paper to tie it together a bit more.  Also, I cut out all the pieces first so I could move them around to find the best layout.  It's hard for me, because I get anxious to just finish it, but it's really better to save the tape and glue for the last step so I can make last-minute design changes.

My friend J liked the card and the shoes, so it's all good.  Thoughts from the Peanut Gallery?  Was this too traditionally girly?