September 2019

Craft Smith Feeling Nauti

I’m still working on thinning out my 6×6 paper pad collection.  This time I used the Craft Smith Feeling Nauti paper.  Obviously it’s a nautical theme with a lot of blues and a few splashes of bright pink.  It was an interesting paper pad with the paper having an adult feel, and the cut-aparts having a juvenile feel (i.e lots of mermaids).

I decided to put the cut-aparts to the side and focus on using the paper.  I ended up leaving a few of the cards blank, since not everything needs a sentiment, and used stamps and dies for the rest.  I especially liked how the cards with the die cut “thanks” and “hello” sentiments turned out.  It was a bit time consuming to die cut each sentiment 3 times and then stack and glue but I think they made a nice impact on the cards.

I was able to use the mermaid cut-aparts by pairing them with some wave patterned paper from my stash.  While not my favorite cards, I liked how they turned out and they will be good to donate as kid-themed cards are very popular.

Embellishments on the cards included washi tape, charms, ribbon, sequins, Love from Lizi peel-offs and Queen and Co. pearls.  I was also excited to try out some new mirrored specialty cardstock on a couple of the cards.

Recollections Sunday Morning 6×6 Paper Pad

I picked up a couple of new 6×6 paper pads recently.  When I went to put them in the basket with my other paper pads, they wouldn’t fit.  So it’s time to use up a few of the paper pads that have been hanging around for awhile.  I decided to start with the Recollections Sunday Morning paper pad which is all soft blues and peaches with a bit of gold foil.

Other than 2 sheets where the image and sentiment were too large to fit on a A2 sized card, I was able to use pretty much the entire paper pad.  In keeping with the softer colors, I used kraft cardstock for all the matting.  In addition to the cut-aparts included in the paper pad, I used a few images and sentiments from a coffee themed stamp set.  The stamped images were colored with Copic markers.  For embellishments, I added some gold brads, rhinestones and Love from Lizi peel-offs.  I ended up with 21 cards.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Many of the cards have either no sentiment or fun coffee themed sentiments, I’ll probably keep a few for personal use and donate the rest.

American Crafts Travel Paper

I wasn’t in the mood to make a bunch of cards so decided to just pull out a few sheets of paper from the American Crafts Travel 12×12 paper pack.  The papers are all nice and bright with only a few colors – black, red, light blue and bright green.

I settled on an airplane print, a green check and a black/red/light blue and bright green check.  With black being one of the few colors, I was able to use black cardstock for all the matting.  I found a few sheets of solid blue and green cardstock in my craft room to pair with the prints.  I also threw in some red and white polka dot paper from my scrap bin.

For some “bling”, I added Queen and Co. pearls, Love from Lizi peel-offs and Nuvo Crystal Drops.  I believe the sentiments are all from various Ms. Sparkle & Co. stamp sets and are stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I used 8 different layouts to make 10 general sentiment cards – Thank You, Birthday and Hello, which should all work well for donating.

Using up scrap paper

I decided to take a break from holiday cards but couldn’t decide on a new project.  I figured a clean craft room might help me get motivated so I organized my desk and work areas.  As I was putting away tools, inks, papers, embellishments… I noticed my scrap bin was getting quite full.  I decided to pull out some of the smaller scraps and make a few cards.  To keep it simple I selected 1 layout and 1 type of embellishment.  This made it easy to quickly cut the paper and assemble the cards.  For even more ease, I used the same sentiment on all but 1 of the cards.

It was quite fun to flip through the scraps and pair up papers that were not originally part of the same collection.  I’m thinking maybe I should try this once a month or so.  It didn’t use up a lot of scraps, but made a small dent in the scrap bin.