Continuing with the distress and using up leftovers theme from yesterday, how about another sewing themed card? I don’t sew extensively, but working at JoAnn certainly encouraged a bit of sewing themed stamps.

The torn piece of patterned paper was used as a demo piece to show tearing and inking techniques. A quick stamp, a related sticker and chipboard embellishment, and it’s done.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a ten year old and almost sixteen year old waiting for me, so we can continue our Star Wars movie marathon weekend. we’ve got to be ready for when The Force Awakens next month!

Some Amazon available supplies: (affiliate link)

When I used to work at JoAnn Etc. as an instructor, I frequently had to buy supplies to make samples and to use in class for corporate designed classes. I still have bits and pieces of leftover supplies that really need to get used up.

Today’s card is made with a few left over sheets of paper and a stamp from a class on distressing. We made a carousel mini-album in class, and learned a bit about various distressing techniques. It made sense to use a few of those techniques today.

The dress form was stamped with archival ink, and then crumpled into a ball, and smoothed out, twice. You may find it hard to crumple up a perfectly good stamped image of piece of paper, but sometimes the results are worth it. I then used a distressing tool to rough up the edges of the stamped piece, as well as the patterned paper behind it. A little distress ink applied to the edges and creases of all the papers, a sticker and chipboard embellishment from the same paper line, and the card was done.

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Some of these supplies can be found on Amazon: (affiliate link)

After making yesterday’s card, I was left with a brightly colored laser cut paper. There’s no reason not to use that too, so the intricately cut paper became the focal point of today’s card.

This was pretty simple to assemble, with a sentiment stamped on a scrap piece of vellum. Two things to note however. One, a detail glue pen works wonders as a way to adhere small and finely cut items like this. And two, when stamping on vellum, make sure you use an ink that will dry on smooth surfaces. Ranger’s Archival ink and Staz-On from Tsukineko work wonderfully. A pigment ink, or Tim Holtz’s Distress inks will only leave you with a sad, smeared blob.

One more thing. I added the dots and lines on the sentiment banner after the card was finished because the banner felt bare to me. Do you all think that works? I’m of two minds about it.

Don’t forget to sign up for my mailing list so I can send you a card via snail mail! This one will be extra large, since it’s a 5×7 piece of laser cut paper, and I could not see any reason to trim it, especially since I won’t be sending my extras to Operation Write Home anymore. (In cased you missed it, since deployments have lowered, there’s been less demand for cards, so OWH has closed up shop for now.)

If you want to make this yourself, you can get most of the supplies from Amazon: (affiliate link)

In amongst the treasures I brought home with me from Arizona was a pack of Heidi Swapp laser cut papers. There were some lovely designs that I thought would be gorgeous by themselves, but that would also be fun to use as masks.

One of the papers is a pile of beautiful roses. I used it as a mask to create the background for this card.

To make the background, I pounced make up sponges loaded with a couple distress inks over the mask to color in the flowers. The card is finished off with a happy birthday rub on, decorative scissors, and a flower sticker from an ancient K & Company set.

Card making really doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want to make cards, remember, they don’t need fifteen layers of paper and 6 different techniques. Keep it simple. Especially if you’re going to be sending your cards through the mail. More complicated and dimensional cards can be damaged when mailing, unless you take precautions.

If you’d like to get this, or one of the other cards I make this month sent to you, make sure you’re on my mailing list. Just sign up in the box above!

If you’d like to make this card, you can find some of the supplies on Amazon: (affiliate links)

For days when you question your ability to create a nice looking card, there’s no reason not to try scraplifting, or CASEing, as it’s known in card making circles. (That’s copy and steal everything for those who want to know.)

When you’re CASEing a project, you look for an inspiration piece, and then make your own project based on it. It could be a complete copy, from papers to placing, or it could be a starting point that leads you in an entirely different direction.

Today’s card was inspired by this one from Pamela Ho on the Mama elephant website.

Don’t you just love that superhero, flying over the city-scape? I didn’t have the die cut city-scape, but I did have a city skyline stamp, so that led to this:

Rather than using markers, this little superhero is colored with pencils, and fussy cut, rather than die cut. She’s still super cute, though, don’t you think?

While we’re on the subject of CASEing, who’s your favorite card designer? I’m looking for some card-making inspiration!

If you want to make your own version of this, you can find some of the supplies at Amazon: (affiliate link)