Card Sets - Part 1...

A couple of years ago I decided to branch out from making single cards, to making sets of cards, and offering them for sale at a dance camp I attend every summer.  Isn't it a vague dream for those of us who make things to find a market for that work, quit our day jobs, and be able to retire off of our earnings?  Ha!  But off I went into my first foray into the market place...

The key to success for me was to find a simple design that I could vary just enough to make different sets of cards, but that would be easy to reproduce.

What I came up with were single images, mounted on colored card stock, mounted on white A2 folded cards with a simple, single-line pencil frame.  I had sets with cooking utensils, clocks, shoes, yarn, etc.  In some sets I included multiples of the same image.  In other sets I had two each of three images, or three each of two.  I sold more sets than I thought I would, and came home with about $50 and less than half of my inventory.  Success!

Last year I wanted to try and sell off my remaining stock and add some new designs, but never got to it.  So now it's one month until camp, and I'm off into production mode (as well as camp prep) again!

Last fall I had this idea of creating a series around one of my favorite stamps from the Moon Rose, and pairing that image with various quotes.  This concept led to this year's valentine:

But I found that when I stamped out all of the quotes I had in my collection that I thought would work with this image, they didn't all work visually.  Either the font was wrong, or like the card above, the pairing of image and quote didn't fit on an A2 card, which is my go-to size for cards.  In the last couple of weeks, coming back to this series, I hit upon what I wanted to do:  limit my cards to 3 or 4 different images, and pair each image with a different quote.  I played around with the placement of figure and words, and came up with these three prototypes:

Figure:  Moon Rose; Quote:  Just For Fun

Figure:  Silver Crow Creations; Quote:  Inkadinkado

Figures:  Picture Show; Quote:  River City Rubber Works

I wanted to add a dash of color to each design by masking the figure, and using a stencil to stipple in some color behind (see this post on my attempt to use a pre-made mask...).  I used the excuse of needing a card to send to a friend to make my first full card.

I used a stamp positioner to put my image in the right place.

I masked the image and used Tim Holtz's Dot Fade stencil to add color.

I made just a small error when I added the quote, so I started again, which allowed me to make the image and quote square up with the card - little errors like that really annoy me.

Voila!  I think I may leave it at that.  I used a Color Box chalk ink in Rose Coral, which shows up better in reality than in the photo.  I am resisting the urge to add more color or a border or both.  

For the other cards, I will either use the same stencil and a different color, or a different stencil and the same color.  I want the set to have some unifying features.

I'll keep all one of you reading posted on my progress and the success of my sales!

Almost, but not quite...

After a period of far too much traveling, I had a few moments to sit down in my craft room the other night - heaven...  I'm working on a project of a series of cards, and finally had a breakthrough and figured out how I wanted to organize the images to make the series cohesive.  More on that soon...

Although I like simple designs that are more 2-D than 3-D, I'm always thinking about moving beyond simple black and white images by injecting pops of color, embossed textures, etc.  I pinned an image to Pinterest the other day that I found on the Hero Arts blog.  I wasn't crazy about the stamped image, but I loved the idea.

tamp an image, mask it, and use a stencil to add a pale background.  Perfect!  Subtle.  Tasteful.  Yes.

As I'm getting my hands dirty with black ink, and pulling out every stencil I own, I come across a recent purchase from the Heirloom show in Allentown in April:   a pre-cut masking template from Stampland made from sturdy cardstock. 

This template is great!  You can use either the positive or negative as a mask.  The paper is sturdy so you can use the mask over and over again.  This seemed to be just what I needed to try out the background idea.

And what's more, I already have the stamp the template matches, which I bought years ago from Silver Crow Creations.

I stamped out my image on a test swatch, and proceed to fit my template over it, only to find...

Yup.  The template and stamp don't match.  I assume that if I had the version of the stamp from Stampland, it would be a perfect fit with the pre-cut mask.  But for now, I guess it's time to get out the Xacto knife.  Or buy the other stamp.  Or both.

Share your product mishaps in the comments!