CoronaCrafts - Making Multiples

Now if every day at home could be the perfect sunny spring day today was, all would be well...

In my card-making life, usually I'm making single cards at a time for letters, thank you notes, birthday cards, and the like, or many, many of the same card at holiday times.  During this CoronaCrafts era of my card-making, I'm mostly staying away from multiples and trying to make cards that suit the intended recipients.  But not always, and not this past weekend.  I'll talk about one set of multiples today and one tomorrow.

Yesterday, I made three more of my Dangerous Business cards, bringing the total up to eight.  I wrote about the first two about two weeks ago.  I'm this series a way to test out some Distress Oxide color combinations and play with some of the background stamps I don't use very often, but love having in my collection.

Since the design of these cards is all the same, I've done some things to make the process easier.  First, I use my favorite Lawn Fawn Outside In Stitched Rectangles die to cut the card panels to size so I know they're all rectilinear.  Second, I took the sentiment stamp off of its wood block so I could use a stamp positioning tool with it, and rather than putting it on cling foam right away, which is a sticky business at the best of times, I'm trying out a Purple Onion Clear Mounting Stamp instead.  Lastly, I set up the mounting stamp and the sentiment stamp in my Mini MISTI and played with the placement until I knew it was right.  I'm going to leave the stamp in place until I'm done with this series.

Here's a look at all of the cards so far, starting with the first two you've seen before:

Top Row:  L - My Favorite Things Marble Background; Colors - Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral, Seedless Preserves; R - Simon Says Stamp Circle Doodle Background; Colors - Shabby Shutters, Peacock Feathers, Faded Jeans

Row 2:  L - Hero Arts Ocean Waves Bold Prints; Colors - Weathered Wood, Stormy Sky, Faded Jeans; R - My Favorite Things Balloon Strings Background; Colors - Cracked Pistachio, Broken China, Faded Jeans

Row 3:  L - Technique Junkies Sudsy Stuff; Colors - Antique Linen, Tumbled Glass, Broken China; R - Impression Obsession Cover-a-Card Fluff; Colors - Iced Spruce, Peeled Paint, Chipped Sapphire

Row 4:  L - My Favorite Things Radiating Half Tone Background; Colors - Wild Honey, Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves;  R - Hero Arts Pearl Strings Bold Prints; Colors - Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet, Aged Mahogany

It's fun to see them all together!  So far, in each group, two the first time, and three each of the other times, I've been surprised at which is my favorite.  Click on each picture for a closer look.  Which do you like best so far??

Tomorrow - Spring Multiples

CoronaCrafts - Day 8

I got a bit stuck in my card-making yesterday.  Over the weekend, before I got distracted by the coffee and tea shop dies I wrote about yesterday, I started two cards, and came to a stopping point on both of them for different reasons.  I mean, I will finish them, but I have to figure out how, and that feeling of not knowing how to get out of the rut was starting to take over, combined with that feeling of dread that if I don't make a card, and don't send it, I'll have nothing to blog about, nothing to post in Instagram, and by skipping one day I will get out of the habit of sending and writing and I will have failed miserably.

I'm tired of this disruption to my life, can you tell?

I took a deep breath.

And I tried to remember what the heck I was trying to do with this project to begin with - send cards to friends I can't see right now, use bits of things cluttering up my craft table, and try out some ideas and use products I've been meaning to forever.  Oh, and it's Woodblock Wednesday coming up.

As I'm very slowly unmounting my woodblock stamps, and incorporating all of my cling stamps into my main catalog, I have occasion to look through my stamp drawers, which I love doing.  I was getting out another stamp when I found this one by Stampers Anonymous: 

I have no idea when I got it.  I don't think I've ever used it.  I know this font is one of my favorites (what is it called?  do you know???), and I'm drawn to every stamp that uses it.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it was perfect for my CoronaCrafts cards.

I went for simplicity, and the original tenets of the project.  I pulled out a bunch of background stamps I've been wanting to use, dug out the notebook pages where I'd jotted down some of the Distress Oxide combos I wanted to try, and diecut a bunch of panels.  Here are my first two cards in the series:

 

Top:  Background - My Favorite Things Marble Background; Colors - Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral, Seedless Preserves

Bottom:  Background - Simon Says Stamp Circle Doodle Background; Colors - Shabby Shutters, Peacock Feathers, Faded Jeans

When I make more of these in the next day or so, I'm going to use the technique from the top card:  Ink the panel, and then stamp the background stamp using the lightest color from the background.  Because the ink has pigment qualities as well as dye ink properties, the light color will stay visible on top of the darker shades.  Unexpected!  I think it makes a better, subtler backdrop for the words.

And I had no idea until I told my husband about these cards that this phrase is really a paraphrased quote from Tolkein.

Tomorrow:  Super-quick cards!