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 7

I started working on one card over the weekend, got stymied by something, got excited about something else, and ended up with a card I didn't expect.  This card is all about a thing I love doing, and which someday, we'll get to do again: meet friends for coffee.  Or tea.  Or dinner.  Or drinks.  You get the idea.  In the topsy turvy vein, here's the front of the card, which is the last thing I made...

Background Stamp:  Love of Coffee by Picket Fence Studios; Sentiment:  Coffee Talk by Joy Clair

This card front makes me think that I've learned a thing or two from all of the cardmakers out there, and all of those hours I spend watching card-making videos.  I made an A2 card base, and cut an A2 panel.  I stamped the background image in gold on the panel  (I should have embossed it, but as this was the last stamping step of a long card-making session, I was happy this bit turned out as well as it did.).  I used my MISTI to stamp the sentiment on the card base, and then again on the panel so I would know exactly where to cut the window in the center so the sentiment would show through.  Then I was able to trim a bit off of all four sides of the panel before mounting it with foam tape on the card base. 

Here's what happens when you open the card...

Both of these dies are from Hero Arts as part of their My Monthly Hero release in 8/2018.  I didn't want the whole kit - I really only wanted the café die (on the right), but as it wasn't sold separately, I contented myself with the Tea Party die, which I bought at some point, and promptly never used.  Recently, I got to thinking about that café die, and wondered if maybe, by accident, I could find it on Ebay for a not-exorbitant amount of money.  I could!  I did!  It came on Saturday, and this card idea was born:

Contrasting scenes - one coffee, one tea, different color schemes, and different backgrounds, seen side-by-side on the inside of the card. 

The dies are the perfect size for A2 panels, and cut beautifully.  The hard part for me was deciding on the background.  I looked on Pinterest to see how other had used these dies and didn't find a ton of examples.  I was about to go for just a colored background when I remembered two cityscape stamps I have from Technique Junkies:  Watercolor NY (retired, on the L) and City Watercolors (on the R).  Perfect!  I stamped each city image with light ink on a white panel, added color with blending brushes, roughly following the lines of the image, and then stamped the image again in black.  The tea scene uses Aged Mahogany, Tattered Rose, and Spun Sugar inks; the coffee scene Vintage Photo, Tea Dye, and Sea Glass inks.

Once the backgrounds were done, I adhered a diecut over each, and then glued them to the inside of the card.  To write my message, I slipped in a plain, white card.

I love how this card came out!  I kept holding my breath waiting for something to go horribly wrong, or for me to spill something on one of the panels, but that just didn't happen, for once.  These dies make me so happy!!  I'm so glad I now have both of them!!

Tomorrow:  Woodblock Wednesday, and an unexpected, timely find!

CoronaCrafts - Day 4

I've mentioned before that I gravitate toward certain themes in the stamps and dies I buy and the cards I create:  coffee, Gibson Girls, women and snarky sayings, city skylines, etc.  Another of these is oceans, waves, and waterlines.  I love swimming, seafood dinners, river boat tours, ferry rides, and the like.  Today's card celebrates that love.

The showpiece of this card is the Layered Wave die set from the Ton Stamps.  It's amazing.  I'd cut out a few pieces from various shades of blue forever ago, but never used them because I wasn't quite sure what to do with them.  So I went back to the Ton's website and took a cue from one of their card examples just to get me started.  I even found the remants of the blue paper I had used before, and cut out a few more wave pieces, just to give me too many options.  Now that I watch the video on the Ton's website again, I might follow their example more closely next time.

I cobbled together a sentiment mostly from Technique Junkies.  At a stamp show some time, I got a grab bag of stamps from them, which included "Meet Me," and "the Sea."   I scoured my collection for anything containing the word "at" and found one.  I took my time lining up the words, and silver embossed each one.

Though very imperfect, this card, and these wave dies are amazing in person.  They would be great for a diorama or shadow box card, or over vellum, or paired with one of my layered ocean stamp sets! I have to use these dies again, so send your ideas.

Tomorrow:  Here comes trouble...