Home Crafting General Archive by category "Handmade Greeting Cards" (Page 28)

Category: Handmade Greeting Cards

Rubber Stamping and Watercolor Paints

The buzz in the stamping world is Watercolors.  That’s right good old watercolor paints.There are sooo many cool ways to use watercolors with your rubber stamps.  Just remember to use waterproof/permanent ink like StazOn or if you don’t have that make sure that you emboss the ink that you have so that it doesn’t bleed all through your image when you are coloring with your watercolors.  Also watercolors work best with watercolor paper.  This paper holds its shape when wet and will not get all lumpy and bumpy.  Try to find a smooth watercolor paper, just because your stamp image will look better.

If you are going to make a greeting card, a great idea would be to stamp your image on a piece of watercolor paper, and also paint on that piece of paper, but when you are finished, cut it out and layer it onto the cover of your card.  This look will be so professional and if you put a border around it your image it will look like a beautiful framed painting.

I can’t believe how many different types of watercolors are on the market now days.  We have the good old fashion kind, the dry “circles” in a long case that you just put a wet brush on to get the color, or there some that are in tubes and are wet already you just brush them on, some come in jars, pencils, and even crayons.

Watercolors are the easiest way to create shading, just by blending more ink and less water or visa versa. If you have too much water on your paper all you need to do is blot the excess with a paper towel.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

It’s time to make your Custom Christmas Cards

Some of you may be saying, “But it’s only September” exactly, and time is closing in on the holidays.  Have you been to the stores lately?  Christmas stuff is arriving.  I went to a local craft store and they are playing Christmas music already.I have been a little pre-occupied the last couple of months with things going on in “my world”, I usually start my cards in August, so I am behind already.So the first thing that  I have to figure out first of all what kind of card that I will be making.  In that process I have to see if I need to purchase new rubber stamps, papers, holiday embellishments.  Personally, each year I try to outdo myself.  (I don’t put pressure on myself now do I?) But this year I have a really cool idea that I have never done before.  I have always concentrated on the outside design of the card and just add a little saying on the inside, but this year I am going to reverse that.  I have been designing samples on paper, but nothing has come to making of a card yet.  As soon as I have something, I will share it with you.

All of my Custom Christmas Cards are made with Rubber stamps, embossing powders, embossing markers, ink pads and the best quality papers.  I hand cut every piece of paper and apply it to the card with some kind of adhesive, depending on the look that I want.  This is my passion and I hope that it is yours too! – Take pride in what you do, and you will see how good you feel.

Here are a few samples of years past Christmas Cards

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Funny Greeting Cards Save Money

For generations, we have all used greeting cards to convey our love, affection and concern for friends, family members, colleagues, and all whom we hold close to our heart. This habit has given rise to multi million dollar industries whose only job day after day, year after year is only to produce greeting cards, and today there are several of them around the world.

Birthdays, Christmas, friendship day, Mother’s day, Valentine’s Day etc. are just representative examples of the occasions when we use these cards. Marketers use the sales data from greeting card manufacturers to study and analyze various trends using specialized statistical tools.

E Cards have become the Craz

Electronic cards or E-cards have not lagged behind in this field, and millions of e-greeting cards are offered on the internet and most of them are free too. Other than the physical greeting cards used for various occasions, several people use attractively designed blank cards to write their own message for a variety of reasons. The boss can write a “thank you” card for his colleague, “get well” cards for those who are ill and recovering, are just some examples.

The Funny Greeting Card

Apart from all the above, there is a class of greeting cards known as funny greeting cards. These cards have funny caricatures or messages on them and are intended to be funny with the recipients too. But, rare though, there can be occasions when somebody can use these cards to insult others.

Whatever be the cause, the internet too offers a large variety of funny greeting cards. The advantage with the e-cards is that most of them can be customized to suit individual taste. You can add your own notes, pictures, scribbles or even animations to the e-card. Free download offered by many of the web sites offering funny greeting cards make it even more attractive.

As discussed earlier, the physical greeting card industry produces a mind boggling number of cards every year on a variety of medium i.e., paper, cloth, plastic, vinyl and similar material. The E-cards on the other hand does not require any of these mediums and can move around the world in pretty quick time too.

The Cost of Traditional Greeting Cards

During festival occasions even if you send a few hundred cards, it would still not dent a hole in your purse. The funny greeting cards act as a great tool to keep in touch with your near and dear ones at all times, by just clicking a few buttons. When you customize these cards, do make sure to use the right kind of jokes or messages which the recipients can appreciate. The message for your aunt and girlfriend cannot be the same. They need to be different.

Sending the funny greeting card, particularly the e-card is also very easy. After selecting the card you intend sending, customize with all the details you want and then provide the information that the web site is seeking. On the appointed date and time, your card will be electronically delivered to the addressee. When you receive an e-card, either you can click on the url itself or paste the url on your browser to follow the instructions.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Some other ways that some people will search for funny greeting cards are:
funny greeting cards printable free
funny e greeting cards
funny photo greeting cards
funny online greeting cards

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ORGANIZING YOUR CRAFT SUPPLIES – Part 3 of 3

Continued From Yesterday:

** Don’t Over Buy – Use what you have. Try to resist the urge to buy new papers, punches and embellishments until you’ve used the craft supplies you have. I know this is really hard to do. I can open up a store with all the papers and embellishments that I have. Take a look at your inventory before you go shopping, this will save your wallet of unnecessary items and you might just find something you forgot you had. How cool is that it’s like going shopping in your own craft room.

** Shop Online. You’ll save a lot of time running back and forth to your local craft store if you decide to shop online  for your craft supplies. Everything you need can be shipped right to your doorstep and sometimes you save money on the product and also the sales tax. Come on people we all like to save money so we can buy more.

** What to do with things you just don’t use anymore. If you have something you haven’t used in a year or more, such as craft scissors or stickers, paper, donate them to a local church or daycare facility. Some times even senior centers are looking for crafty items. This is a good way to give back to your community.

** Multitask. Looking for a few minutes here or there to catch up on your Scrapbooking or Card making? Take and make phone calls in the same room that you designated for your Craft Room for Scrapbooking or Card making. Then, while you’re on the phone with your friends or family, you can crop, frame or mount at the same time. Or, instead of making punches when you need them, make a bunch of punches at once while you’re watching television, or are on the telephone, or when you’re waiting for a pot of water to boil because where I live that takes awhile. This will save time later because your punches will be ready when you need them.

** Clean up scraps. Always keep a wastebasket near your workstation, all the scraps that you’re not planning on using can be tossed immediately. Don’t leave trash on your work surface.

** Put it away. Always have a place for your supplies, and when you’re finished using them, take a few moments to put everything away. You should be able to start fresh with a clear mind and a clear surface. Plus I am a clean freak.

** Spare time. Those spare minutes that we all have can be put to good use. Have to wait at the doctor’s office for your appointment? Sketch out a quick layout idea. Waiting for the wash cycle to finish? Sort some photos or gather supplies for tomorrow’s Scrapbooking or Card making project.

** Write it down. I am known as the list person, everyone always busts me about it, but I rarely forget anything. So don’t ever leave your home without a small notebook in hand. You’re bound to come up with a thought or cute caption for your scrapbook. Inspiration is everywhere, but if you don’t write down your ideas, they may disappear forever. You may also want to keep a small pad and a pen near your bedside, in case you have a bright idea in the middle of the night. It is amazing what your brain can think of in the weee hours of the morning.

Have a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!

Organize Craft Supplies Part 1

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 2

ORGANIZING YOUR CRAFT SUPPLIES – Part 2 of 3

Continued From Yesterday:

** Storage Containers. Do a little bit of research and purchase a Scrapbooking and/or Rubber Stamp organizer, which will hold papers, rubber stamps, supplies, etc. There are many products on the market that can help you keep it all together. Many office supply stores carry six-drawer organization stations. They’re vertical and have 6 see-through drawers of equal size. Each drawer can be designated for a different purpose -papers, templates/die-cuts, stickers, etc. Plus, they have wheels, which make them very easy to transport from one room to another. Or, if you often bring your Scrapbooking or Rubber Stamping supplies outside of your home when attending a crop party or to a friend’s house, use a portable system that isn’t too heavy and comes with a handle and wheels for easy transport. Again my favorite is Crop-In-Style Navigator. It holds everything that you need for a night out or weekend scrapping event. If you are a Stamper, Crop-In-Style also has a tote that has drawers inside to hold your rubber stamps and supplies called the Stamp Store that works really well.

** Try a kitchen gadget caddy. If you always Scrapbook and make Handmade Greeting Cards at home, use a kitchen utensil caddy with a number of divided compartments, like those you normally keep tall kitchen spoons, ladles, and spatulas in. They hold your markers and embossing powders in them perfectly. The ones that spin will you’re your most used supplies at your fingertips.

** Hang it up. If you’re lucky enough to have a Craft Room specifically for you Scrapbooking and/or making Handmade Greeting Card, hang a large pegboard above your work area. You can then attach scissors, templates, crimpers, rulers, stencils and more, all within easy sight and reach. In addition, you might hang a small ledge or shelf nearby, to store all of your corner punches, paper trimmers, embossing powders, and so on. If you prefer everything out in the open, this system will work like a charm. Check out the new Rack system by Lisa & Becky.

** Save stickers and shapes. Stickers and punched shapes can be kept in acid-free sheet protectors, plastic baseball card sheets, business card sheets. Each sheet should be categorized and labeled by theme: birthday, Christmas, Halloween, wedding, springtime, etc. Insert these sheets into a 3-ring binder. If you have a large number of stickers and shapes, you may want to purchase a sticker binder designed just for stickers. My favorite is from Crop-In-Style sticker binder.

** Minimize and organize magazines. Are your bookcase/shelves full of Scrapbooking magazines and or Handmade Greeting Card magazines? You can go through your magazines, find the articles you wish to keep and organize them into file folders by category, or in a 3-ring binder. In other words, keep the articles, toss the magazines. There are many Special Edition Magazines that I store in a large 3 ring binder all in tact.

** Choose a designated work area. Scrapbooking is more fun and less of a chore when everything is in one place. If possible designate a room, or a portion of a room, in your home for this activity .Organize your work area for increased productivity. Make sure it’s well lit. Find a comfortable chair to sit on and keep your supplies and tools within arm’s reach.

Organizing your craft supplies Part 1

Organize Scrapbooking Room Part 3

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