Tuesday Trigger – Strictly stripes

The Tuesday Trigger for this week is this pair of mittens

and the stripes inspired me to make this card

I’m loving the CAS style cards! I like that they don’t prompt you to buy loads of supplies and a small number of elements need to make a bigger statement which exercises my mind to the fullest! The sentiment is embossed in white embossing powder.

• Stamps: Hero Arts Frames and Messages
• Paper: PTI
• Others: White embossing powder

Craft fair tips

We learnt a lot during the craft fairs and here’s a summary. It doesn’t include the basics like pack pens, markers, table, etc

1. Get bed risers. They really raise the height of the table and make it so convenient to browse the table. When I would pack up at the end of the day, it was then I would realize how low the table actually was.
2. It you’re using the bed risers, don’t use any props that raise the height all the more. It makes it inconvenient for customers to browse the items.
3. Your table should’ve a clean look, like when your house does after a vacuum. So that people don’t get overwhelmed.
4. Control the variety of items you have. Again to not overwhelm the customer. I think I had too many. Instead of that I think there should be more variety of each type. Also makes it easier for you to organize your table.
5. Myth: use black colored tablecloth. Before my first fair I too was of that opinion and got a dark blue table cloth. Though I’m very happy of my choice I realized that was not the rule. Each had their own and as long as you knew how to display it worked. For example, one lady a green table cloth and a white round one on top of it. That looked quite pretty. So arrange your items and then see what all colors can work for you. Maybe you could use a sheet from your closet rather than buying one.
6. A full flat sheet works well with the standard table and bed risers.
7. Keep some of the most attractive items of yours on the ends of the tables. When people start looking from an end they should be drawn to it.
8. It’s nice to have each item packed and marked with price. Most of my stuff was packed in clear bags and had a price sticker. That made transporting as well as billing easy.
9. If all your items are packed, then have a sampler too or one of the items unpacked so that people can open it (if it opens). In my experience people didn’t mind buying the opened item.

I think that’s all I can remember for now .

Birthday card

I made this card using my new Hero Arts stamps (Frames and Messages) and my all-time-favorite Jolies Fleurs! I wanted to do this all dressed in pink and as you can see I very well succeeded at it I can’t find my camera’s battery and so this photo is from my phone (and let me tell you it just does not do justice to the card! )  (Uploaded new photo using my camera!)

• Paper: PTI
• Stamps: Lizzie Anne Designs Jolies Fleurs, Hero Arts Frames and Messages
• Rhinestones, trim

Drumroll please…

…here comes my Cricut!! It was gift from my brother and sister-in-law!!

This is how it looked originally

and this is the look after I became the proud owner of SCAL and had a chance to cut vinyl!

There are some more beautifications I’ve in my mind so be prepared to see another final picture I used the Damask Dings font and sized it to 3.5” in SCAL. I love that damask design! Isn’t it pretty?!?! I used 3-3-3 setting for speed, pressure and blade depth; but I think I need to lower the pressure setting all the more because the cut marks went down to the vinyl backing. With this I can see the world of opportunities open up in front of me

What to make for craft fairs

This is more specific for the type of craft I do which is stamping and paper crafting. Being my first year of fairs there were so many things I wanted to make not to up the  variety but because I just wanted to make them! Oh and there were some that I got tempted to make because people said they were hot sellers in their area. There were a lot of first-timers for me, there were some I enjoyed making and some I didn’t. Then there were some hot sellers and some that weren’t. So here I compile a list of what I would make again and why:

1. Turkey place card holders – Loved to make them, was sold out and had LOTS of people comment on them. Most of them found them cute and many thought they could do this at home (as is true always!); but the bottom line is they sold out. So yes I would make them again – maybe in the same design or maybe something new that I can come up with. Sold them 4/$2.
2. Cocoa packets – Fun to make and very popular! These were pouches for Swiss Miss cocoa packets with a poem on the outside and a ribbon to pull out. Their price point @ $1.25 each could have a lot to do with their popularity. Yes would definitely make them again and could try some different stuff with it too. Also need to make them more the next time.
3. Hershey Chocolate bars – Fun to make and sold well. They were similar to the cocoa packets in concept, just that the poem was different. I found them a little expensive at $2.50 but couldn’t afford to sell them for less. I wish I could find a cheaper source for them. Yes I would make them next time; I also want to try out the Santa versions of this.
4. Starbucks Via Coffee packs – Loved to make them and sold a little more than half of what I’d made. Loved to make them especially because it was completely my idea right from using the coffee packs to designing the box and I also wrote a special poem for it. Sold them for $5 for a pack of 3-cups of coffee. Will surely make them again!
5. Snowman Kisses (tic tac) – Fun to make and sold out! These were tic tacs dressed up with a poem on Snowman Kisses. They were adored by one and all. They’re a definite yes for next time. They were $2.50 each.
6. Holiday Greeting cards – Love to make them and sold well. Again their price point @$1.25 might have a lot to do with their popularity. I would like to make them again but I felt incomplete having only a few cards on the table. Cards have been my mainstay all through this hobby and at the fairs they were the least represented . The problem is making cards takes a lot of time, so they can’t be easily produced in large quantities. Maybe next time I’ll try to do sets of holiday cards. And some singles too. So that’s a yes.
7. Thank you card sets and/or notecard sets – Something that I didn’t have and I think it would’ve been nice to have especially for the fairs before Thanksgiving. And this is something I can start early in the year. Don’t really need to wait for the last quarter.
8. Mini composition books with pen – Loved to make them and sold well! Yes making them again. I noticed that people like pretty colors, the dull colors were not picked. They were priced at $3.50.
9. Post-it note holders with mini pen – Loved to make them and sold well! Surely making them again. Though undecided whether I should make the same types again or try the acrylic post-it note holders. That’s what happens with good sellers – you don’t want to risk changing them . Sold at $2.75.
10. Altered Frappuccino bottles with hugs and kisses – Loved to make them and sold half of them. Maybe next time I could make some in Fall theme too. Sold at $3.75. Yes.
11. Purse gift card holders – Loved to make and sold out! Even though there are a couple of purse holder designs out there this was totally my original. My DH simply loved it! A big YES! I wonder if the same design would be popular next year too or would people want something new?!?! Sold for $1.50.
12. Flower pot gift card holders – Fun to make and sold well. This is a totally unique design, all credit for which goes to yours truly . Yes. Sold at $2.25.
13. Rectangle gift card holders (sorry have no better name to describe it )– Fun to make and sold out! Yes making them again. sold at $1.
14. Bookmarks – Fun to make and sold well. This is something I personally relate to a lot being an avid reader. So yes I’m going to make them again. Sold at $1.
15. Decorative lunch bags – Fun to make and sold well. Again it was my idea so yes making them again next time! I took some white treat bags from Michael and decorated them so that people could use them to gift home made treats. I personally believe they’re very useful! Will make some fall/thansgiving themed ones too for the fairs before thanksgiving. Sold at $1.
16. Ornament gift card holders – Loved to make them and sold well. It’s a little difficult to design and fit the gift card so maybe not making them next year.
17. Altered clipboards – Loved to make them but didn’t sell well. They looked so nice and were so reasonable. Dunno why people wouldn’t buy them!! Maybe not making them next year.
18. Holiday candles – Had a blast making them but didn’t sell well It was so much fun making these especially since I was doing this for the first time. Not sure why they didn’t sell well. They looked so cute! One of our conclusions is you should only sell what you buy and we don’t buy candles. No. Sold at $3.50.
19. Magnetic memo boards – Nice to make and sold less than half. Definitely not making them next year. I liked making them but not as much as other things. So it’s a win-win situation to not make them again next year . Sold at $3.75.
20. Stamped onesies – Fun making them but didn’t sell at all Again they looked sooooo cute packed up and lots of people would look at them and say it would be a wonderful gift for someone with baby; but nobody bought them. Not making them again.
21. Binder Clip Photo Holders – Nice to make and sold well. Not making them again as I didn’t enjoy making them so much. Sold at $1.
22. Tile Coasters – No fun to make and didn’t sell. Nope. Period.

Wow! Can’t believe I made 22 different items!! And not to forget there were multiples of each. Of course I need to acknowledge DH’s help here. He helped with a lot of cutting and punching. And of course there’s the indirect help where he too care of a lot of things so that I got more time to make this stuff.

Next time maybe I could employ my Cricut. Oh haven’t I told you about it?!?! Ok then let me post a picture of it tomorrow.

A look back at the craft fairs

So I participated in three craft fairs this holiday season – it means I was there as a vendor, selling my handcrafted items. This was my first year doing this and let me just say that it was a lot of fun! Yes it was scores of hard work, hectic no-time-for-anything-else days but I would do it again. Why? You ask. For the gratification. When people buy my items I get the feeling that yes others do understand and appreciate my skill. Some people comment that it’s good because I can make some money doing what I love to do. Let me clarify – at this point if anything there’s money going into it than coming out . There are so many fees – license fee, booth fee etc. to cover that I’ve some way to go before I can “make” money out of it.

My DH was there at *all* the fairs with me, right from the setup to the pack-up. A HUGE thank you to him! I wonder how he felt being there because his wife wanted a booth in a craft fair to sell the goods she’s made . Let me tell you that he was the best salesman I could’ve had and hearing him talk you wouldn’t even know that he hadn’t made them! He knew how everything was made!

The various fairs I participated in are:

1. Woodinville Holiday Bazaar: This was the 30th year this fair was happening and my first in this fair . The fair was very well attended and I met vendors who’ve been coming to this fair for years and so were the customers. I could hear customer’s telling vendors “Oh I bought from you last year…yadda yadda yadda”. Our sales were not so decent for the level of the fair but we got an order! I think that was the highlight of the show for me . As my mom says the hallmark of a good crafter is the orders that he/she gets! Being my first fair there were lots of things I did right (thanks to my friends @ SCS) but there were some gotchas. The biggest issue was the display – I had bought bed risers so that it would increase the height of my table. That was good but at the same time I used a shelf and couple of three-tier stands to display my stuff. With the bed riser and the shelf I think the height was a little too much for some of the items. Then the three-tier stands that I got were probably not the best thing – they didn’t make the items easily accessible to the customers. We realized that first and foremost it was important that the items be in full view of the customer; and the customer be able to touch and flip through them. Our display was not conducive for that. Plus nothing wobbly should be on your table. If every time the customer tries to look at some item, something falls he/she will hesitate to do that again and there goes your sale. The bestsellers for me were: gift-card holders (especially the purse ones), Snowman kisses (made using Tic Tac), Cocoa packets with a poem, Turkey place card holders, Mini composition books with pen. The food – there is coffee and lunch items for sale. Not a great variety for vegetarians just a veggie sandwich which had lots of cheese and a slice of cucumber and some lettuce; but it was delicious! My DH doesn’t like cheese so much and even he loved it – we kept thinking what was in that sandwich that we loved but couldn’t figure out!
2. Mill Creek Lion’s Club Holiday Bazaar: This was their 7th year and I must say for their short term in business they were pretty well organized. I think it was a little smaller than the Woodinville one in terms of the number of vendors. The fees was also also less; but my sales were almost double that of Woodinville. I would definitely attribute our change in display for some portion of the increase in sales. We now used a pegboard towards the back of the table to hang some of the stuff and the rest all was on the table – no stands and no shelves. It looked a lot cleaner and more shopper-friendly. The fair was well attended, it looked almost comparable to the previous. Though hard to say in terms of numbers. The bestsellers for me continued to be Snowman Kisses, Hot cocoa, mini composition books and gift card holders. Once again purse gift card holders sold like hot cakes! Post-it note holders with pen did decently well. Sold one altered clipboard, a couple of magnetic memo boards, Starbucks Via packets, 6 out of 9 greeting cards. The food – they’d a make do pantry and were selling Costco pizza for lunch which was good enough. Coffee was supposed to be available free of cost all day but it got over before noon. 
3. Redmond Holiday Bazaar: Unlike the above shows this was for shorter duration – from 12-5pm. Not sure how long they’ve been organizing this but I should’ve known. When I asked them the table size they would be providing nobody knew and the rep told me she’d find out and call back!The fair was much much smaller and there was hardly any crowd as compared to previous fairs. To be fair to them, the fees was quite low (I guess they knew about the crowd). They held it with Redmond Lights thinking that it would draw more people but we don’t think it made any difference. It did draw more people but not the ones who were interested. They were the ones who’d come early and didn’t know what to do before lighting started. As you must’ve figured out by now, the crowd – whatever there was of it – wasn’t too keen on buying hand made crafts! We’d a wonderful lady selling some of the most exquisite christmas centerpieces priced between $20-45. We were surprised that she hardly sold any till she had 50% off! Each of those centerpieces was unique and hand-crafted. Later I saw that in Big Box stores mass-produced centerpieces were more expensive than what she was selling for! So yes this fair was a disappointment. The sales were decent given the fees but it wasn’t so much fun. There were no bestsellers per se, we sold a little bit of everything. There was no arrangement for food; but there was coffee.

Phew! That was a long post! I wanted to write some more but I think I’ll put in the next post for fear of it being over-shadowed.

Breathing space

Had my craft fair last weekend; the response was pretty good for a first show! I even got an order. After the fair I was busy with the order and now I’ll begin preparing for the next show. Here’s a pic of the craft fair and of the order that I worked on.

Will peep in next when I get a breather! Ta ta till then!

More craft fair stuff…

My first craft fair is going to be Nov 6! Yea! Here’s the information for it:

Woodinville Holiday Craft Fair

Woodmore Elementary School

12225 NE 160th St Bothell WA 98011

Nov 6, 2010 9AM-4PM

I’ve been making a lot of stuff for the craft fairs. Here’s a peek at what’s done…

Post-it note holders with mini gel pens. My DH packaged all of these! He made the bag toppers and stapled all of them! Isn’t that sweet of him?!?!

Magnetic message boards with a clothespin magnet and an embellished magnet eacg

Ornament gift card holders

More gift card holders

So you can see I’ve been very busy :) There are more things have done, once I’ve them completed I’ll post the pictures. I’m having so much fun making these things. There are so many things I’d never tried making because they wouldn’t be of use to me but thanks to the craft fair I can try my hand at multitude of things and it is so satisfying to let your mind be free – free to create anything! I think I can spend 24 hours a day making all this stuff!

Craft fairs 2010 Puget Sound/Seattle area

I’m planning to participate in a craft fair this year – my first. So I searched for various craft shows being held in this area and after spending some long hours on the internet, here’s the compiled information. Hope this helpful to you. How you can help me?

1. There are still some fairs for which I couldn’t find any information – if you’ve participated in them in the past or have any information on them please leave a comment for me so that I can update it here.
2. If you information on any other craft fair then I would love to include it here, so let me know.
3. I would live to rating to them with respect to – what kind of products is it good for, what kind of audience does it get, how are the sales and so on. So if you’ve participated in them in the past, please let me know what you felt about them.

How to read this list?

Each craft fair listing has the following information in order:

• Booth fees
• Application fee or Commission
• Deadline
• Actual date of the show
• Contact

1. Phinney Neighborhood center, Seattle
   • From $150
   • Appln fees $15
   • Aug 23rd, Fees increase after that
   • Dec 4 and 5
   • http://www.phinneycenter.org/events/wf.shtml
2. UCU winter fair, Seattle
   • From $200
   • Appln fees $10
   • 6-Sep
   • Dec 4 and 5
   • http://www.urbancraftuprising.com/apply2010winter.php
3. Best of the Northwest, Seattle
   • n/a
   • n/a
   • Over
   • Nov 12 and 14
   • http://nwartalliance.com/events/Fall_2010_Best_of_the_Northwest/
4. Punk Rock Flea Market, Seattle
   • $40 - last year
   • n/a
   • n/a
   • Dec 4 (tentative)
   • n/a
5. St Agnes Church
   • $8-15
   • 20% commission, $30 min
   • 23-Aug
   • 6-Nov
   • Ann-Patrice Riccardo (206) 363-3994 dtap3@msn.com.
6. Red ribbons and reindeer, Hollywood Schoolhouse, Woodinville
   • No Information
7. Pickering Barn Christmas Craft Show, Issaquah
   • Appln fee $60,
   • 23% commission
   • open till filled
   • Nov 4-6
   • http://country-creation.blogspot.com/2009/10/procedures.html
8. North Kitsap Holiday Fest, Poulsbo
   • From $110
   • n/a
   • Feb 15th, Fees increase after that
   • Nov 6 and 7
   • http://www.nkschools.org/160020815215741697/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=65483
9. Starving Housewives Echo Fall Holiday Craft Show, Snohomish
   • From $50
   • Comission 23%
   • n/a
   • Nov 9-13
   • http://www.starvinghousewives.com/index.php
10. My Friends and More Holiday Bazaar, Bothell
    • From $30
    • n/a
    • 1-Nov
    • 13-Nov
    • http://www.craftybug.com/bazaar/bazaarvendorinfo.htm
11. Saint Brendan PTO Holiday crafts bazaar, Bothell
    • Last year from $90
    • No Information
    • Last year’s application - http://www.saintbrendan.org/school/CraftFair/2009%20Application.pdf
12. Vasa park christmas show, Bellevue
    • Appln fee $60,
    • 23% commission
    • open till filled
    • Nov 18-20
    • http://country-creation.blogspot.com/2009/10/procedures.html
13. Vasa Park Fall Gift show, Bellevue
    • Appln fee $60,
    • 23% commission
    • open till filled
    • Nov 14-16
    • http://country-creation.blogspot.com/2009/10/procedures.html
14. Holiday gift and food fair, Silverdale
    • Deadline over
    • http://www.holidaygiftfair.com/
15. Mill Creek Lions Club Holiday Bazaar, Everett
    • From $45
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 20th
    • http://www.millcreeklions.org/CraftBazaar.htm
16. Bellevue Hilltop Holiday Craft Show, Bellevue
    • From $145
    • n/a
    • Nov 13
    • Social@bellevueclub.com
17. Festival of Crafts, Enumclaw
    • From $50, good space $150
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 19-21
    • http://enumclawfestivalofcrafts.com/id27.html
18. Maple Valley Holiday Bazaar and Gift Show, Maple Valley
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 19-20
    • http://bymarilyn.com/CONTACT_ME.html
19. Happy Valley Arts and Crafts Fair, Redmond
    • $50 
    • n/a
    • Oct 8 
    • Dec 4
    • n/a
20. Chimacum Arts and Crafts Fair, Chimacum
    • from $50
    • 10% after first $400
    • n/a
    • Dec 11-12
    • http://web.me.com/scripture/Chimacum_Arts/Vendor_Registeration.html
21. Fox Island Holiday Gift Bazaar, Fox Island
    • From $25
    • n/a
    • 12-Sep
    • 11-Dec
    • http://www.foxisland.net/events.asp
22. "The LAW 5^th Annual Art-tastic Holiday Shopportunity", Everett
    • No Information
    • Contact jules@lowellartworks.com
23. Edmonds Bazaar and Craft Fair, Downtown Edmonds
    • $60 for 1 table for two days, $110 for 2 tables
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 26-27
    • Contact Cathy at cathy@cooknco.com
24. SEPAC Woodinville Holiday Craft Fair, Woodinville/Bothell
    • $60 w/o table, $65 with table – Early bird rates
    • n/a
    • Aug 31
    • Nov 6
    • http://www.sepacnsd.org/craftfair.html
25. Fall Craft Fair, Monroe
    • $25 per table, $50 for hallway table
    • 20% commission
    • n/a
    • Nov 6-7
    • Tricia wydstmaryvalley@gmail.com
26. Annual Holiday Bazaar, Moutlake Terrace
    • $35-40
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 13-14
    • If you’d like an application, please send an email to bazaarapplication@yahoo.com with the following information:
      Name
      Address
      Phone number
      Type of product(s) you sell
27. Holiday Bazaar, Renton Salvation Army
    • $20
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 13
    • Kimm Baxter event-e9hr4-1780819569@craigslist.org
28. Holiday Bazaar, Lake Forest Park
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • n/a
    • Nov 13
    • Barbara Teall @ 206-244-6565 or email at teallbjtea@aol.com
29. Holiday Bazaar, Auburn (Lakeland Elementary School in Auburn, WA (close to Federal Way)
    • $40
    • n/a
    • Aug 31
    • Nov 6
    • lakelandptabazaar@yahoo.com. Looks like it’s not a handmade-only fair.
30. Shoreline Holiday Crafts Market, Shoreline
    • $65
    • n/a
    • Sept 17 for new vendors, Aug 6 for returning vendors
    • Nov 20
    • Shoreline Holiday Crafts Market 2010 vendor application
31. Queen Anne Trunk Show, Seattle
    • $45
    • Aug 31
    • Nov 20
    • http://www.sweetpeacottage.org/
32. Santa’s Elves Holiday Bazaar, Bellevue
    • No Information
33. Redmond Lights Holiday Craft Bazaar
• $18 for non-senior redmond residents
• n/a
• Registration starts Oct 18
• Dec 4
• http://redmondlights.com/contactus/contactus.html

LA

LA = Leave of Absence :). I’ve been on a long leave of absence – all related to our moving into out first house! First buying the house and then settling down – together they make a long winding process :). Now that we’re quite settled, I’m back in business. I have my very own table for crafting – can you believe that?!?! And the cherry topping are the Alex drawers from IKEA! We bought two of them and I thought I was planning for the future. Who was I kidding?!?! They’re already full! Well that takes care of not buying too much of stuff!

Though I’ve been missing from the blog world, I haven’t been completely out of crafting. A few months back I made these gift card holders for an acquaintance. There were 10 of them so I decided to make a little purse to put them in. Don’t they look cute?!?! She was very happy when she saw them!

Did I tell you that I incorporated DH’s help to do these? He’s so cute – he punched all the flowers for me. There are around 24 punched flowers and 10 of these cards which makes 240 punches. He did every one of them! A big thank you to him :-) Oh and we also broke my old punch in the process. So we had to buy a new one in haste. My old one was a McGill Daisy Stacking punch and though the punched flower was beautiful, the punch itself wasn’t great. The new one – a marvy uchida I think – is just the opposite. I like it’s buttery smooth punching more than the flower! Oh well what can you do…

The ribbon used on the bag is a recycled one – I lifted it from a packing we received some time back. The leaves are hand-drawn.

 

Supplies: DCWV cardstock, stacking daisy punch, dew drops look-alike, white gel pen.

April Goals

Here’s my update on my monthly goals!

1. Make at least 2 cards/papercraft project every week. Made 7 cards totally and 10 gift card holders so that easily overshoots my monthly goal of 8 cards/projects. And a big round of applause goes to my dear hubby who helped me make the 10 gift card holders. He punched all the flowers for them and glued the dew drops. Wait till you see the photos to realize just how MANY flowers we’re talking about here?!?!
2. Participate in 1 challenge every week. Participated in one challenge less because I made 10 gift card holders and that was much involved.
3. I haven’t yet started my sewing project – what with the work on the house going on and me falling sick the last week.

Monochromatic is fun!

I made this card with the sketch in 2S4Y challenge and using the monochromatic color scheme for the cardvaarks challenge. The background is stamped using the PTI Guidelines Two set and the sentiment is from Flourishes’ Flourished words. I stamped the sentiment in Versamark on the ribbon and then embossed it with white EP. I also added liquid pearls at the center of the medallions.

 

I wanted to but didn’t add too many embellies because I wanted it to be masculine-friendly card :)

Supplies: DCWV and Wasau CS, PTI Guidelines two, Flourished Words, Versacolor inks, corner rounder, liquid pearls.

Create Your Own Friday #16 – Backpack bag/box and Earth Day!

I saw this backpack on SCS and it looked so cute that I wanted to make one. I did make a few changes to it, mostly so that I could flatten it out and mail it if I wanted to (in case I decide to put it on my Etsy shop). The one on SCS would be hard to mail. They would make cute birthday favors for a little girlie. Not sure what I’ll do with it – or the other boxes that I keep making :) – but I love making them. Someday God will find a good way to use them :)

I also reused the golden cord that I’d saved from some packaging.

Supplies: DCWV CS and PP, reused golden cord, golden eyelets, grosgrain ribbon, crop-a-dile.

Create Your Own Friday #15 – Alter something!

My mom had been looking for a frame with 3 slots for ages (so that she could create a family frame) and every time I saw such a a frame I would think to myself “oh no, I would make a prettier frame for her”. I even told her that I would get her one and it got postponed, it got postponed and it got more postponed…finally I decided to put it on my to-do list and here I am :) Doesn’t it look pretty?!?!

I stamped using black pigment ink and then heat set it. Initially I intended to use my new memento black pad but it didn’t give me a good solid image – maybe it’s good for outline clear stamps and not solid ones. So then I tried my stazon black pad but it seems to be next only to the Sahara dessert when it comes to dryness! Finally I overcame my fear and decided to use my pigment black pad – of course it was too wet for the photo mat which is probably a coated paper. So I heat set it. There’s no guarantee that it wouldn’t smudge – I dare not try it; but then nobody does need to touch the print, it’ll always be behind the glass. I was at a loss of how to add a splash of colors and the prima flowers seemed to fit the bill. And of course, I HAD to use the new rhinestone stickers I got in the dollar bin at Michaels :) I couldn’t believe it that that was for a dollar – they’re beautiful!

 

Supplies: CTMH decorative dainties, prima flowers, rhinestones, Anna Griffin black ink.

Three-in-one

Yes, this card is for three challenges!! Here are the three of them:

• Caardvarks: The challenge was to make a baby card and I hadn’t made one since a long time so I thought to myself “why not?!?”!
• OCC Challenge – Bows: Yes at OCC we’d to use bows – knowing how fond I’m of embellies, I jumped at it!
• 2S4Y – That’s where I got this sketch! The sketch was very different from what I’d been making so I was tempted to try it out and see what I make out of it!

All together everything worked out very well and I’m soooo happy with this card! I sponged around the sentiment with pigment ink.

 

 

Supplies: Bazzill CS, DCWV PP, Flourishes flourished words, ribbon, favorite findings buttons, MS lace border punch, nestabilities oval, Tonic rounder punch, Versacolor ink.

CPS 161

This was actually for CPS 161 but I forgot to post it on time :(. The color scheme is based on SCS CC 237. The color combo was a change from my usual ones, I love to use black. It adds a certain definition to the card. I’ve had this image from a swap for a long time and thought it was finally time to show it the light of the day :).

Supplies: SU! stamp, Flourished flourished words, dew drops look-alike, prismacolor pencils, OMS.

Create Your Own Friday #14 – CAS

Once in a while, in the middle of layers you want to create a CAS (clean and simple) card! And that’s exactly what I wanted to do – get away from all those layers and embellies and what not. Not that I don’t like it but sometimes you want a change! I’m sorry the photo is not that clear, will try to get a better one when I can see a ray of sunlight amidst the grey skies :)

Not sure if you can see the embossed outline…IRL the card looks sooooo elegant! Just the look I was going for!

Supplies: Wasau CS, Papertrey Guidelines II, Versacolor inks, black pen, rhinestone, circle nestabilities.

Create Your Own Friday #13 – First timer!

Is there an occasion for which you’ve never made a card? Then now is the time to try it out :). I’ve never made a “Hi” or a general “hello” card in the 2.5 years that I’ve been making cards and whenever I saw people making them I would always wonder what they would do with it. Now, I needed some hi cards so I got busy making them. Luckily I’d a sentiment stamp just right for it! I made three of them with the same stamp but with a little variation in the layout.

 

 

I think they all turned our very pretty!

Supplies: Inkadinkado round borders, white EP, clear EP, versacolor green ink, versamark, buttons, grosgrain ribbon, white gel pen, liquid pearls.

March Goals

Here’s my update on my monthly goals! I think I;m quite pleased with myself this month :).

1. Make at least 2 cards/papercraft project every week.
2. Participate in 1 challenge every week. Participated in one challenge less because I made a gift set that was much involved.
3. Completed my sewing project – so instead of 2 months it took me 3 months. As you can see below it was a complicated project for a beginner :) so I think it was ok taking that extra month.   
4. Upload all cards to SCS gallery as well.