Birthday Cards from Gelli Prints

Sometimes a Gelli print comes out that pleases me so much that I am somewhat wroth to turn it into a card and send it away.  This is one of those cards I have held for several months.  I do love how the print came out. I especially like it with the matting behind it. 

 Today I sent it off in the mail.  I hope the person receiving it will love it, though I do not know the young person who is the recipient.  It is my wish that all the young people receiving the cards we send will know that they are thought of, even by strangers, and that perhaps they will have more hope in their lives.

In my view, the only fly in the ointment of making Gelli print cards is that no two cards are the same.  When one turns out well, it would be so great to be able to replicate it.  If someone knows how to do that, I hope you will share the information with me.

Paper Crafting: Two Birthday Cards

Making cards for boys and men is different.  Making cards for girls and women is easier. At least for me.  It takes much longer to think of what to make.  Here are two from this week.

The first is for a man. This entailed a Gelli print as well as die-cutting and folding.  Oh, and gluing.  I need to learn how to use glue better.  Seriously.  Still, I think the card, well, both of them, are okay.  They are just not good and certainly not great.  Maybe next time.

One of these dies is that one I said I would never use again.  I guess I cannot stand having the die get the better of me, so I tried again.  This one went better...so I will probably try again.  It would be useful to get it right.

This next card is for a ten-year-old grandson.  I hope he likes it.  Kind of hokey and still the wet glue problem...BUT...he is such a sweet agreeable boy that he will probably like it anyway, even with is multiple flaws.

This is the front of the card with ten smiley faces.

This is a pop-up card with the balloon bouquet opening up when he opens the card.  In retrospect I should have made the balloons much larger.  Next time.

Frugality: Strip Cards

This week I needed to make some envelopes for forwarding mail to some missionaries who had gone home.  Well, not needed to, but wanted to. As I was working on the envelope I put the leftover strip of colored paper into the leftovers box and put it back under my desk.  A lightbulb went on!

After taking out the leftovers box again, which was all strips of colorful papers in various widths, I took it to the guillotine cutter and cut off the white strip that held the paper glued into the paper pad. There were a LOT of strips!  Some of the envelopes required a piece of paper 11 x 11,  others 9 x 9, etc.  There were many strips to choose.  Since I love making cards, I thought these would be perfect.

This is what I did for the first card.  (Well, maybe I have done this before, maybe even blogged about it, but I don't remember...one of the bonuses of growing older: everything is new and exciting.  Even if you have done it a dozen times before!)

Here is the front of the card onto which are glued five strips.  After they dried I cut them and then folded them into A2 sized cards.  I did discover that I had not put enough glue along one edge of one strip so I inserted more glue there, which seems to have worked.

There was a little bit of overhang on the back which I cut off.  When I cut it off, there was an apparent unevenness so I put it back in the guillotine and made another cut.  The end result was that the card was slightly smaller than a standard A2 but close enough for me.

Here is the final card and the envelope it went into.  It makes me happy to make cards.  In this case, there were two cards, so one is sitting in my drawer with the the other cards I have made doubles of.  Nice to be ready to share a thought with someone at the drop of a hat.

Spatter Paint Cards with Additions!

Since I am participating in a drawing class by Lindsay Weirich over the internet I have decided I am brave enough to do some actual drawing.  And show it publicly.  The idea is that if I learn to draw decently then I will paint better.  This is my hope.

Since I have next to no shame, I am showing what I have come up with so far on this card project.

The first picture is my practice run.

Yes, I know they look like first grader art, but I am brave and giving it a try.

Here are the card fronts.

It is obvious that the trial train was better than the card train but I have not learned the art of erasing so as to leave something good behind so I will just send it anyway.

The tree kind of tickles me.  It is supposed to be a sort of gnarly old tree in the winter time since it actually IS winter. And the recipient is moving in the second half of life this year.  One could pretend that the spatter was a snowstorm with flakes tumbling down.

The card front in the background is a sled hockey player, in case you cannot tell.  This particular sled hockey athlete scored one or more points in a recent tournament!!  So happy for him.

More Cards, Watercolor: Not Very Successful

Birthday cards were on the plate recently.  I made them doing something a little different.  They are not very successful, but I sent them anyway! I guess I have no shame.  Well, I was thinking about these loved ones so why not send them word?!  Even if poorly executed.

Having made these pretty poor specimens, I have now acquired a nice double-thick piece of plexi-glass to mount watercolor paper on with low-tack tape to keep it smooth while I paint. One added benefit is that there is then a nice white border around the painting.

In my view, this looks like pink worms on the trees/bushes, but it is something.  It was an interesting thing to try. Now I know to try something different. I love to learn new stuff...

The envelopes made to go with the cards used the WeRMemoryKeepers Envelope Punch Board. When I cut the paper 8.5 by 8.5 there were strips left over so I mounted them on the inside and wrote a message there.  Photography being what it is, you cannot probably really see that the yellow part says "Happy Birthday" on a background of little dots.  It does look sort of cute up close.

 The yellow card, encased in an embossing folder, was run through the Big Shot only once through.  It turns out this yellow card stock is not the highest quality, or at least not as thick as I thought it was.  The embossing folder almost cut through the paper!  As it happens, I have a stack of that paper, in many colors, about 3 inches thick.  Oh well.  Better use it up quick and get some better stuff.  Well, I have a file drawer FULL of the good stuff in Vermont.  At least, I think I still do...!

February Birthday Card

We have birthdays in February so I needed to get some cards made.

To tell you where the idea came from, I was watching a Frugal Crafter YouTube video.  She has been using Rubber Stamp Tapestry Peg Stamps for a long time, which successfully sucked me into buying a few!  I do love the few that I have bought from Rubber Stamp Tapestry.  The Frugal Crafter had designed some unmounted rubber stamps for them and made a couple of cards with them.  I liked them so I ordered her stamps and a couple of others.  They arrived on Thursday!

This is the first one I made with those stamps.  Some missionaries,  elders, were in the office after I had made the card (at home but brought to the office to mount).  I asked what they thought of it.  One of them said it was a little strange.  The other one said he liked it. He asked if I had made it so I said yes.  The other one then said if it was homemade, he loved it!  He just would not buy it in the store. He said he loves homemade cards. The other elder then told me that one of the missionaries in our mission has parents who own Stampin' Up!  Oh. My. Goodness!!!  Stampin' Up is the devil!  Can I tell you I have spent way too much money with them?!!! But loved everything!

 

For this card, I made a light green card base, having to change the size multiple times by cutting.  You can see in the upper left corner of this card a tiny bit of green which is actually on a page of Spanish language business I was doing.  I did not notice it until too late to crop.  I think I will put learning to crop on my radar soon....

For myself, I am okay with this card.  I do think I will use actual watercolors and brushes when I do it again.  I do really like the grass, though.  Also,  the tree is rather blurry because I did not have an acrylic block to mount the stamp on after cutting it out. I used a Chinet plate.  Don't do it!  Still, I thought it did give a little depth to the tree.