World Card Making Day

This Saturday, October 4th is World Cardmaking Day! Can you believe we actually have a special day to celebrate our passion? Spread the word! Have a sale! Buy something from a new card artist! Post to your blog! Let's all join together and encourage each other. One of the great things about this hobby is that you can easily share your thoughts and ideas. And as much as designing our own cards, we just love to see what other card artists are up to. So get going - I challenge each of you to create a fantastic card to share with us on Saturday. I'll be posting one and I hope everyone who accepts the challenge leaves their posting URL as a comment at that time. Leave the computer for a while and go create!

New Poll - Vote Today!

The Creative Card Designs (CRCD) Team is conducting a new poll about the use of acid free materials in greeting cards. If you are a handmade card enthusiast and/or buyer, please help us better meet your expectations and needs, by casting your vote today at the Card Chronicles Blog:(http://www.creativecard-designs.blogspot.com/).

Do You Diecut?

Anyone who uses die cuts probably has more that one machine since there are so many claiming to be the best. I don't have experience with them all, but I always do a lot of research prior to purchasing anything, and I can say with confidence that there is no miracle machine. Each has advantages and disadvantages. I've singled out three as my favorites because each of them has a particular benefit for me. Probably the number one consideration in purchasing any die cutter is cost. There is a wide range of prices starting at about $30 to over $300. For a very reasonable and easy to use die cutter I purchased the Sizzix Sidekick. I think it was actually less than $30 with a 40% off coupon at my local craft store. I bought it mainly because I have a few slimline dies that I love and was having a hard time cutting thick or textured cardstock with them on my more expensive machine. It has proved to be a real time saver for those cuts. I also own a Quickkutz that I use almost exclusively for letters and numbers. The dies are small, very important when using the cuts for cards. It's quick and easy to grab and punch one or two letters. However, my favorite die cutter is the Spellbinder Wizard. There is a lot of controversy over this machine. You either love it or hate it. It's expensive and it's a little tricky to operated properly, as it's not as automated as the other cutters. And it takes a little thought to get your "sandwiches" set up correctly. But the wizard has the most beautiful embossed diecuts I have ever seen. It can cut using almost any die, embosses using Fiskar plates, flattens bottle caps, sets eyelets and snaps, flattens polymer clay, photo transfers, and lots more. I admit I haven't used the machine for all purposes, but knowing I could is good enough for me!!

Now why did I decide to focus on die cutters today? Because I found the best bargain ever at a garage sale this weekend. I've already said that you either love the Wizard or hate it. Well, I found someone who hated it - and I purchased a brand new machine with all the accessories for $10.00. The orginal machine I bought cost me over $100.00 and each replacement plate runs about $8.00. You know I'm a happy crafty camper!

Vintage Medicine - Oh My!

I've worked in the medical field for 40 years and have a small collection of old medical ephemera. I love reading the old medical almanacs from the 1920's to 1950's. The almanacs were actually printed by companies in an effort to sell their medicines, and distributed by drugstores and pharmacies. And what medicines they were! My newest creation is a magnet from an advertisement in the 1939 Jaynes's Almanac for vermifuge for roundworms! Basically, the entire booklet educated the reader on the symptoms and horrors of this parasite. I have no idea whether the medicine worked, but found the reading quite amusing. The advertisement is mounted on heavy chipboard, sealed with mod podge, edged in copper foil tape, and has a full magnetic back. It measures 2 1/2" square. I had a lot of fun with this; I think I'll be doing some more in the near future.

Thrifty Craft Shopping

I've discovered a new store for purchasing brand name craft supplies at discount prices. It's none other than my local Big Lots ! I stop in every time I pass by. You just never know what you're going to find or when new shipments arrive. My latest purchases were McGill giant punches at just $4 each. I bought six - library folders, ticket stubs, file folders, tags, and 2 types of envelopes. Even if I use them only a couple of times they will pay for themselves! I also found some K&Company metallic cards with envelopes in holiday colors that retail for $6, for $1.88 each. I bought them all. Now I'm ready for Christmas. They usually also have embellishments, ribbons, scrapbook paper, and sometimes even some Martha Stewart stuff at highly discounted prices! Just a couple of warnings - if you see something you think you might use, don't think you can come back for it later. It'll be gone! You also have to remember, shopping here is addicting, so don't expect to go once and forget it. The great prices will bring you back over and over again!

Vintage Car Notecards

I found some really great photos of vintage muscle cars and went out of my comfort zone a bit to create some notecards for the vintage car fanatics. I mounted the computer generated photos on metallic and textured cardstock, then mounted them on foam for dimension. The four embellishments are pewter colored eyelets. I love the way these cards turned out!

Reverse Creativity

My normal process of designing a card starts with a general idea I want to communicate, followed by a search for pictures, embellishments, and quotes to represent that theme. Too often, I end up printing out an entire collage sheet for just one picture. While attempting to organize my craft supplies this past week, I decided I had way to many pictures just gathering dust. So I decided to change my thinking process and started designing some cards in reverse. I found a picture that I totally loved, but had no idea what to do with. I mounted it on coordinating scrapbook paper and textured card, then I found an appropriate quote. So far, so good, but it definately needed to be embellished. A search through my supplies found some great additions to the theme, and Voila... Here's the results of my reverse creativity! It was a fun personal challenge to take an object, in this case the picture of the dancer, and force myself to develop it into a beautiful and unique creation.

Guy Cards

My guess would be that about 70% of handmade cards can be sent only to a woman, maybe 25% can be sent to either sex, and only about 5% are made specifically with the man in mind. Today I'd like to share with you a few of my favorite "guy cards." Sometimes it's quite a challenge to design cards for the men, but they're really quite fun and you can use themes that you just can't use on a woman's card. Think about sports, fishing, TV (I recommend the Three Stooges!), motorcycles, cars, etc. as themes and make sure to use a suitable color scheme. Stay away from flowers and cutesy animals. Old vintage photos are great to use. Just don't be afraid to try something "completely different". The guys will love you for it.

Storing Your Unmounted Stamps

I love my unmounted stamps, and tried every storage solution I could think of that wouldn't cost a fortune. This is my method for storage and I think it works great. I take old CD holders (you can also buy them rather cheaply at a computer supply store) and remove the inside plastic that holds the CD. The unmounted stamps then lay perfectly inside. You can store them in a CD tower or stick them in a drawer. You can see exactly what is in each plastic cassette. Another tip: if you don't know how to make unmounteds stick to your acrylic block, just use Aleene's TACK-IT and you can stick and remove all you want. When you're done stamping, stick it back in its plastic holder. I don't even use a foam backing for my stamps. I just do my stamping on a computer mouse pad. It doesn't matter if the foam is between the stamp and the block, or on the bottom... it works the same way.

My New Etsy Store

If you like using vintage and unusual items in your projects, check out my new Etsy Store, Thrift Store Supplies. I'm always on the search for discarded treasures to use in my creations and now I will be offering some to you at very reasonable prices.

Lest We Forget...

I was in somewhat of a reflective mood this morning and came up with this thought provoking card called "Time Travel". I am quite involved in family genealogy, and my ancestors settled in Buffalo, New York from Germany, so this card really comes from the heart. My purpose in creating the card was to let the recipient stop for a few moments and reflect on where they came from and where they're going.

Some of my Favorite Craft Blogs

I love surfing the craft blogs. Here are 3 of my recently discovered favorites:

A Time 4 Art A little bit of everything - altered art, atc's, postcards, tags, etc, etc, etc. - all with a vintage flair!

Paper Cat's Page Altered art, more postcards, collage and more!

The Best of DIY Links to totally awesome tutorials for the crafter.

Related post: Introducing "Just Blogs"

Mother Earth's Children TAGS

I discovered a wonderful child's book at a thrift store and just had to use the pictures for something! I made sturdy chipboard tags, then used old Farmer's almanac pages covered in mulberry paper as the background. The pics of the plant children and the quotes were copied from the book. I then added ribbon and an old print-like picture of the apple and strawberry and finished them off with a fiber hanger. I like these a lot and plan on creating more from the many plates in Mother Earth's Children: The Frolics of the Fruits and Vegetables.

Latest Treasure Hunt Finds...

Ah - Scrabble tiles - a versatile little piece of wood! I always pick up games when I find them at thrift stores or garage sales. I don't care what the box or the board looks like - I only want the tiles! But yesterday I hit the jackpot - I found a deluxe edition that contains maroon tiles! They will be the perfect addition to my vintage style cards. Most likely, I'll save these tiles to use just as they are. My brown wooden tiles which are much more easily found, will be the ones I'll use for decoupage or stamping, or altering in any way. I also picked up a bag of dominoes. Along with the large plastic ones I use for pendants, there are also a number of dark brown wooden ones. There is a Chinese dragon embossed into the wood. I foresee something new and exiting over the horizon! I can't wait to get started using these little beauties. My next search will be for vintage buttons - not the cheap plastic rip-offs you find today - but the little treasures made of bakelite, bone and ivory I remember in my mothers button box many years ago.........