Embossing

It's been awhile since I've blogged.  School work seems to trump hobbies unfortunately.  I needed a little creative time this weekend and decided it was time to start Christmas cards.  It's my third year making them and it seems every year I enjoy the tradition a little more.  

It's hard for me to admit this, but I had never embossed before these cards!  If I only knew what I had been missing!!  I was at the craft store shopping for my card supplies and I stopped at the embossing supplies.  Why the heck have I never done this before?!  Just what I need, one more expense at the craft store!

Supplies needed:

Paper

Ink

Empossing powder

Embossing heat gun

Now watch and learn!  This. is. so. simple!!!

Step 1 - Stamp.  Make sure you have plenty of ink so that the embossing powder will stick nicely.

Step 2 - cover with embossing powder.  I'm using clear, but you can get pretty creative with layers.  Put the excess back into the embossing powder container for later use.

Hold the heat tool a few inches from the paper (you can leave burn marks on the paper)  and evenly cover the stamp.  You can see the needles on this stamp.  They pop once they are embossed. 

Continue your design....

and we all love blurry pictures!

I added mittens to this design

and a little gold glitter to the pine cones

I also added some snow (white glitter) to the card.  I haven't decided if it was a good idea or not yet.  It's beautiful under certain light, but not so pretty under other light.  It's a little too late to decide against the idea!

 

 

I wish I could take credit for this design because I find it to be absolutely adorable.  While trying to come up with ideas,  I googled hand made Christmas cards and a card very similar to this one came up.  Of course I put my own spin on it.  Warning - embossing is like using glitter.  It's very messy!

Friends and family - sorry to spoil the surprise!  This is the card you're getting this year!  They will be mailed shortly after Thanksgiving.  When is the appropriate time to mail Christmas cards anyway?  When does everyone else mail their cards?

DIY Wedding Invites

For those of you that know me, you know how much I love paper!  Making cards has always been a favorite hobby.  I learned that not only is it a hobby, it's an obsession!  I have a hard time working on anything else once I bring out all my paper and pens and scissors.

I knew I wanted to design our wedding invitations.  I found a lot of different invites on-line, but all were pretty detailed and required expensive software.  I downloaded the free trial of photoshop and spent hours playing with the design.  I learned so much about photoshop that I never knew before!  I also learned that I loved it!  I could have spent six months on the invitations alone.

I used vintage Post Cards as the RSVP and had the stamps made at Zazzle.com to mimic a vintage post card.  I'm really happy with the results!

2011 Holiday Card Design

I had a lot of fun designing our Holiday Cards this year!  We enjoyed an extra long fall here in Portland and I wanted a card that gave a feeling of a little fall, winter and warmth.  Each card is made slightly different of course, but here is an example:

A Card for My Man

Aaron was out of town on a work trip for a few days and I was feeling a little creative.  We have a huge fig tree in our backyard and while we both love figs, there is only so much we can do with a million figs!  We've had fig preserves, Figgy pudding, figs with cheese and several other things.  I mean this tree is huge!  If you walk under the tree, chances are you will be hit in the head with a fig bomb.  Thankfully our Lab loves figs (she loves anything that is edible) and she keeps the ground fig free.

I'm happy with the Fig Card.  If I was a fig....he would be my newton!