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Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Use What You Have Challenge, Card #2

Here is another card I made for the same challenge, which you can find  here.

For this one, I wanted to use some sequin trim I had bought in the dollar section at Target, thinking, who couldn't use sequins that cost $1?  I had no idea sequins were going to become a trend!

The stash:


The card:


Although the sequins on a string looked like they would be much easier to deal with, I decided that individual sequins would have been much easier.  I pulled some of them off to add some of the accents at the top.  The sentiment is stamped Colorbox ink and then embossed in clear.


Use What You Have Challenge, Card #1

This card is one of my entries into Sweet Stamp Shop's "Use What You Have Challenge".

The challenge is to use some old supplies that we've neglected, to make something new.  For this first card, I wanted to use some Kelly Purkey letter stickers that I got with a card kit.

The stash:


The card:


Using a technique I learned in Summer Card Camp 2 on layering die cuts, I layered the stickers for a little more dimension, especially since they were going onto an embossed panel.  They were white, and I colored them with a Sharpie (Copics didn't work, the stickers were too glossy.)  The sun is also a die cut made from a couple of layers of cardstic, but I wanted it match the rays, so I inked it with Memento Dandelion, the same ink I used for the rays.  Then I covered the sun with some Glossy Accents.  Love that stuff!


Cuddlepill Designs update

I have a few more cards to share today, but I've also been up to some fun business-promoting things lately.

1.  I participated in SLAM (the Saturday Local Artists' Market) here in Somerville, which was on the same day as ArtBeat, a huge street fair.  While I didn't sell as many cards as I had previously, I got the chance to chat with people and give out some business cards.

2.  I met with a librarian friend who helped me tag my items on Etsy so that they can be more searchable.

3.  I signed up to participate in Assembled, another craft fair in Somerville.  I will be there twice - once on August 24th, and again on Sept. 21.  More info here: http://www.assemblyrow.com/events/#post-1482

4.  I contacted a local store about selling my cards there, and the manager told me to contact him again in October.  At least it's not flat out no, right??

5.  I've been working with a photographer friend of mine to help take better pictures of my cards.  I hope you can see the difference!

Meanwhile, I've mostly been working on those Rosh Hashanah cards for my friend who ordered some, but I also have some other ones to share with you today.

These two were made from ideas and sketches from Summer Card Camp:



And the rest are just general cards that I made so that I would have inventory for the craft fair!





Enjoy the rest of your week!

Monday, July 29, 2013

Simon Says Stamp July Card Kit

I just got my August card kit, but I'm still playing with the bright colors from the July card kit!

Here's a card I made using all the patterned papers - I loved how they all fit nicely together, but cutting out all those hexagons took some time!



And here's another one that I made using that one piece of patterned paper with all the little strips of patterns.  I saw it and immediately felt like I needed to take it apart, only to put it back together, in a way.


I hope you enjoy these!

Happy New Year!

Well Summer Card Camp is over, and while I did complete the class, it was so overwhelming that I'm sort of marinating on all the different ideas right now.

Meanwhile, fall will be upon us before we know it, and the Jewish holidays are early this year, which means it's time for me to start making Shana Tova cards.  I sold a few at a craft fair last weekend, and am trying to persuade my friends to buy sets of cards to send to their loved ones.  :)

Here are some, and I also asked a friend to help with photographing them, so I hope you can see the difference!









I decided to go with a bee/honey theme for most of them, since I figure everyone is sick of the traditional Shofar and Star of David nonsense.

Also, here is a birthday card I made for my dad.  He lives in Florida and loves the ocean.



Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Summer Card Camp, Day 1!

I'm back... I have been neglecting the blog lately, which is part of the reason why I signed up for Online Card Classes' Summer Card Camp 2.  I didn't take Summer Card Camp 1, but I'm excited nonetheless.

Yesterday was our first day of class, so I have some homework to show off to you.

This first card is a simple one that uses the colors suggested to us for the first week, but none of the sketches.      Those chevrons are stamped in grey ink and then the spaces are colored in with Copics.  (Side note:  Whenever I hear people say "Coh-pick", I always think of The Cutting Edge and "Toe pick!"  Anybody else?)


The second card follows one of the sketches almost exactly, and I used Jennifer McGuire's technique of making the banner be the entire front of the card, so that is the part that opens.  I also used her technique of layering the die cute, in order to give it a little more dimension.


Sorry these pictures are a little dark... a friend is working with me to take better pictures, and teach me how to use my camera.  In the meantime, though, be thankful they are in focus! :)



Thursday, May 2, 2013

Cards galore!

Hi! I know I've been away for a while, I don't even have an excuse... I've been job hunting, and have been a busy bee crafting.  Sorry for neglecting my blog, but when I sit down to make stuff, I just want to make stuff, not have to worry about taking pictures of it.  Though I do like to show off! :)

So without further ado, here is a little photo album of all the stuff I have been making lately.

This first one is an invitation I did for my grandfather's 90th birthday party.  The inside is just printed from the computer and mounted, but it took about 3 weeks to put 25 of these together.  That was a lot of die cuts, and a lot of poking the little pieces out of that die.





I started doing these cards with the sketched rainbow background, and liked it so much I made like 4 of them.  Here are two.



The layout for this one was inspired by one of Kristina Werner's cards that I found on Pinterest.



New dies from Avery Elle below!




This next one is probably one my favorite ones I have ever made.  When I started it, I was all, "I don't even like making baby cards."   But then I thought of the toys in the envelope, and now I love the way it came out!  The toys are stamps from Lawn Fawn, MamaElephant, and various Etsy shops.


And here's my Mother's Day version of that same card.


Whew!  So much fun to make all of these.  Thanks for stopping by and sticking around!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Make Way for Ducklings!

ETA:  This card also seems appropriate to share today, April 16, the day after the bombings at the marathon.  I love Boston, and always will.  I even left for 5 years, and purposely came back.  This is one of the cards I have made that I am the proudest of, because aside from all the fun techniques I used to make it, it also has a local sensibility to it.

Edited again to add that I'm also entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Travel/Cityscape challenge.

Just popping in one last time today to share this card I made today for a baby shower I'm going to tomorrow.  It's for a fellow Bostonian, so I wanted to do something kind of local, and I thought of the beloved children's book "Make Way for Ducklings."  (On the card, there are only 2 ducklings, because she is having twins.)

This card also gave me the opportunity to use that lovely building stamp I got from StudioMo on Etsy.  (I love buying stamps on Etsy, they're so much more unique!)

I love the way this came out, though it did take me all day to finish!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fun with die cutting

As I mentioned in my previous post, I finally bought myself a die cutting machine.  Meanwhile, a friend of mine had been wondering if I ever make cards which don't have any text on them, just plain designs.  This circle burst die I thought would be perfect for such a thing, so I made a few blank note cards with it:

(Again, I don't know what I did with my camera.  In the interest of just getting the pics up here, I'm not going to try to find out. :)



In an awesome coincidence, one of my favorite stamp companies, Avery Elle, started making dies the same week I bought my die cutting machine!  Here are a couple of those:



And here's a "fun with embossing" card, the layout which I believe came from the Clean and Simple 2 class over at Online Card Classes.



I have one more post to share with you today, so read on, and thanks for visiting!

Mix tape cards

Hi!  It's been a busy week or two over at Gabi's house of unemployed card making.  First of all, it was my birthday so I finally broke down and bought myself a die cutting machine.  I got a Big Shot, and I love it.  The learning curve of how to use it was actually a longer process than I expected, but in general, I really like to cut things, so of course a machine that does just that is right up my alley.  More on that and some cards I made with it later.

First, though, I had run out of ideas, so I asked some friends on Facebook to tell me their favorite songs to put on mix tapes.  I had a really cute stamp of a cassette tape that I bought from Drumchick Designs on Etsy,  and I was itching to use it.  I used their song suggestions and ran with them, and here's what I came up with.  I'm really proud of this series, they're all CAS and really fun.  (Plus, I got to use some new stamps and a do a little die cutting.)

I apologize in advance for these pictures being so dark, I must have been using the wrong setting on my camera and right now it's too late at night for me to bother with taking them again.

This first one is actually MY favorite song to put on a mix tape, "Livin' on a Prayer."  This is the only card I was able to get away with hand-lettering!  After many attempts at hand-writing some of the other cards, I finally relented and printed out the sentiments.  (Which I hate doing, because I hate pulling out the computer and futzing with the printer if I'm in the middle of paper crafting.)


It turns out my friends were really into the Bangles when we were young - I got requests for "Manic Monday," "Walk Like an Egyptian," and "Eternal Flame."  This next one is the only one that made it into the repertoire, partly because I just couldn't, in good conscience, put "Walk Like an Egyptian" on a greeting card!


I did agree to put "I Will Survive" on a card instead of "Walk Like an Egyptian":  (I got to use my Big Shot for this one!)


These next two are my favorites from this series.  My BFF Merav chose "La Isla Bonita" as her song, so I ran with the beach-y theme.  (Though everybody knows "Like a Prayer" is the best Madonna song.)

The first one is really CAS, the second one got a little more involved.  (There are cartoon fish involved!)



One more: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."





Friday, March 22, 2013

Pattern Play, Day 3

I'm a little behind on my home work for the Pattern Play class over at Online Card Classes, but here's what I did with Kristina's technique from day 3:


I have tons of this paper lying around - I got it in packs of 99 cent paper from Blick, and have had no idea what to do with it.  The patterns are really bold and sparkly, and the paper is really thick and kind of home-made.  It's hard to cut into, and hard to use.  But I think making it the focal point of the card, and splitting up the pattern a little is a really good way to finally get some use out of this paper!

I'm off to try to catch up a little more on the "homework".  This class is a challenge for me, as someone who likes my cards clean and simple, it's hard to figure out how to make the patterns fit in.


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Pattern Play, Day 2

Hiya!  I glanced at the instructions and sketches for Day 2, and whipped up this quick card using the techniques learned in Day 1, and the idea of stamping on patterns from Day 2.

I made this card for my partner, who is also a librarian, but unlike me, actually has a job - and got a promotion and a raise today.  I thought these papers from Lawn Fawn's Dewey Decimal collection would be perfect!


Pattern Play, Day 1

It's time for another Online Card Class, this time we're learning about how to use patterned paper.  Just like many others in the class, I buy tons of patterned paper, but tend to put it aside in favor of stamps or just plain white.  Plus, it comes with all my card kits, and I never know what to do with it!


For the first day of class, we talked about some basic principles of combining patterns.  I'm not good at coming up with sketches/layouts on my own (that's a class I need!), so I used the same layout as Kristina Werner did in her video to make a Passover card requested by a family member.  I used paper from Indie Bloom by Basic Grey, and stamps from Papertrey.


 And here's another card where I used some patterned papers, though not as copiously.


See you tomorrow for day 2!


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Easter and St. Patrick's Day cards

I was busy while I was away... but since the craft fair I'm selling at is the day before St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would make some St. Patrick's Day themed stuff, along with some Easter cards to go along with the Passover collection.


This Easter card was almost entirely created by items from those dollar bins at Michael's.  You never know what you will find there! 


I was having a really hard time coming up with St. Patrick's Day card which would be fitting for the occasion - not too sappy, and not ugly.  I decided to go with green beer and a Lawn Fawn sentiment.  Once I decided on the layout, I just went with it.





I thought this sunburst background stamp was the perfect feel for St. Patrick's Day, and even though cutting it out for this second card was tedious, I love the way it came out.

If you're not sick of me yet, I have a few more Birthday and other miscellaneous cards to share - I told you, I've been busy!