Parthenon

August 3, 2023CraftyK Leave a comment

I’ve changed. In more ways than one, but for the purpose of this blog, I’ve changed how I make cards.

When I first started making cards it was with some card stock, a glue stick, and wallpaper samples. Now there are stamps, ribbon, buttons, custom cutouts, and more involved.

This card is a product of that change. The background was cut several years ago. The me back then was looking for something interesting looking and that piece would be glued to the folded cardstock.

Today the page cut will now be a background for a cross stitch card. The look of the paper made me think of Greece or Rome and all the pillars. I remembered World of Cross Stitching recently had travel motifs. I found a Parthenon looking one and decided to make it.

Scroll down to see the finished card.

Stitching

Started: August 1

Finished: August 2

Stitching time: 1 hour

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Noel

March 15, 2023CraftyK Leave a comment

This card took a really long time. I started it and then life took a very different turn than expected. It drove my desire to do anything right out the window. After a few months I was finally willing to pick this back up again, to get it finished. It’s time to move onto something else.

This card is part of a set from the late 1980s. I still have about 5 of them left. This was the easiest pattern from the set. Even with the design being simple, if you start counting the rows of colors in the gradient, you’ll find they are not all correct. 🤫

Once I found the mistakes, I decided to run with it as is. Giving this piece a unique look since it no longer matches the pattern.

Assembly was straightforward. Some double sided tape and everything else was already provided with the kit. As with many of these “smaller” patterns, I am amazed how many hours it actually takes to finish.

Stitching

Started: October 16th

Finished: March 5th

Stitching time: 8.25 hours

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

2022 Cards

January 1, 2023February 23, 2023CraftyK Leave a comment

If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2022, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Regardless of life circumstances I was determined to get some cards made.

Hope this provides some inspiration for your own cards!

February

May

June

July

September

October

December

For real-time updates
follow along on Snapchat!

Also on Instagram @craftyk.3

50 You Are

October 29, 2022October 13, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

My brother turned 50 this month and is a lifelong Star Wars fan. Since this is a milestone birthday I decided to make a custom Yoda themed Star Wars card.

I sketched out a few ideas for this one. The wording was the hard part. Thankfully lots of people are Star Wars fans and I knew one of them had to have a “Yoda translator” and I was right. To get the translator to work, you need a decent number of words. After a few attempts I came up with something that I liked.

For the fonts, I have a couple of Star Wars options that I downloaded from dafont years ago. One has mostly letters and the other character and ship outlines. I found Yoda and got to work.

After laying it out I decided to fill the white space between the text with the rebel symbol. Behind that and Yoda I put in a couple of pages from my old daily calendar. Yoda is mounted with some mounting tape to give dimension.

Assembly on this one was challenging! I have not mastered transfer tape. In my case press n seal, so maybe it’s not as stable to work with. I ended up laying out all the letters by hand. Once I reached happy birthday I was determined to use the press n seal. It wasn’t perfect, but it is straighter than what I was able to do free hand.

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

Noel Candle II

October 9, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

I made this kit in 2021 and ended up getting another one. It’s a kit from 1988. Everything comes ready to make the card, including the envelope.

The last version of this card ended up going to my uncle for Christmas. This one will be going with all my cards to a friend’s craft fair booth.

It’s a straight forward pattern, only a few quarter stitches sprinkled in. French knots in metallic thread is the challenge with this pattern. Looks awesome when done, but not easy getting there. Metallic thread makes me nervous I guess. I can have very dry hands and pick that stuff up and I’m sweating like crazy and the thread just frays. I ran it through thread magic several times which kept it together a little longer this time.

I do struggle with picking which color to work on each time I finish a general area. There is a fair amount of “confetti” in this one. To keep stitches consistent a little planning is needed.

Stitching

Started: September 16th

Finished: October 8th

Stitching time: 7.75 hours

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

Rocking Horse

September 15, 2022September 8, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

This pattern is from a 1988 card kit. The pattern is hand drawn! I can’t imaging having to draw out patterns by hand. Sometimes advancements in technology are great.

Compared to the last several projects this one was easy. Mostly because the pattern was bigger than the actual design.

Well I thought it was easy until I started stitching. Then it took longer than expected to complete. There are several color changes and backstitching tends to take longer I think.

I have no idea what my deal is with metallic thread. I get all sweaty when it’s time to use it and that’s the worst time to have sweaty hands. By the second strand I was running it through Thread Magic at least 3 times to try and keep it together (usually it frays really bad). The extra coatings did help.

Since this is part of a kit, assembly went smoothly. Double sided tape to hold the aperture card together.

Stitching

Started: August 7th

Finished: September 4th

Stitching time: 7 hours

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

Mailbox Stamp and Color

May 6, 2022May 4, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

This card is involves a few of firsts for me. A sort of first to start things off, I thought I was going to make 2 of these. Instead of my usual one-of-a-kind. I had a piece of paper to stamp on big enough to stamp twice. I tried, but I underestimated how much ink was left and had a really faded version 2.

It all turned out ok, I used that second try to test out colors.

First stamp that needs to be colored
First time using alcohol ink markers. (didn’t even know they were a thing until about a month ago)
First time adding a stamped message to the inside

I learned that maybe spending a bunch of money on markers that have an extra fine tip might be worth it in the future. Most of the areas are so tiny I couldn’t color in the lines very well. I bought a fairly cheap set on Amazon. The review compared them to the name brand kind that have tri-tips, these only have chisel and brush.

Here’s the inside. It came in the box with the stamp on the front. Based on the packaging I’m pretty sure they are Stampin’ Up. I’m sure others have used this set and made much fancier cards.

I also took a photo from the bottom to show the depth with the foam tape. The wallpaper and cardstock paper are taped down and the cardstock with the stamping and coloring is mounted with foam tape.

I think this card looks awesome and it’s part of my personal collection. Someday the right person will come along that I just have to send it to them.

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Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

Little Mouse

May 3, 2022May 2, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

This card took a very long time in the making. I decided to stop assembling cards as I got things stitched. Little did I know this would take until the end of February to assemble and beginning of May to photograph for this blog!

In that time I did sign up on Instagram to show off cards this year. As I found a few people to follow I saw this cool thing of taking a baby food jar and storing thread scraps in it. I believe that person is keeping them all to put on display. For me it’s become the perfect portable trash can.

This is my tread scrap jar for the project.

To finish this card I used a page from one of those small books of scrapbook paper. I bought 2 Christmas themed ones and thought this page was a good fit. Since the mouse has a little Santa hat I thought the “HO HO HO” was good. I would have preferred it to be on the right, but this is how the paper comes. The words were in the far bottom left of the sheet. The mistletoe having the green to tie the two together in a second way.

The base of the card is white cardstock with the front being taped on with double sided tape. The cross stitch is adhered with a piece of foam tape. I didn’t get it cut out the greatest, but it works and looks ok.

Stitching

Started: October 31

Finished: November 6

Stitching time: 2 hours

Follow along on Snapchat
for current projects!

Also now on Instagram @craftyk.3

2021 Cards

January 1, 2022August 11, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2021, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Due to continued life circumstances there are very few cards created. You can also use this to get some inspiration for your own cards!

May

July

August

October

For real-time updates
follow along on Snapchat!

2020 Cards

January 1, 2021May 5, 2022CraftyK Leave a comment

If you don’t want to read the nuances about the cards I created in 2020, this is where you can see them all by month of creation. Due to life circumstances there are very few cards created. You can also use this to get some inspiration for your own cards!