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just the pattern

Cells are Blue

CraftyK Leave a comment

I’ll spoil it for you, this stitching was finished in 1 afternoon/evening! So below is not a typo. While the card was not created on the same day (finished stitching pretty late), the stitching was.

getting started

The card was a whole other story. I wasn’t sure what to do for it. The cell was something I created for a MadLibs type letter for my cousin while he was finishing up his doctorate in chemical engineering. I was taking an advanced Illustrator class at the time and thought it would be fun to create my own graphics for the letters. Below is the cards original inspiration.

blue "cell"

Coming up with his card cross stitch was the easy part. Now it was the hard part of assembly. Since this is a cell I wanted to put it in a circle (Petri dish) that’s about as far as the planning went.

I spent a couple of days after the stitching was done thinking over how to tackle the next part. I decided to start with the paper, what color I wanted to use. I found a blue that looked kind of watery I guess, it felt like it could work.

 

 

Next I went to my embossing folders to see what would work for this project. I was originally going to do dots, then found overlapping circles and felt that worked better.

 

top side view of card

Once I had the paper out I got out my handy Cricut for cutting the circle. My husband found a compass for me to try and get the size correct. The last circle I did was way too small. I had the opposite problem with this one and cut two frames with the second being slightly smaller. After the one I was going to use was cut out I ran it through the embossing machine.

As another inside joke of sorts I turned the scrap pieces including the inner circle that was cut out (twice) into confetti. I have a round punch thing that makes sort of big circles, so it’s not annoying confetti, but still something in the card. This is something my cousins’ now wife loved to do to him while dating. I even heard she sent an envelope with just glitter or confetti. I also included a little print out of the original cell as an additional keepsake.

Stitching

Started: February 21st
Finished: February 21st

Follow along on Snapchat!

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the full card

Birthday Puzzle

CraftyK Leave a comment

Kicking off the new year with the first of many cross stitch birthday cards.

To start things off is a custom design by me. My niece turned 19 today and is finishing up her first year of college. She also enjoys puzzles. I’ve been working through my collection to get them to her to work on (if they have all the pieces).

pattern, thread, Aida, scissors

Due to life distractions this cross stitch took a little longer than normal. The stitching was pretty basic, only two colors. I used a dark blue for the lettering. I tried variegated purple for the puzzle pieces. It wasn’t the variety in color that I had hoped for, but there is a little.

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Once the stitching was finished it was time to raid the paper drawer. This was harder to figure out what pattern or color to use since I didn’t have any sort of vision for this card beyond the cross stitch design.

In the end I chose polka dots. It just seemed fitting for my niece. I have no idea why. It seemed like a better choice than many of the options I looked at.

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Next up was cutting out the paper and square to frame the cross stitch. I have one ruler that has millimeters on it which was necessary for more precise measurements. I’m probably strange thinking that metrics are easier to use and measure with than inches. Could also be my dislike of fractions. Either way I was able to get the measurements needed to create my polka dot frame. The measurements weren’t perfect, but pretty darn close.

Stitching

Started: November 12th
Finished: November 20th

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Follow along on Snapchat!

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set of 4 thank you cards

Holiday Thank Yous

CraftyK Leave a comment

Despite knowing all year when Christmas is I managed to put off creating my thank you notes. I also flat out didn’t do cards to send to people. I probably should, but if I make them it’s lots of work and my personal life is pretty boring so nothing to write lengthy prose about. Anyway, I digress.

These cards are to send to the 4 people who give me gifts in my old age (post 30). My mom, my mother-in-law, and my godparents. This year I enlisted help for my godparents gifts from my husband. He’s getting into woodworking and made something for each of them. Since it’s his thing, I don’t have pictures of the projects. So this will continue to be about the cards and my side ramblings.

I have stamped onto wallpaper before and decided to go for it again. Although it’s somewhat hard to see I did actually stamp on the pear card. I also took a Sharpie to it for an outline. For the white card I used black ink and stamped right onto the wallpaper. I had to wait awhile before adhering it to the cardstock because it was starting to bleed a bit. I barely touched it and it started to run up the lines in the wallpaper. After letting it sit for a while I went ahead and finished up making it into a card. The pear I didn’t seem to have those issues, but you can barely see the text. It’s a little more visible in person depending on the angle.

For the other two cards I got out the handy Cricut. I was never good at cutting squares or any shape for that matter. Straight lines are hard and getting them the correct size is even worse. I used the Cricut to cut out my squares from pink and grey paper. I then took a red ink to stamp Thank You onto the pink paper and a dark blue ink I onto the grey. Then I used foam tape to adhere the paper to the wallpaper to give a more 3D appearance.

To attach the wallpaper to the cardstock I used double sided tape on all 4 cards. I didn’t have the time to mess with Yes Paste and get it all to stick properly. I hope to spend some time working on more wallpaper cards next year. Until then I have now created some cards for December and can complete my blog on 2018 Cards. I think I’ll do another blog for next year since I know I’ll have a lot of cards to make for my mom’s side of the family.

Follow along on Snapchat!

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flat lay 4 thank you cards

Starting my Cricut adventure

CraftyK Leave a comment

Last year I started watching CreativeLive. It’s a great site for learning new things and getting inspiration. I happened to log on one day and there was a class called Introduction to Art Journaling. I decided to tune in as the photography classses that day weren’t what I needed. Within this art journaling class I was inspired to take the concept and use it for my notecards.

I’ve been making cards for years out of recycled wallpaper. Compared to what I have seen on Pinterest, my cards were very plain. Art journaling inspired me to get out paints, buy some stencils on ebay, and even contact my mom’s friend who does stamping. I now have stamps, embossing powders, more wallpaper, different cardstock, stencils, paints, and as of Christmas a Cricut.

 

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(This did not survive the mail)

I came to discover the Cricut because I wanted to make my own stencils. After doing some research, and my husband doing even more research he decided that the Cricut would be a good investment. I have a background in design and decent know-how of Illustrator, Cricut allows uploading of SVG files which is great! I am able to create my own designs in Illustrator and upload to the Cricut Design Space. So far I have not made any stencils, but I have made some rudimentary attempts at cards.

Pre-Cricut

Before the Cricut I was attempting to hand-letter and then stencil on my cards. I sent out a few like this, very proud of those at the time. I didn’t take pictures of these first cards because I was making them to send out right away for birthdays,  house warmings, and just because. For some reason I have a strong desire to put way too many mismatched elements onto one card. I feel that if I don’t have a little of everything on one card I’m missing something. The cards were very confused and amateur.

Post Cricut

I started using Pinterest to 1: learn a little about how the Cricut works and 2: to get some card ideas. After spending some time with my mom’s friend I realized I really wasn’t doing things right. I needed to really think through a card design. Picking out random stencils, stamps, papers and gluing/painting things randomly makes for a sad almost frightening card. (Apologies to those who received those first attempts.) Luckily I learn fast, my Illustrator knowledge has somewhat come back to me, and I am excited to have card ideas.

First semi-thought out card of my own design

Birthday Girl text is part of the Cricut images available to use, cut from Cricut adhesive foil (my first cutting attempt)

Green under the flower cutout is discontinued wallpaper, the flower was my first design in Illustrator attempt.

Button is from a collection of buttons I bought off of ebay years ago in an attempt to find a specific type of button to fix a shirt (no luck). I finally have a use for those buttons!

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First thought out card of my own design

After my first two semi thought out cards seen above (first one was inspired from Pinterest), I got a brilliant idea for my nephews’ birthday card. He loves Star Wars and I had gotten him some Star Wars decor for his room, so a card to match was perfect.

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First I found a Star Wars typeface, then another typeface that was silhouettes of popular characters and ships.

Next, I finally opened my 2016 day-to-day Star Wars calendar my mom bought for me.

Then it was time to start the layout and picking materials. I used the Cricut adhesive foil for the text and went through 2 plain white cardstock pieces for the card before realizing black would look way better. It took a few tries to get the cut out right on the card because I am still learning which setting to use for different paper types.

I used a silver pen to write a message on the inside of the card.

The cutout ships became confetti in the card.

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To see videos and more crafting adventures follow me on Snapchat!

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Transfering photos, making mixed media

CraftyK Leave a comment

I found this new thing trending on Pintrest.. photo transfers. Now most of what I was seeing was transferring to wood, I had a little different idea..

I had these pre-cut (roughly 5×7) pieces of matte board from when I had the ambition to create sample portfolios to leave at job interviews (that never panned out). Anyway I figured before I go out and buy some wood and have my dad cut it for me I would do a test run of how to transfer photos.

Supplies:
gel medium (transfer glue stuff)
foam brush or regular brush
piece of wood or matte board
photo printed (laser printer) on regular old printer paper
lots of newspaper, to keep your table clean
gloves, the glue gets messy
water, for rubbing off the paper
some sort of Mod Podge

First cover your board with the gel medium and you can cover the photo too if you want. Put the photo onto the board and push down to get all the bubbles. Let it dry overnight. The next day wet the photo side, wait a little bit then start rubbing the paper off. This will take a while. When your done put on as many layers of Mod Podge or something similar as you see fit. And feel free to explore different textures by painting the Mod Podge on in different directions.

Once I’m done making it I drill holes, one on each side and put wire through so that it can be easily hung.


They work great to decorate a drab cubicle or just hang somewhere around the house.


Related articles

The Plan

CraftyK Leave a comment

We all have plans of what we want to do. It feels that my list just keeps getting longer. I started out this year wanting to read more. Now I hindered myself a bit when starting my third book of the year, continuing the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I’m not even much of a vampire fan, maybe in high school a few years back, but I remember more about pirates than vampires. I think I’m determined to read the books just to say I did and so I will understand any references in the rare case someone might be so inclined to reference books from the ’80s.

Anyway as we have now entered into month 2 of this year I have rediscovered my love of all things crafting. And continuing my new enjoyment of cooking. This week I have meals planned for every night. Mostly chicken dishes. Apparently mushrooms go really well with chicken. But tonight will be the test of my new Star Wars® cookie cutters. I not only decided to try a whole new cookie recipe (to get rid of some sour cream) I am going to test out new cookie cutters. We will see how this turns out. I hope to remember my camera while making them for another post on, well just ending up with cool looking cookies. Sadly I have not mastered the art of frosting, so these will be plain tan cookies.

Also on the horizon are lots of new and a few old projects that I am working on. If anyone is interested I can keep a running progress on a counted cross stitch kit that I have bee slowly working on over the last year or so (too many other things to work on, so it’s been back burnered). I also make these cool note cards out of card stock and old wallpaper samples. I am going to test run some postcards too, not sure if the glue will hold through the mail process. These are my old things that I have been doing for a while. (I just love working with the wallpaper samples and their fun textures.)

The new projects are going to include transferring photos to wood, it looked cool on Pintrest and I am just waiting for some nice weather and a few kids I know to be available to be my models. I hope this can be a project I can promote with Etsy and make custom art from people’s photos. Another possible custom Etsy project are pins. I was thinking “save the date” or even putting a logo or symbol on them for businesses to hand out to potential clients. I think for “save the date” it would be something different than the customary postcard or magnet. Those are the two things that I am hoping to get started on first, but I’m always adding new stuff.

So keep checking in once in a while to see what I might be up to next.