Craft Fair Prep

I was invited to participate in a local craft fair.  I was hesitant.  Sure it sounded way cool but will people want my stuff?  It took me many many weeks to come to realize that I need to get over my fear and just do it.  I sent in the payment for my space last week so I have no choice now!

I had quite a bit of stuff but not quite enough so lately I have been busting my butt working on making more items to sell.  I had no Christmas cards, tags, etc so that's what I've been focusing on the last three days.  I will probably throw in some other holiday themes and birthday themed items.

Here's a quick look at some of the things I have been working on.

Traditional colored Xmas cards and tags

Stepping away from the traditional with this tri-fold gift card holder

I'll probably throw up some more pictures as I create items.  I made some other things not pictured here so maybe I'll take some pictures of those later.

What do you think?

Mini Note Cards

I took a break from selling on Etsy for a few months and wasn't sure if I'd go back to it.  My sales were dismal there.  I was selling a lot outside of Etsy and not having to worry about fees but I was starting to get stressed with custom orders so I took a break from that as well.  This past week I had been considering starting up again but wasn't sure I should and then things started happening.  One person mentioned selling their handmade goods so it got me thinking.  Then another mentioned the items I make and then another person did as well all within a few days.  It pushed me to get back into it. 

I reassesed my items and came up with a new idea on what I should sell based on what I like and what I see people buy.  Simple and sweet is my new take on the items I plan on sellling.  I'm sure I'll throw in more intricate items but for now simple works.

Here is an example of a set of mini notecards that I absolutely love.  They are cute, simple, and classy.  Sometimes less is really more and I found that I wasn't following that saying before.

Mini Note Cards

 

A Little Tea Party Fun

It's another design team Friday for me at SVG Attic.  I enjoy my DT days!

My mother-in-law inspired today's project.  She is a pretty hardcore crafter so I know she can appreciate anything I make for her.  It's her birthday next week so I decided to make her a birthday card and feature it as today's design team project. She's the girly girl dainty type so I wracked my brain to come up with something that would fit her personality.  Something flowery and girly is what I needed.  I came up with a tri-fold shutter card with a tea party theme.

I am pretty tired of making basic cards so I have been experimenting lately with making different styles of cards.  I am having so much fun with it.  Today's project features a tri-fold shutter card.  This is the first time I've made this type of card.  I think it's my favorite type so far.  I'll bombard you with pictures before all the details!  Ready to Ooh and ahh?  Just kidding.

You like?  I really like it.  It's a fun card to make and there's so much you can do to design it.  I kept mine pretty simple.

The card measures 5 1/2' x 12"....that's the basics.  I forgot to measure all the rest of the card before I mailed it out!  So sorry!  I can make a tutorial of how to make a tri-fold shutter card if you would like.  Just let me know! 

All the SVG files I used are from SVG Attic.

I used the Vintage Patriotic Cupcake Wrappers for the star fleurette on the front of the card and placed it atop two paper flowers with a paper flower sitting on top of it.  I finished that piece of with a button and twine from Trendy Twine.   

The tea pot, stack of teacups, and the cream colored tag in the middle are all from the Mad Hatter Tea Party collection.

The bows that are on the little panels are from the Classic Wedding collection. 

Oh and guess what I finally did?  I used my Sew Easy!  I have had it about a month now!  I am so bad at buying then not using what I buy for a long time.  I just did the basic straight stitch on this card.  I used the Rustic Stack from DCWV for the paper on the base of the card and open stock paper for all the decor inside.  Oh and the last little bit is the clock.  I wanted to use the clock from the Mad Hatter tea Party collection but I was worried it would be too small so I decided to stamp the clock from a stamp set I have and hand cut it out.  

Hope you enjoyed that card!  I am definitely going to be making more tri-fold shutter cards in the future.  They are fun to make and get!

Check back in a few days for a back to school project I will be working on!

Guest Designer for The Paper Dolls!

Hello everyone and thanks for stopping by!

I am honored to be a guest designer this week for the fabulous Paper Dolls, Tamara and Thienly.

If you are part of the crafting community that uses SVGs then you may have come across their work and know what amazing crafters they are.  Well, obviously if you came here from their blog then you know all about them!  Hehe.  If you don't know how amazing they are head on over to their blog, The Paper Dolls.  They both are such amazing crafters that have truly been an inspiration for me.

This week's design is a mini doll house.  Adorable, right?  I am starting to see a theme here....paper dolls last week, doll house this week.  Love the genius of it!!

As a guest designer I have the task of creating a project using the dollhouse SVG file as inspiration for you all.  Here is what I made:

 Housewarming Gift Tag

How to:

 Using Make the Cut (MTC) software I sized the mini dollhouse file down so the front of the house measured 3" x 5".

*Note - when sizing a file I make sure to size the entire file down at one time, in this case the windows and main house.  It makes things so much easier*
 

I then cut out each piece of the file, including the house in it's original state.

To create the look I was going for I trimmed off the sides and bottom of the house so I was left with just the front, where the door is.

I made the roof in MTC by using a rectangle from the basic shapes, sizing it down, and setting it at an angle.  I then duplicated that rectangle, mirrored it and placed the two together as so:

 I then welded the two together to create my roof.

Roof

In order to create the light blue shadow layer I created another rectangle from MTC's basic shapes.  I then welded the two pieces (roof and rectangle) together to create this:

Shadow layer

I sized the image to be slightly bigger than my main house so it was indeed a shadow layer.

After cutting out the shadow layer I had to trim the two extra peaks that I didn't need.  I only wanted the center peak.

When assembling the house I used pop up squares for the window frames that I had to cut down to size.  I also used pop up squares to adhere the roof.

The red flowers were made using a hand punch.

I used a border punch for the red eaves that drop down from the roof.

The door knob is a tarnished silver brad.

The sentiment was printed out on white cardstock in blue and inked along the edges in blue as well.

I lightly inked the edges of the windows, doors, and house in blue.

I hole punched the top of the light blue shadow layer in order to string a light blue ribbon through.

There you have it, my housewarming gift tag!

I hope you enjoyed it!

In closing, I would like to thank the Dolls for allowing me the opportunity to be apart of their new venture.  I had fun making this house!  Thank you!!


-Kasi

Vintage inspired

I have been eyeing vintage inspired items....cards, tags, anything paper that looks vintage.  I am drawn to that look so of course I had to figure out how to do it (as is my M-O with anything new that I like).  Last weekend Joann's was having a Memorial Day sale with scrapbooking items 40% off and active military or veterans could get an additional 20% off.  That equals a whopping 60% off all items for me!  Oh, if you didn't read the *about me* blurb I'll quickly explain.  I was in the military way back.  It really wasn't that long ago but it feels like it sometimes.  Actually it feels like a whole other life that was never even mine.  Does that happen as you get older?  Hmmm. 

Back to the story.  I went to Joann's to take advantage of the great sale.  Now, I thought I pretty much had everything I could possibly already want at Joann's but that wasn't true and of course I found something I *had* to have.  I decided that it would be a good time (and a cheap time) to try out something new.  And of course as the title mentions, vintage inspired. 

I already had some of Tim Holtz' distressing ink pads, which I really love but I knew that just wouldn't do the job by itself for the look I was trying to achieve so I purchased a large bottle of Walnut Ink, a few packs of vintage inspired cling stamps (I love those!), and a few more colors of Tim Holtz' ink pads (just because it was all 60% off for me).  My total purchase between paper, five ink pads, two packs of cling stamps, and the large bottle of walnut ink came out to $21!  SCORE!!  With this purchase I was well on my way to making my first vintage inspired item. 

I decided to go small.  Nothing too elaborate for my first time and since I was into tags this weekend I went with that.  Here are my vintage inspired tags.

This one looks a little leathery because I took the picture at night

Six pretty birdcages

Walnut Ink and Tim Holtz' distress ink was used to create the vintage look

The birdcage is stamped using Momento's rich cocoa ink

To complete the tag is a pretty brown ribbon

I made these tags from scratch.  I cut the tags out of two 8 1/2 x 11" stark white pieces of cardstock.  I then spritzed the Walnut Ink on both sides of the tag and blotted it to make the ink spread and to reduce the amount of liquid pooling in one area.  I then let the paper dry completely (which takes some time if you don't use a heat tool).  Once the paper was completely dry I used Tim Holtz' Distress Tea Dye (color) Distress Ink to dob around the edges and on the entire tag, back and front, to give it a two-tone effect.  Once that was finished I used Momento's ink in Rich Cocoa to stamp the birdcage.  I then used a whole punch to create a hole for ribbon, twine, etc. to go through.  In this case, I used a deep brown ribbon as the finishing touch to my vintage inspired tags. 


 

What a weekend!

This weekend was amazing!  I had four days off from work and it seems that's exactly what I needed to get my "create" on!  I was a busy working bee all weekend crafting left and right.  So much so that I even taught myself something new!  I'll get into that in another post though.

I decided to step away from greeting cards for a bit because I have all these ideas floating around in my head that I keep saying I am going to work on but never get around to.  Well, that changed this weekend.  I finally started working on something outside my norm and today's post is all about it.  Tags.  Yup, like gift tags.

I started out with a design I used on one of my favorite cards, Spring Butterflies.  I decided to feature them on this set of tags.  I love the design with the butterfly wings popping of the paper.  It's so simple yet so pretty.  

Yellow, pink, and purple make these 3D butterfly tags perfect for spring!

Embossing and inking on both the tag and butterfly add a touch of elegance to the tag

Set of 5 tags all ready to be gifted

A purple ribbon completes the spring-themed tag

Flowers, butterflies, and swirls

These weren't the only tags I made this weekend.  In a few days I'll go into detail about my adventure in the vintage-inspired world of papermaking which so happens to be something new to me.  Oh so fun! 

Oh, I forgot to mention, unfortunately there were no winners in the contest I held over the weekend on my Facebook page.  No one guessed the correct theme of the set I was working on (yes, I worked on more than just tags this weekend).  I plan on holding more contests with giveaways in the future.  Hope you all can join in on the fun.  Check me out on Facebook at the 19Eighty Expressions fan page!  

One more thing!  Look out for an announcement I have.  I'm excited about it.  That will be coming in the next few days.