A twist on business cards...

This month I'm sharing a project over at the Gossamer Blue blog which I'm sharing here on my blog today too.  I'm heading out for vacation this month and it always seems I run into someone who I'd like to share my contact information.  So I thought some cute business cards were in order.  I grabbed some woodgrain patterned paper, labels I printed, some mini Instagrams I printed of my artwork, some Washi tape and the October Afternoon roller stamp. 

You can find the dimensions for my business cards over at the Gossamer Blue blog.  They fold in half, with the artwork on the front with Washi tape underneath.....

.....and my contact information on the inside in the form of the printed address labels. I also stamped the sentiment on the inside of the cards.

A fun little twist and not too formal.  Just what I like.

I'll tuck these into my art bag and hopefully I'll meet up with some new friends while doing some watercoloring sketching.

Hope you enjoy!  Did you know I've taken up my art again?  I haven't shared much here on the blog but I post regularly on my Instagram account.  I'm "mishwooderson" if you care to take a peek.  If anyone is interested I can start sharing my artwork and fun supplies here on the blog too.  Chat about it in the comments if you like.  :)

Typewriter Card

Happy Monday everyone.  Hope your week is off to a good start.  Today I'm sharing a fun card using the 1970-Something Kit from my shop + products from the April Gossamer Blue Kits.  I love mixing and matching items that I create with items from the kits.  

This card has an office supply feel so it could be especially fun to give to a co-worker or a school secretary....or how about a friend who loves the whole planner craze.  I stamped the days of the week from the Gossamer Blue Life Pages Kit onto an index card.  I stitched on a tag from my shop kit then layered on the mini typewriter Instagram and slid the fun paperclip in place.  A little wood veneer heart and enamel dots from the Gossamer Blue kits finish off the card.

I think it's so fun to make time for yourself, or invite a few friends over, and just sit down with your kits and items that you pick up here and there.....and just create for the fun of it.  If you limit yourself to just a few kits and items from your stash, the choices are easier.  I like to make cards and coordinating gift sacks, gift tags to attach to homemade jams and jellies, little gift enclosure cards to send along with little flowers to plant for Spring, etc.

You can find all the new Gossamer Blue kits HERE and my new 1970-Something Kit right HERE.  Enjoy!

1970-Something Kit Projects

Today I'm sharing a few projects that I made with my new 1970-Something Kit.  The colors and patterns in this whimsical kit will take you back in time.  First up I embellished a glassine sack with items from the kit.  Just a little creative layering and you've got the perfect gift sack for candy bars, small notepads, pencils, art supplies, etc. 

 This project features the hand sewn gingham bag from the kit.  I tied the bag up with the cute vintage fabric strip then added a handmade tassel from yarn.

 I finished the sack off with the gingham tag, ball ribbon, watercolored butterfly and a sentiment I typed using my vintage typewriter.

Kits are still available in the shop at this link.  Individual sheets of the typewriter Instragrams are available in blue and green.  Enjoy!

It Was 1970-Something Kit.....new to shop

Hi everyone.  It's been a while but I've added a new kit and some cards to my shop.  I've been collecting these 1970-something inspired items for a while now and just couldn't resist putting them into a kit any longer. There's a hand sewn bag that can be tied up with the handmade pom poms.....gingham tags made from vintage gingham ribbon....gingham fabric paperclips.....

 These vintage playing cards are so cute and colorful.

 I've added a few strips of vintage fabric, perfect for tying around a jar of homemade peach jam or around a vellum sack full of goodies. Pom pom ribbon will be cute for finishing off a package.

 Yellow gingham tags....a watercolored, die cut butterfly.....a mini instagram of my vintage typewriter.

So many fun elements to add to packaging, cards, scrapbook pages, Project Life and more.  Join me back here this week as I show you some projects made with my new kit.  Quantities of this kit are in limited supply. Thanks for stopping by!

Project Life Week 13 insert using Instagrams + Design U PL page protectors

In my last Project Life post I used a Project Life Design U page protector to add in some some photos.  You can see the full weekly spread here.  It was so easy to put this spread together because I didn't worry about what size photos to print.  I just printed them all at 2.5" square for this one page. 

I ended up using lots of 3 x 4 from the May Gossamer Blue kits which included some fantastic designs by Peppermint.  I loved the white edge at the bottom of the cards.  I was able to create a really organized looking page but was still able to add lots of embellishments and journaling.  It kind of reminds me of the Collect App look that many are using on the iPhones these days. 

Some of the cards were already designed with the white strip like the ones on the top of the photo below.  Some were created by me with more patterned paper and my sewing machine.

Again, here's what the page looked like when the embellishments and journaling were added.  

Such an easy way to add lots of photos, I love it and will definitely be using the Design U pages again.  

Canvas gift bag with gold shimmer...

Sharing a little gift bag I made using some leftover Gossamer Blue kit kits + some Pink Flower Mini Instagram photos from my shop.  I love to use canvas bags for giving little gifts, especially a little bundle of stamped cards with envelopes. 

I used a journaling card as my base for some paints, glitter paper flag and the fun wood tape that was in a previous Gossamer Blue kit.  I popped the mini photo up with pop dots.  Under this layer are two more layers of notched floral and shimmer gold paper.

I tied the poofy ribbon up with more kit ribbon and gold baking twine.

I mixe some gold Pearl Ex with some iridescent medium from Winsor & Newton to create a shimmery paint color.

I let this run down the side of my journaling card for an artistic look.

I'll probably use this pretty pouch to hold some Mother's Day gifts.  Hope you have a great day.  I'm off to buy flowers for the gardens, make some desserts for Prom kids and then tomorrow will be a full day of toting Josey around to her hair and nail appointments and then volunteering all night for the after Prom party.  Good times.....busy times.  :)

Creating a color kit from inspiration photo...

Hello friends.  I want to thank you all for your kind messages to me about the girls.  They are doing great and are enjoying the start of Spring Break today.  The girls are healing physically although we found out that Josey tore some tendons in her shoulder.  They both are quite impressed with their own doctoring skills...Josey removed her stitches by herself and Jordan dug a piece of glass out of her head yesterday.  Me...I'm a little scatter brained lately.  My attention span is pretty short and I can cry at the drop of a hat.  Time will help us all though and getting back to "normal" is our goal. 

In the crafty world, I did take some time to treat myself to a fun class over at Studio Calico called Color Studio.  Lisa Truesdell is doing a fabulous job of teaching the class and I'm finding the refresher/reminders about the color wheel to be very inspiring.  One of the first class assignments was to find an inspiration photo full of color.  I chose this photo from my March Pinterest Inspiration Board: Going Green. Happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way!

Pinterest Source

Another class assignment was to create a color kit inspired by our chosen inspiration photo.  This was right up my alley as you all know I love to assemble little kits.  A goal of mine is to revisit some of my older supplies so I made sure to do some rifling through my older stash of items.  I started with some wonderful patterned papers that reflected the patterns in the pillows.  I love the cottage-like colors and patterns. 

Next I went to work on fitting some crafty items into a vintage green utensil drawer.  I thought the green was so fitting for my Going Green Pinterest board theme.  When assembling little kits like this to work with I like to limit myself to a particular sized container.  Otherwise I could pile my whole craft room into a kit. 

I chose little bits & pieces from some Gossamer Blue kits....my vintage green typewriter Instagrams...and some die cuts from leftover kits.

Next I chose some spools of thread...Washi tapes....dimensional flowers....and jars of buttons.

I had some ideas for painting some clothespins so I grabbed some of those along with some acrylic paints.  I spy two of my new watercolor brushes tucked in there too.  I'll be sharing my favorite watercolor supplies in a new post soon. I also purchased the new Studio Calico Color Theory inks.  I'm impressed so far and am looking forward to inking those up more soon.

I've been dabbling a bit with some cards and I need quite a few thank you cards....so I'll be posting some creations made from my color kit items soon.  

Thank you so much for visiting.  It feels good to be in touch again.  

Green typewriter cards....inspired by Going Green Inspiration Board

Today I'm jumping right into using my March Going Green Pinterest Inspiration Board as inspiration for some cards.  You can view the Going Green board here.  For inspiration I created a collage using the Pic Collage app on my iPhone.  I then printed my collage onto a sheet of 8.5 x 11 glossy photo paper.  I also created a smaller collage of some of my cards that I've created that I like to use for card sketches.  I was inspired by the cell phone cover with the typewriter sitting in the grass.  I took a photo of my typewriter, changed the color to green and printed a mini Instagram sheet.  These will be available in my online shop soon. 

For my cards, once I have an idea of what I want to create I select papers and embellishments to create somewhat of a mini kit to use.  I like to have this little messy pile of goodies all fanned out.  The creativity just starts to flow once I see color and patterns and unique embellishments.  For my mini typewriter Instagrams, I trimmed four of them down to little squares. The patterned papers are from the March Gossamer Blue 6 x 6 paper pad in the Bits & Pieces Kit.  On the right side of the photo below you'll see that I stitched with green thread down the side of some Basics Journaling Cards.  I absolutely must have these in my stash to use for card fronts.  Love them to pieces.  

In my inspiration collage there's a photo of a butterfly on ledger paper (you can see all the photos better on my Going Green Inspiration Board).  I dug out one of my old ledger books and tore out a sheet to cut up for a bottom layer of my cards.  

Here are my finished cards.  I love the office supply feel that the typewriter Instagrams, lined journaling cards and ledger paper lends to these cards.  The color definitely says green too. 

Here's a nice shot of all the layers the cards have.  I just love stitching and stapling pieces of paper together.  

I found plenty of embellishments and twine from the March Gossamer Blue kits this month. Those little daisy brads...oh, I could use full packs of them.  If you're liking the gold and silver twines, I do carry some in my shop.  Silver is here.  Gold is here.  

The little typewriter Instagrams.  I keep adding these to my stash/shop because they just come in so handy for cards and little packaging items.  For the sentiments, I used the "just my type" stamp from a previous Life Pages stamp set from Gossamer Blue.  For the other sentiment I typed those out with my vintage typewriter.  You can also get a glimpse of my favorite product from this month's Gossamer Blue kits.  It's the wood tape from the March Life Pages Themed Add-On.  You can stitch on it, trim it with scissors or a trimmer, die cut it....you really will love this.  And this kit is one of the few remaining over at the Gossamer Blue store. You'll also really love the My Mind's Eye wood dots in this kit too.  Oh and then there's gold shimmer paper, a Brilliance ink pad and the most beautiful journaling cards.  Just a fun, fun kit. 

I wanted to share a fun tip for you to try the next time you work with 6 x6 paper pads.  Lots of times the 6 x 6 sheet will have a border at the top with a perforated line for tearing the sheets out.  When I tore out my sheets, the whole page ripped out.  So I just rolled with it and used the torn edge + the cream border with the hole as the bottom of my patterned paper layer.  And I love it so much.  It just adds texture and a little something unexpected to the card design. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today & I hope you enjoyed my cards.  I really am getting so much inspiration from my Pinterest boards.  I'd love for you to link up your creations in the comments section if you are inspired to create something from my Going Green board.  I'll be back with more projects all month long and be sure to check the shop soon for some new green items + fun kits, etc.  As always, thank you for leaving a nice comment.  They do mean so much to me. :)

Gossamer Blue March Project Sneak Peeks...

It's almost time for the March release at Gossamer Blue.  This month is filled with colorful and fresh new product..just what I'm needing about this time of year when it's gloomy outside and I'm longing for  Spring.  I shared some of my favorite products from each kit over in the GB forums earlier and today I'm sharing some peeks at some of my finished projects I created with the kits. 

Starting with Project Life/Life Pages, loved using lots of bits and pieces to create a main, dated insert for my Week 7. Small manila tag is from my shop.  The little circle stamp highlighting the dates is a letter "o" from a small, wood Hero Arts alphabet set. 

I used stamps from the kits to stamp right onto my photo.  One of my favorite products for Project Life is little sticky notes.  There's a fun set in the kits this month. 

Another example of stamping directly onto the photo.  Lots of foodie stamps this month. 

Lots of fun journaling and filler cards this month.  Here I added two small square photos and some fun embellishments + more stamping. 

Here's a 3 x 4 journaling card with lots of stickers added along with my typewriter journaling.  I made a  tab from two stickers placed back to back and then stapled for a smaller insert. 

I created lots of cards this month too because the embellishments and papers are fabulous.  Here I used a new mini typewriter Instagram that I'll be adding to my shop soon.  I layered my set of cards with ledger paper from my stash, fun patterned papers in greens, a fun new wood product and small embellishments.  Cards with office themed products are always a favorite for me.

Look at these gorgeous papers.  So beautiful when used as collages on cards.  Here I used stamps from the kits for some whimsical cards.

Some fancy little cards with die cut butterflies, layers of office supplies, messy string bundles, stitching and more. I'll be sharing blog posts for each set of cards...this one will include a fun packaging idea using Kraft sacks.

A favorite thing I like to do is take all the little leftover bits and pieces from kits and add them to cards.  This month, I'll show you how I started these cards from scratch. See those scalloped pieces?  Those are die cut from wood.  Better snatch this kit up quickly as it was a favorite for me.

Last but not least, I was inspired by this pink fluffy ribbon in one of the kits.  I used it to create some gift packaging along with a Pink Flower Mini Instagram and lots of bits and pieces from the kits.

Hope you'll join us on March 1st over at Gossamer Blue.  The kits will be for sale and all of the Design Team projects will be in the galleries.  Also, there's a new blog post on the Gossamer Blue blog daily so be sure to stop by for more inspiring Design Team projects.  

Cottage Card Kit Creations...

This post is very photo heavy so I'll try to keep the chit chat short.  I recently had these Cottage Card Kits in my shop.  I promised to show you lots of tips and tricks so here we go.  Here's what the kit looks like. If you missed ordering a kit but want to play along, just grab some items from your stash.  Items like the mini floral Instagrams, tags, clothespins, doilies and sacks are available as individual items in my shop.  

Envelope Liners...

It's very easy to create an envelope line for any size envelope. Simply trace the envelope flap onto the liner material using a pencil. Here I used the vintage book page from the kit.  

 Trim with scissors and insert the liner piece into the envelope.  Scoot the liner down enough to have the lickable adhesive still showing.  Use a few strips of adhesive under the top portion.  Pretty.

Embellished paper clips...

Here I used the strip of eyelet lace and a torn strip of the vintage fabric to fancy up the clips from the kit.  I used about 3" piece and looped it through the paper clips.  I secured the little flags with my Tiny Tim stapler.  

Very cute to slip onto cards, tags, sacks and more.  

Creating your own spray mists...

It's very simple to create your own spray mists.  Instead of using ink refill droppers, did you know you can use acrylic paints too for a more opaque look?  Simply fill a small spray bottle with water and drop in acrylic paints.  I used a pink and a yellow to get just the pink tone I was after.  Shake the bottle and spray onto scrap paper until the mist appears. 

 You can use your new mist with stencils like I did on the sack with a Pink Paislee stencil.  Or you can unscrew the lid and flick paint splatters like I did on the tag, coin envelope and grid paper.  Customized colors using supplies you might already having sitting around...awesome.

Painting with Gesso...

Gesso, one of my new favorite things. Here I put a small dab of Gesso in a dish.  I added a few drops of water to make the Gesso a bit watery so I could paint with it.  

 You'll see these used on my finished projects but here are some samples of the Gesso painting.  On the yellow card I smudged on the Gesso with my finger to get a white washed look.  I painted o the polka dots with a small pointy brush.  I even sprinkled in some glitter before the circles dried to create a shimmery look.  On the small Instagram from the kit, I painted around the edges.  For the dimensional paper flower, I painted the petal tips for a shabby look.  On the book paper, I flicked some Gesso paint to create splatters.  

 Finally on the square of corrugated cardboard I cut from a box, I swiped some of the Gesso over the ridges.  Then I loaded my brush again and ran the tip of the brush over the top of the square.  I tilted the cardboard so that the paint would run down and dry in long drips.  I'll use this under a mini Instagram later.

Creating layers on your projects...

This is a hard one for some folks so I'll share what I do.  I picked a card base that I wanted to use and then I set it aside.  From the kit I picked a few more elements to layer.  I cut a piece of fabric from the larger piece.  

Then what I do is layer the pieces in my hands, not on the card base.  I start picking up the largest items then finish with the smallest items.  It's very natural to work with the layers and shift them around while in your hands instead of laying them on the base of the project (the yellow card).  

 Let's see another example.  Here I'm doing another card but I set the card base to the side.

 I gathered up the layering elements starting with the biggest item, the paper doily.  Next came the book paper, then the coin envelope then the mini Instagram.

 Here's yet another example for a gift sack I want to create.  You can see the layering elements I want to use in the little pile below.

 Gather up the largest item first which is the piece of vintage book print.  I like to use book print when layering because you can tear it easily to whatever size you want and it's thinner then cardstock or patterned paper.  You can find a batch of vintage book paper in my shop here.  I continue to pick up the next bigger item until I have all the pieces layered in my hand.

 Once I have all the layers the way I want them to look I lay them down on a flat surface.  Then I use tiny dabs of adhesive to attach each layer to the next.  You don't need a lot of adhesive, just enough to join the layers together without sliding around.

Then I find that stitching the layers together is a great way to keep all the pieces securely in place.  I like to leave the thread ends hanging also instead of trimming them short. 

 Now it's time to attach the layered piece onto your project whether it's a card, a notebook, a sack, a tag, etc.  The last finishing touch is to add a little dimensional piece.  From the kit I used the yellow flower and a small tag that I typed on.  The flat layers create interest on your project then the finishing touches add the wow factor.  This style of layering lends itself very nicely with found vintage items, tags, photos, fabric.....a great way to use up those little tidbits and scraps of patterned paper in your stash.

 Okay, wanna see the finished projects?  Here we go...

Here's a sweet notecard with a misted gift sack.

 I love the cottage, vintage feel of the Cottage Card Kit.  The floral elements combined with the office supply items like the shipping tag and index card are just my style.

 Here's another card with lots of layers, including the vintage fabric and typed vellum sentiments.  I love how the envelope coordinates now that it has the book pager liner.

Don't think you can mix and match florals?  I love how it looks, especially when the prints are vintage looking.  

 Another card which has the splattered coin envelope and fabric paper clip.  

 The quirky little patterns work well together because they are the same color value and are repeated in the mini Instagram photo.

 Here's the card that I painted with Gesso paint.  The dimensional flower makes it hard to fit into an envelope so I'm using a Kraft sack for packaging.

 You can see the glittery Gesso circles here.  I love that the Gesso paint just adds one more subtle layer to my card.  See how the layers are kind of ruffled and held in place by stitching?  I love this whimsical and light look by leaving the layers rather loose. Just lay off the adhesive a little.

One last project, a pretty gift sack with soft, vintage layers.  

I used my homemade spray mist on the sack, using the nozzle to flick on splatters of paint.  The neutral colors of the book paper, tags, doily and cardboard create a nice background for the colorful photo.  The yellow paper flower helps the yellow in the photo pop out.  

There ya have it.  Lots and lots of tips and tricks that you can try out with your Cottage Card Kit....or your own supplies if you didn't grab a kit.  I hope you enjoyed today's post.  I'd love to hear about what you might try out on your projects.  :)

Coming soon to the shop...
I have a special delivery coming later this week to create a new kit for the shop. If you like the mixed media look, this one might be for you.  If you've been wanting to add a more artistic flair to your creations, this kit might be for you.  If you've always wanted to try out some art journaling, this kit might be for you.  I can't wait to share it with you!!