Friday, November 02, 2007

Anatomy of a Card

I am in the process of making cards for the Arts and Crafts Bazaar at Ramstein Nov 17-18th. I figured I could try to get some extra cash for the holidays by selling the things I love to make out of my surplus of stash!!! I'm trying real hard to dwindle down my ever-growing scrappy supplies, much to Dustin's chagrin, it is not working. Oh well!

So I have a favorite card that I've made many times because I really just like it. Nothing fancy, its just fun and elegant. Because it is my favorite card, I decided I would make 12 to offer for sale at the Bazaar. The anatomy of my card follows:

I got my stamps and ink out and started to stamp the images. Remember, I wanted to make 12 cards. So I get a piece of white cardstock out and proceed to stamp 12 images of my 'CosmoBella' Oops... I can only fit 10 on the paper. No worries, I'll just make 10 cards :D

Upon further inspection of the images I notice that I must have gotten too hurried and wasn't taking my time to not get blurry or over stamped images. Happens quite frequently actually... maybe I should slow down and pay more attention to my stamps.
See the blurry or faded parts the arrows are pointing to in the above picture. This was the case on 3 of my 10 images. Not bad odds really. And not a problem, I'll just make 7 cards (for all of you who are challenged, 10-3 = 7 ) LOL!


Then I proceed to color in my images. I love to use the Stampin' Up Watercolor Crayons with a paint brush. I just dip my brush in water, drag it across the crayon, and apply to my image. After CosmoBella was all colored in, I took a Gelly Roll glitter pen to her drink, belt and sandals. Now, the following image is kind of hard to see, but inside the black circle, I got a splash of green paint on her shirt.
Being the perfectionist I am, and the fact that I want to SELL these cards, I scrap this Bella as its smudged. Okay, no problem, I can still make 6 cards. Good thing I didn't cut card bases for 12 cards - LOL! So I cut the card bases and layers and stamp 'Celebrate' on the Bling Bazzill. One of them came out smudged (I really need to pay more attention :eyeroll:)

See the shadow? That would be overstamping. Oh well, just another card for my stash box!

So finally I get all the cards assembled. Woohoo! I have 5 cards to sell... from the 12 I started out making! JEEZ! I must be having an off day. I made 12 Christmas cards last night and only messed up 1, so I came out with 11!

Here is the final product. My CosmoBella "celebrate' -ing. Don't know why, but I just really like this card. Maybe because it has scallops, or bling bazzill (shimmery cardstock), or the fact that I get to color Bella in and coloring is soothing! Either way, I hope these cards sell at the Bazaar or an awful lot of you will be getting card packages for Christmas!!

5 comments:

Fink said...

The agony of stamping! I decided that I would make some gals from CX Halloween cards and include bella images! I started stamping (while watching a movie-bad idea)in my little assembly line. I was whipping along so proud of myself mind you to the next step of cutting them. Gee, I put some to close that you would have to cut out bella just to use her, smeared, rocked and plain old miss stamped quite a few! I feel your pain. Needless to say they did not get as many images as I planned on!

Anyway, been there done that & I know they will sell because your sample is so pretty!

ladynurse4 said...

I love how you share your creative process with us. The final card is adorable. Bet you will sell them all!

Anonymous said...

Love it girl! Beautiful cards and I must say, Great minds think alike -- I'm doing the exact same thing...making cards to cut down on stash & make a few bucks at the holiday craft bazaar. Good luck to you - I hope you sell them all!

Anonymous said...

From one fellow stamper to another, remember there are always two sides to every piece of paper and you can always "crop" your imperfect image for another card....just cut her feet off, no one will ever know what the stamp really looks like.

Unknown said...

Super cute! That stamp is adorable!