Christmas gift card holders

I made these for gift cards for my mom and dad.  They are his and her shirts.  I got the idea from Splitcoaststampers.

Christmas stationary gifts

I made 6 sets of these with various designer papers and colors for Christmas presents for a lot of ladies in our family and Sunday School teachers.  Pretty easy.  I used a template from Lauren Meador for these.  The box is from Splitcoaststampers.

Wall Decor for Our New House

Here are the wall pieces I made for our living room, master bedroom, and a dry erase board for the kitchen.

I used a variety of products on these pieces.  The wall art trio for my living room used canvases I got from a yard sale next door.  I painted them with acrylic paint, then used Royal Decoupage glue to add papers (Urban Garden).  Then I used Pretties flowers, pearls, ribbons, and punched out art to decorate them.  I have a variety of Bible verses I put on them to take to heart.  Grace, Faith and Love is for God's Grace is by Faith because of His Love.

The bedroom art uses Bella Rose paper, rub-ons, and some printed Bible Verses: 1 Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 5 on marriage.

The dry erase board is for my kitchen.  I have Pampered Chef striped bowls and serving ware, so I took the colors from that to go on my organizer/appointment/to do list board.  The glass can be used as a dry erase board.  Very cool. 

An Idea That Is Brewing

I have an idea brewing, but I haven't totally researched the "business" and "tax" implications of this, but I want to put a sort of feeler out there to see if I should invest the time to make a go of this.  I am thinking of offering an online "store" so to speak for cards, notecard packs, some gift packaging, and notecard packaging.  I make a lot of cards just to use new technique, color combos, and the supplies I have gathered over 7 years of stamping.  I have all this stuff, and I would like to generate a little money while using it.  I also love making cards for a purpose, to give to people.  If I could give the whole kit and kaboodle away I would as I just like doing this for a stress outlet and it's my quiet time alone to recharge when I get to stamp.  However, I have to find some way to pay for the consumable elements of this craft like paper, ribbons, embellishments and most importantly adhesives.  So I need to find a way to do what I love, recoup expenses on paper and such and give to you the card consumer.  

Ideally I would post pictures of the cards I have been making (I usually make more than one of each card I make), and the number I have available for sale.  Single cards will run about $1.50 each to $2.50 for really embellished or fancy cards.  I would simply charge shipping and handling of about $1 for regular postage and delivery confirmation for you.  I also want to offer some packs of notecards, thank you cards, or other gift sets of stationary packaged attractively.  These would of course be more expensive, probably come in packs of 6-8 and would cost more to ship.  I think eventually I would like to offer hand stamped one of a kind gifts like baby frames, home decor pieces, gift ensembles, gift packaging, etc. as time allows.  I know in this economy money will be tight, and I know we are all looking for ways to give and make meaningful gifts.  I know some people aren't gifted with creative ability or time to do this on their own.  I would like to offer one of a kind gifts at a reasonable price. 

So who out there would be interested in this card making store idea?  Now I won't be running around everyday mailing out packages, or killing myself to fill more orders than I can.  I will be updating my offerings as I make cards.  I won't be taking orders to make later, but rather you get to choose from what I already have on hand.  It's a kind of first come first served thing.  I'll be constantly updating and adding to the offerings as I make them.  Gift card sets, gift ideas and packaging will be handled a little differently, but I won't be taking tons of orders for those.  I don't have tons of extra time to be stamping every night.  I have to keep all this in balance.  But I would like to put a system in place to take orders for larger more complex items in such a way that I have time to work on them and get them to you in a timely manner.  That means advance planning on the customer's part of not asking for something like that for say the next day or the next week.  Just won't happen.  So anyway, in the next month or so after our big move I'll be trying to figure this out if I get some interest.  I just want to find a way to get these cards into the hands of someone who will use them.  I usually make more than I can use.  

So leave me a comment and let me know if you would consider buying a card from an online gallery here on my blog and if the price of $1.50 -$2.50 seems fair.  I know Hallmark sells their cards for way more these days.  This is a bargain even with the shipping added.  

Melissa

$5, $10, $15 .... SALE on Retired stamps!!!!

I have the following retired sets for sale right now:

Amazing to Zany $20 barely used

Headline Alphabet $20 barely used

Little Pieces $5

Big Pieces  $15

Snowflurries  $5 

On the Move (retired 2006) $15

Current sets that I want to trade for In Color ribbons, Designer paper from new Spring/Summer catalog, clips assortment, Fifth Avenue Floral set ($25)  or filigree brads:

Simply Said approx. $24 value

Sincere Salutations approx. $19

Contact me with your email in the comment section for shipping info. and for me to get in touch with you.   Buyer will pay for shipping of their items.  It is approx. $5.50 to ship one set Priority mail.   I take Paypal or check.  Thanks.

I want to apologize...

Okay, I want to apologize for doing more talking than showing samples here lately.  Frankly I don't have a lot of samples to show.  I made a lot of cards as gifts for Christmas, and have been working on home decor.  I don't know if Scott has downloaded pictures off the camera.  If so, I'll post pictures soon.  If not, I apologize.  

Also in my last few posts, I was not trying to be preachy, just thinking about things in a more eternal light here lately, and wanted to share my views and the truth as God has shown me this past year.  So in light of all that, I just wanted to let you know that I will post some pictures soon.  We are getting ready to move here in the next couple of weeks, so I won't be posting much in awhile. 

Melissa

NEW Catalog Chatter...

Here is my version of the new catalog chatter for the Spring/Summer Stampin' UP! Idea Book and Catalog.  First of all it is a lovely catalog.  The samples are pretty, the color combos are very spring like and refreshing.  I like some of the out of the box ideas they presented for using the Sizzix dies and other home decor.  I also like a lot of the card samples as far as ways to use the stamps and designer papers.   Very cute.  

I love all the Sizzix dies and the exclusive dies.  Love the cupcake Sizzlits set, as well as the Sizzlits strip with the alphabets.  I could see that being very useful for scrapbooking and for tags on gifts and sentiments on cards.  Very nice.  Love the Embosslits.   I would highly recommend the Big Shot for it's versatility and the ability to use Cuttlebug, Nestabilities, and other products with it.  Very good sturdy and easy to use machine.  Well worth the price.  

I like some of the new designer papers.  A lot of it is a little to "old" styled for me and too Victorian or too many birds.  The flamingo paper is icky, and I thought they could have made the paper to go with the Retro Style line a bit more bright--too much green and bland.  I do like the Parisian Breeze designer specialty paper as they contain the colors in my new living room.  

I like the masculine specialty paper To The Nines under that offering too.  I like the color combo of artichoke, sage, chocolate and kraft.  Very calming and masculine.

I love the Manhattan collection esp. Manhattan flowers.  Won't be getting it, but I love the look, textures and colors there. Very clean, timeless and crisp.  Very classy looking.

I like the Cheep Talk set, as I can see fun colorful easy cards there.  Love the branch in that set and the pear (as I have a Papertrey Wedding set sentiment that would go awesome with that), and the birds are not too bad.  Definitely better than the chipboard birds or the large Good Friend set.  

As far as the rest of the sets, ummm I think they are quite boring, already done, or maybe once again just the same old repackaged as somehow being new.  That is not new.  I will be sticking to the timeless look of my Papertrey sets I have bought these past two years.  I am trying to find stamps anymore that have a more timeless classic look, rather than the cutesy trendy look.  I am not one to color images in and if I am going to stamp an image with multiple colors, I rather like the Papertrey acrylic stamps for doing that more easily.   I still love all the Stampin' UP! cardstock, colors, inks, accessories, designer papers and such and I think they still have quite a strong offering of those that are a good value.  I love their ribbons for the value they are.  However, I have become quite disenchanted with the stamps.    There just isn't that fresh new feel.  Some are creepy retro look, others are too sketchy, and others still are too cutesy, and most have already been done, they just have a slightly different look.  And once again, TOO MANY FLOWER SETS!!!! Can we not be a little more creative as there are tons of images out there besides flowers.  And again, where are the more masculine offerings.  Do they think we only give cards to girls?  I digress.

I am trying to weed out those stamps that I bought cause I liked what somebody else did with them, but really I just don't use them or rather I just don't have the time to do anything with them.  I am getting rid of anything that doesn't have anything to do with my boys (the sports, cars, tools, etc.), or anything that isn't occasion specific along the lines of babies, pregnancies, holidays that I just don't use.  I have quite a few for sale below.  Check them out.  

I have weeded out my flower sets and have kept those that are timeless and again, easy to use and work well with other things.   

I hope to post some pictures of my home decor I worked on last month.  They turned out awesome.  I am so excited to get them on the walls in our house.  We are maybe 3 weeks out now.  Yea!!