2024 First Quarter Cards

On the 2 Peas Refugees card making message board, they encourage everyone to share their creations. This is something that I rarely do. Some of my cards are simple, some are not. Most are cards that I design based on what I have in my craft room. I do sometimes buy the latest and greatest from a few favorite card companies or at convention, but a lot of my stash is years old. I use whatever I like and feel like at the time. Sometimes I use a sketch, especially if I am doing a Queen & Co. challenge, since using a sketch is typically required for the challenges. The rest of the time, I usually just design my card based on what I plan to use. I often use the Queen & Co. Foundation dies with other companies' papers and products, but I don't like having to follow someone else's design, even though sketches can simplify card making. I've been card making and scrapbooking longer than most, and I learned to paper craft by designing my own layouts and cards. Are my designs always amazing? Hardly. However, I am pretty happy with some of the cards that I have created this quarter, and I decided to group them and post them in one place. Here are my January through March cards:

Tall Mouse Beehive Card

At Convention, Tall Mouse always has a bunch of $6 die sets. They're not huge dies, but not necessarily small either. I found a beehive/honey set among them at Convention last weekend, and used the set for this card. The honeycomb background is also die cut, with a background die that I bought from Tall Mouse at last week's convention. They went perfectly with an old BoBunny line of papers in my stash. The stamped sentiment inside the card is from an older Queen & Co. Gum Machine Shaker Set. 

Both the front of the card and the inside of the card are shown next to each other here:

Two Cards Made with Scrappy Boy Die Sets

A week ago, I went to the Stamp and Scrapbook Convention in Irving, Texas. I mostly went for Tall Mouse dies, but I also found two fun die sets that I can use for card making. I used the first one to make a an envelope box card that can fold flat if you need to mail it:

I used the second die set to make this little flower cart that is also a box card. It has a hidden, covered magnet closure. It folds flat for mailing as well, although I will probably keep this one. Note: The flowers and cursive word were from the Scrappy Tails Floral Shop Add-on die set, and were not part of the Scrappy Boy Flower Cart die set..

Sweet Summertime Card

I've had my eye on the Jaded Blossom ticket booth dies for awhile. However, I found another, very similar booth die set on Amazon that was far less expensive. They look very similar, so I suspect it is a knock-off set, or perhaps the Chinese company that makes them for Jaded Blossom sells them on the side through Amazon. I got some additional dies to go with it. I played around with the booth tonight, and I found an older My Favorite Things stamp that went well with the Watermelon theme. The sentiment is Queen & Co.

 

Sheetload of Cards Challenge March 2024

I did the single card for this challenge, since I wanted to use scraps. The lemonade glass is one of the cut file converted to print and cut, shown in a recent post.

Stamp and Scrapbook Expo March 2024

When we moved in 2016, I was elated to learn that I could attend Stamp & Scrapbook Conventions as many as 3 times each year here. Back in Virginia, there was only one convention per year.  I did go to all three of the conventions here in 2017, but since then, I've been lucky to get to one per year, and a couple of years I got to none. Even though they are "in my area," they are a long enough drive that I have to plan well, and family needs have to come first. After COVID hit, the conventions stopped for awhile, and they have been slow to get going again. This year, there will be a total of three in my area again. I went to the Stamp & Scrapbook Expo yesterday. I could only stay for about two and a half hours, but it turned out to be time well spent.

The convention has definitely shrunk, but there were some fun vendors who attended. I found papers and dies that will help me scrapbook our Disney trips, and also generic dies for card making. I was very happy with what I found. I left before noon. I was out of both energy and money.

This afternoon, I got a simple card made with a couple of dies that I found at the convention:

Converting Sihouette Cut Files to Print and Cut

Last summer, as I was preparing to teach a card class, I was getting very tired of cutting out a bunch of pieces, especially small ones. I still had one more card to create and prep kits for. The cut file that I wanted to use had far too many small pieces. I thought it would make a very nice print and cut file, so I searched online to see if there was a tutorial for converting a cut file to print and cut. There was, and it worked very well for me. For anyone who wants to try it, you can find it here:

How to Turn Cut Files into Print and Cut

I was very pleased with the results, but from then till now, I hadn't thought to use the process again until a post on the RefuPeas site got me thinking about it again. They were talking about ephemera, and one person seems to like Doodlebug designs. The Silhouette site has a lot of Doodlebug designs. They are older, but still cute, so I mentioned it as a potential way to save money. Ephemera packs can be pricey. All Silhouette files are on sale right now for half off, and once you buy the designs, you can use them as many times as you like. The problem: Doodlebug only had 2 that were print & cut, and the rest were tiny pieces needing to be glued together.

I was pretty sure that I had converted cut files to print & cut before, but it wasn't till late last night that I found the video that I had used, and I remembered when and why. So I decided to see if I remembered how I did it, and I did (mostly) succeed. I converted a cute little cat from a cut file to print and cut. I missed one step, but I fixed it as soon as I noticed. It was late, so I set the project aside for the night. This morning, I opened a variety of Doodlebug designs, turned them into cutting files, added them to the print & cut sheet, and here are the results:

After peeling off the card stock excess, this is what I was left with:

The blue behind the images is just colored card stock, so you can see the individually cut designs a little better. If you look closely, there are two different versions of the lemonade stand. I took the lemonade glass, reduced it in size, duplicated and flipped it, and welded them to a duplicate of the lemonade stand. I also duplicated and flipped the ice cream truck. I didn't have any more time to spend on this, so I just wanted to fill the page. And now I have several cute images ready to be added to a layout or to cards, for the minimal price of card stock and printer ink. Yes, I'm cheap, but saving money by creating my own ephemera for a fraction of the cost, with less waste. The money that I save can be used to buy something else, and with the high cost of everything these days, every little bit helps.

March 2024 Pot of Gold Card

I made a Pot o' Gold card 3 years ago. I don't remember who I gave it to, so it was a good thing I had posted it here. There are a few differences from that one to this one. I added the Illumination to this version, and placed the hat differently. I also added a clover to the hat, but it's still essentially the same card. Unfortunately, the "gold" coins are thicker and do block some of the light from the illumination mechanism.

Left side is not lit up, right side is (glow is mostly at the bottom center of the card).

Queen Shaker Light Up Challenge

Queen & Co. has a challenge this month to create a card that lights up (using their Endless Illumination Kit, of course). I have been busy making card kits for a friend and finally got them done, so I had time to play with this kit that had been a bit intimidating. It was actually very easy. The hardest part was to figure out what dies to use that hadn't already been used by others. They have used the sun, camping lantern, and other Queen kits. I wanted to do the lighthouse from a kit they had a summer or two ago. I don't know if they will sell it again this summer, but it is a great kit (and of course, I love lighthouses).

The images below show the differences in the shaker card with the light off (left) and on (right). If you push it once, it flashes fast; twice, flashes fast, but not as fast; three times, solid light.