Welcome to Cards by Amy K.

I am SO GLAD you stopped by to check out my blog!!! Here I will be posting my current projects for you to see. PLEASE feel free to leave me a comment. I would LOVE to hear what you think about what I'm working on. I have been a scrapbooker/paper crafter since I first caught wind of this wonderful hobby in 2006. I am lucky enough to get to spend my days doing something I love so much and which brings so much joy into my life. I first started scrapbooking as a way to pass the time as I found myself at home alone all day suddenly, now I can't imagine life without it. Too bad I don't get paid for it, then I really would have it all!!!







Monday, August 25, 2014

Boy and a girl "Teen Themed" Thank you for visiting the church cards.

Today I've got something special in store for you! Are you ready, awe you've  already read the title of the blog post.  But, yeah, I've got some teen themed cards.  That's something that I rarely get to do unless they are graduation cards.  From time to time I will get a birthday card for a teen that I do.  I think now that I'm making the cards for the church I'll get to make more of these types of cards.  Or at least cards for this age group, I should say.  I loved it, making these cards.  They are so fun and freeing.  You get to just get out your supplies and play and I think we all need some "crafty play" time from time to time.  You know that time when you just do what you feel to the project and there are no rules and you aren't making it necessarily for one person or another.  It's just for you in alot of cases.  I think it keeps us moving forward creatively and that's important.  I was just saying yesterday while getting my nails done, I finally took time to do That for myself and it felt so good! but I was saying that I never even have time to do scrapbook layouts anymore and that is my first love.  With all the cards that I'm making for the church I am always on a time crunch it seams.  I wish I had more time to craft for me.  I don't get to join swaps right now but I feel that making the cards for the church is important.  I'm getting some wonderful feed back and people are thanking me for their cards and I think that's wonderful. If making the amount of cards that I do for the church becomes too much for me to create individual works then I can always switch to what I call cookie cutter cards where you have one sketch that you follow and just change up the papers and the sentiments and some of the embellishments. But for the most part the cards are just the same.  Some months are busier than others and last month was really busy but I managed and I was happy with the cards I made.  You will be seeing those cards coming up on the next few weeks and who knows maybe one month I will only have a few cards to make and will be able to get back to working on my layouts.  I know I don't do any blogging about my scrap booking but if its something you would like to see then shoot me an email or leave a comment below and I'll post some layouts for you to see.  Okay that's enough talk, lets see these cards!
Now, keep in mind that the purpose of these cards, both of them, is to give to visitors of the church to thank them for attending service and let them know we enjoyed them just being there.  So with that in mind, here is the female version of the card.    I used some distress ink to add color to a white sheet of card stock.  lately I'm using the Neenah 110lb  exact index smooth card stock.  I'm really loving this paper.  It's a good quality, heavy card and super smooth.  It's great for stamping and doing techniques with distress ink.  I haven't really used it with water so I can't comment on that aspect but for the money I think it's a great card stock especially for stampers.  I am using my Georgia Pacific white to make the card bases out of still but for the stamping Im always using the Neenah.  I used some image stamps from Autumn Leaves.  I am not sure what black ink I used but It would have either been versa fine or Hero Arts India dye ink.  That's another product that I'm really loving.  I've got a huge investment in Hero Arts ink pads as it is.  I have all the dye ink colors except for the soft colors.  I will be working on that next.  Ink pads are something that I have no shortage of.  I also have  a huge assortment of Color box fluid chalk ink pads.  Not the little q's either I've bought all the big ones.  I don't think I have all the colors but I've got a really good start on it anyway.  I use the Hero Arts for all my stamping unless I'm using the clear Acrylic stamps which we all know are a lesser quality stamp and alot of ink will just bead up on it and then when you stamp it out you get a blotchy image that's not clean and smooth.  I bought alot of the cheaper acrylic stamps when I was starting out in paper crafting mainly because they were cheap and I didn't know there was a difference in the quality of the stamp.  I thought that all clear stamps were created equal.  lol, How little did I know. lol.  These Autumn Leaves stamps are acrylic but versa fine and the Hero Arts black ink, well the India dye ink and one more they have called blackboard, they will stamp out pretty clean on these stamps.  I will add one more thing sense I'm talking about stamping, I've had those specific stamps a long time and I've conditioned them so that they take ink much better.  To do this all you have to do is take a white art eraser and rub the stamp image a few times, make sure you get all the areas and then clean all the eraser droppings off the stamp and give it a try.  I got that tip from my good friend, Robin who has been stamping over 20 years.  She also said that if that didn't work you can use a fine grit emery board and scratch the surface of the stamp up a bit and that will help it hold ink.  I found that the Colorbox Chalk ink stamps beautifully with these cheap stamps and that is why I spent the money on buying so many of them.  Also they come in beautiful colors and the browns are wonderful for doing some edging on you paper.  I bought the refills for the browns because I use
them so much.  

Here's a shot of the inside of the card.
You can see I've lined the inside with yellow card stock and then done some more of the image stamps from Autumn Leaves.  The sentiment stamp is one I bought from an online seller, its an old Stampin up stamp but I love the whole set I got from that seller.  I was looking for some faith based stamps and she had just what I was looking for.  That's another of the stamps I got from her on the front of the card.

Okay I'm going to try a wrap this up, it's turning to a really long post.
Here's the Male version of the card:
Once again, I turned to my trusty distress inks to color the background paper.  This time I used watercolor paper and water with the distress inks to help them blend and get that water colored effect.  I used a stamp set from Close to My Heart and heat embossed the controller straight on the watercolor piece with white embossing powder but the piece that says "next level" is heat embossed on a coordinating die cut from the Artiste cartrige for the cricut.  The sentiment is from a Hobby Lobby stamp set and I also used a strip of filmstrip washi tape.  I used my white paint pen to draw in the cord to the controller.  i thought it looked weird just floating there in the middle of the card and the cord helps ground the image to the edge of the panel. Lastly I added  home made enamel dots and my white gel pen to add dash lines around the edges of the card and I used my corner chomper to round the bottom edges.
Here's a shot of the inside:
To line the inside I used the red and green distress ink from the front of the card to color these panels then added white to finish it off.  That sentiment stamp is also from that seller and it's stampin up too I believe.  I just ran the piece thru the printer to add "Thank you visiting  us a Fisher's Chapel".  I did that to the inside of both cards then I leave the other side blank to give the preacher room to write.
Okay, that's finally all for today, sorry It got to be so long.  if you stuck it out to the end then God love you, Is all I've got to say. lol.  I will try and keep the post a little shorter from now own.  I have no idea who will be getting these cards, that falls on the preacher to decide but who ever it is, I hope they enjoy them.  They were fun to make but It also was good exercise for my creativity. I hope I get to make more cards for this age group.  I know I have a few birthday's coming up.  Till next time, have a wonderful and blessed day. I'll see you in the next post.  Much love and hugs, amy k