Last week I was asked to teach a class on making cards to a group of stampers. They are the Heritage Hills Stampers, meeting once a month to make cards and have fun. They have a marvelous room in their Craft House (which also has rooms for sewing and painting, plus a thrift store!) stocked with paper, stamps, die cutter-embosser and all kinds of things with which to embellish and create. They wanted to learn more about creating cards, so I put together a program on design for them. I got out my stuff and decided on how to do the class.

Here are the points we discussed on card design, if you’d like to know.
1. Rule of Thirds – imagine a tic-tac-toe grid on the paper – focus points on the intersections, putting them in the upper or lower third imaginary horizontal lines, and the outer or inner third imaginary vertical lines.
2. Odd Numbers are more pleasing and interesting – count elements
3. Fibonacci Sequence – Add first two numbers to get the third. Add the second and third to get the fourth. Add the fourth and fifth to get the sixth, and so on. – 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 8,13, etc. Use these numbers to determine elements on a base, such as one patterned paper, one focal point such as a sentiment, 2 flowers, 3 butterflies, and so on.
4. Contrast – balance of light and dark – place light items like ecru skeleton leaves on a dark background so they show up.
5. Focal point – the main point of interest

I pulled some patterned papers and elements to make this easier. I made two cards, one vertical and one horizontal, both with the same design concepts.

I decided to do kits for them, so we could concentrate on design and not worry about decisions on paper, colors, or embellishments. Inside were a card base, a patterned paper, two skeleton leaves, a length of cording, and an embellishment pack with several color coordinated items like the tags and chipboard circles. Of course, I had to stamp the bags, LOL!!

The Heritage Hills stampers, from the left, Sandy, Cindy, Marie, Margo, Mary, and Joy all seemed to have fun. I was invited to come back and stamp with them, even though I do not live in their community. We talked about doing another class with Christmas cards in October.

Three of the ladies generously donated their cards to the Safelight project. They did a great job, didn’t they?

Inside, we put an inspirational stamp, and they wrote messages.

I came home all charged up to do more. A couple of days later, I had a play day to myself, and got out a wonderful gift from Kathleen M. She sent me several card making kits, complete with instructions, papers, stamps, ribbon inks and die cuts to make Safelight cards. What fun!! The card bases have wonderful patterns or watercolor images.

I sorted things on the workbench, then set to making cards. I used their papers and embellishments, but added my own inspirational stamps. I changed some of the designs slightly, but for the most part followed the plans. This one with plants was turned into a garden theme leaving off the loaf of bread on the original design. I also stamped the envelopes. The die cut is on dimensional foam squares to raise it off the base.

This one is made exactly as the instructions called for as it was perfect for Safelight as it was. I wrote the same message in all the cards, and now realize I should have written something a little more different than the front. Oh well.

All these had multiples of the same thing, easy to make several at once. The floral print envelopes with this group were beautiful. I added a stamp to them too. At the end of this day, I had 14 cards done, ready for Safelight. It is a good start on the 120 that I’ll need for the October delivery. If you are a card maker, and can make a few for the Safelight project, I would love to have your help. See the Safelight Project 2024 for guidelines. Send the cards to me anytime, my address is on the About Me / Contact page.

Then on Sunday, I was packing up things to ship from my sample sale, and I remembered that I wanted to send a hot pad holder to a foodie friend. Of course, making another card was mandatory, LOL!! In the pack of card kits was one that was food related, but I wasn’t going to use them in that manner. It came with cutouts of a loaf of bread and some cheese. So, I stamped my chef with his platter holding wine and cheese, then put the bread on top, hanging off the side. It won’t be in an envelope, so this was a fun thing to do. The cheese is on foam dots to add dimension. Inside it says “Bon Appetit!” and I wrote a personal note.

I still love sending and giving handmade cards, sending to friends near and far, and sometimes hand delivering.

Do you like to send cards?

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