Craft Something, Learn Something

Almost every time I craft I learn something new. Sometimes even when I craft something I’ve done before, I find a new way to speed up a process. I often learn the most from my mistakes . . .what not to do the next time.
Today, I decided to make a card for an upcoming nephew’s birthday. I usually find it difficult to craft guy-themed stuff because I like frills, glitter, flowers, hearts and other girly-girl embellishments. Anyway, I decided to start with a black card…all boy. This nephew was recently in a robotics competition so I found a robot rubber stamp in my collection. I wanted to keep the card simple so I thought maybe I would just stamp ‘Happy Birthday” with the robots in a row. I think colors are an easy way to establish a masculine tone to the card so I decided to use silver and turquoise because they would also stand out on the black. Anyway, I stamped and embossed with the same color powder as the ink so that any part that didn’t get embossed would still be the right color. I discovered that on the black card if the embossing powder didn’t stick to all of the inked design, the non-shiny design is really noticeable. To correct this problem I used an embossing pen (clear) to fill in the missing parts and re-embossed the design. I’m happy to say that this worked well and the card came out just right. The finishing touch was the copper eyelets that I added to the sides of the card. The rubber stamp letters were ‘Ransom Alphabet’ Clear Choice Stamps from Royal Brush Mfg. and the robot rubber stamps are by Personal Stamp Exchange. (I'm not sure if PSE is still in business.) Actually any machine-type rubber stamp (cars, planes, tools, etc.) could be used instead of the robots to give the card a masculine look. The ransom alphabet stamps are my new favorite letter stamps because you don’t have to line them up exactly since they are supposed to look messy.

Continue crafting and learning,
Lynn