Easy Recipe for World Card Making Day

Today is a fun day for The Clearsnap Creative Team- World Card Making Day! Celebrating its ninth year in 2014, World Card Making Day is celebrated annually on the first Saturday in October. It's a day for the card-making community—hobbyists, retailers, and manufacturers—to unite and celebrate the connection and creativity that is the heart of card making.  Make sure you check out the Official World Card Making Day site to submit your work and enter to win an amazing prize pack from the WCMD 2014 sponsors (like us!).

Today I am sharing an easy recipe for the beginner card maker. Why call it a recipe? Think of card making as cooking. If your just learning you want to start with an easy recipe. As you grow more confident, you will add in a few tweaks to that recipe. After you have really mastered it, you will start making "dishes" of your own.  Clearsnap has an awesome product for the beginner; Colorbox Creative Cards. Simply decorate the pre-printed cards by spraying or stamping over the design then layering embellishments onto dry card. The best part is you get 5 preprinted cards (5 1/2" x 4 1/4" folded) and 5 blank envelopes. Here is the recipe:
1) Choose 3 or more Colorbox Stamp Pads (all of them will work!) and using a Colorbox Stylus tool and tip- blend onto the card starting with the darkest color on bottom and work your way up blend in as you go
2) Take 1 Yard of Bakers Twine (I use The Twinery) and wrap around card top and tie in a bow on the side
3) Choose a Focal Piece- this can be a Stamp on plain cardstock- a chipboard from a scrapbook paper collection, or even a sticker. Add foam squares to pop it out, and attach to the center of your card. A focal piece should take up around 1/3 of the card space
And that's it! Let me walk you through these three very different cards, that are actually all the same.

{for this card I used a die cut from Authentiques Thrilling collection. The Inks are Donna Salazar Mixed Media Chox in Butternut and Adobe. And Colorbox Chalk in NEW Harvest. The edging is a Colorbox Cats Eye in Wicked Black}

{This Card uses all Colorbox Crafters Inks in NEW Sunshine, Limelight form the Ann Butler Collection, along with  Aruba and Sweet Pea. The stamp (from the dollar bin at Michales) is stamped in Berry}

{As an extra detail- adding in the twist on the recipe- some Smooch Glitz in Pink Fizz on the candle flames}

{For this one a did another twist on the recipe. The Focal sticker I chose from Authentique Be-You-tiful Collection was big and covered the twine, so I moved it up and the twine down- then added in a little Petaloo Flower. I chose some metallics for this one; Starting at the bottom with Crafters Ink in Stone, Colorbox Pigment Ink in Silver, and finally some Twinkle in Pearl}

{This is what the plain Creative Card looks like before getting all inked up}

{Creative Cards comes in all different designs just waiting for you to cook something up for World Card Making Day!

Continue on the hop by visiting these team members' blogs! Leave a comment on each and use the widget below to enter to win a prize pack just for Clearsnap followers!!

  Clearsnap Blog
  Denise Hahn (You are here)
  Meihsia Liu (Go here next)
 Vivian Keh
  Steph Ackerman

Enter our giveaway here (and happy hopping!!):
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-Denise

Clearsnap and Walnut Hollow Blog Hop- Easy Stencil Tips

My fear of stenciling- real! I always screwed up my project- goops of color in the corners- slippery stencils, color under the stencil. I wasn't about to let stencils beat me, so I practiced. I made a stencil-life-changing-discovery; Respoitionable Spray Adhesive! I use it all the time on my die cut machine carriers- why not on my stencils? And it works- just take a look at my Snapguide at the end of this post and you can see my tips and tricks in action. Today I am playing with some super fun Walnut Hollow French Provincial Signboards. I got a few sizes and when they came, I immediately saw that they needed to be a two tier display tray. First I just base coated them with some white primer, stenciled them with Colorbox Crafters Ink in Aruba and Limon and Colorbox Art Screens Bloom and Rounded  then added in a dollar store candlestick and voila!

Supplies:

Colorbox Crafters Ink in Aruba and Limon

Clearsnap Stylus and Tips

Colorbox Art Screens Bloom and Rounded

Walnut Hollow French Provincial Signboards

Check out How to Stencil With Clearsnap Inks and Walnut Hallow by Denise Hahn on Snapguide.
FOR MORE INSPIRATION CHECK OUT THE CLEARSNAP CREATIVE TEAMS PROJECTS HERE:

Chris Wallace http://walnuthollowcrafts.wordpress.com/?p=2097

Steph Ackerman http://stephaniescraps.blogspot.com/2014/09/clearsnap-and-walnut-hollow-blog-hop.html

Suzanne Austinhttp://whatsinalousyananut.blogspot.com/2014/09/clearsnap-and-walnut-hollow-blog-hop.html

Tami Sanders http://tamisanders.com/2014/09/19/walnut-hollow/

Sara Shirman http://walnuthollowcrafts.wordpress.com/?p=2099

Jennifer Priest http://hydrangeahippo.com/?p=8641

Vivian Keh https://contadinak.wordpress.com/

Meihsia Liu http://meihsia.blogspot.com/2014/09/mixed-media-wall-hanging-with-clearsnap.html

Custom T Shirt with Lawn Fawn and Xyron

 Sometimes I love a stamp so much I just want to wear it! I love these set of Eyeglass Stamps from Lawn Fawn (Clear to See), they are so me (with my glasses and all!) But to stamp directly onto a shirt can be a little daunting, you only get one shot to get it right. Since I am a little sketchy in my stamping I came up with a great technique using muslin and a Xyron Tape Runner. For this project you will need a shirt, some plain pre shrunk cotton fabric or muslin, some Lawn Fawn Stamps, Colorbox Crafters Inks, Xyron Tape Runner and a seeing machine or needle and thread.
Let's get started!

{Start with your base shirt- really any shirt will do except extreme stretch knits, this is a poly blend.}

{Next grab a piece of muslin and make your stamps using the Crafter's Ink- make sure you leave enough around each stamp to cut into a square (or any other shape)- Go ahead and do multiples, this is the test stage! Then pick your cleanest ones and cut them out}

{You can use pinking shears if you don't want them to ravel, but I like that reveled look!- Very important- Crafters Ink needs to be heat set with your iron to become permanent so press them off for 20-30 seconds}

{Now grab your Xyron Tape Runner and run tape on the backside of your appliqués along each side but not totally to the edge. Believe it or not I have found tape runners to work great on fabric- you can sew through the adhesive, it doesn't gum up your needle, and it doesn't show through when your done!}

{ Now VERY IMPORTANT! Put your shirt on, THEN stick your appliqués to your shirt! Why? Because you want to make sure they are placed right, especially in the chest areas if you know what I mean. You don't want to do all this work and find out your appliqués are hiding under your breasts or on crooked}

{Now go to your machine and stitch around- you can use a straight stitch or play with all them fancy ones you never use- play with thread color- or hand stitch with some embroidery thread would be super cute too!}

{So cute! Who says stamps are just for paper!}

I hope you will try out this simple technique and start wearing your favorite stamps!

-Denise

Valentine Decor on The Clearsnap Blog

Fun with Clearsnaps Crafter Inks for Fabric- CLICK HERE!

And ehre are a few more pillows my Mom and I made on our little craft day!