7 New Cards As Part of a Lost Challenge

Here's a bunch of cards I did a few years back for a card swap. I started the section for them as a challenge on the website about a year ago but since doing giveaways never really took off because no one comments they kind of got forgotten about. I wanted to make sure they got pushed out before the current year ended though as part of reorganizing the web site.

These cards are really interesting because the tag is attached using a tagger gun and tagger tail (like some of the price tags are attached to clothes) so it floats and moves freely on the front of the card.

The challenge for these cards was that I had to make 20 of them for the card swap but I didn't have the patterned paper to make anymore of the exact same design. I ended up redesigning the card a number of different times using different patterns and having to color coordinate between ribbon and ink and the pattern to get enough made.

Click on any of the card image to read more about how the card was make or about the challenge.

Affordable Christmas Present Cards

Remember these two cards from this blog post on April 30th?

Well, that same stamp makes a great Christmas card too. I upped the size of the card to 5x7 so I could fit words on it this time. I like cards that are good for almost any present giving occasion like these are but I wanted to change this one up from what I done already.

Last time I used some inexpensive BIC markers but several of the markers in the BIC set reached the end of their useful lives months ago and I didn't know how far the red or green would still go. The dead colors didn't last as long as I had hoped they might so I didn't think I'd be able to get through make a set of these with used ones. I thought about using Copic markers since I could just refill the red and green as needed but then I would have shaded it and taken a while to color each present and I wanted to do something quicker and more within reach of the average stamper this time.

I had a few fine point red Sharpies that looked like they had a good amount of ink in them at one time so I figured I'd use them up before they dried up. I got a brand new green out of another Sharpie set to bring green into the present so I could use it for the mat. I colored 20 of these on a single red and green that are still going strong. I left a bunch of areas white and added Stickles over those and popped up the present and words with dimensional foam to give the card that little extra it needed.

One thing I did learn though is that the alcohol in the Sharpies can get to you after a while. It's more like pure rubbing alcohol and after a while of coloring my eyes started to burn a little from the marker drying in my face. If you color with Sharpies, I'd recommend moving finished images as far as way as you can while the rest of the alcohol evaporates.

Here's the finished card. As always, click on any of the card images to go to my website if you want the full directions or want to see the larger images of the card.