KISS: Keep It Simple, Stamper!

I have a friend who both sponsors and corresponds with kids through Compassion and World Vision, Christian ministry efforts supporting children all over the world. We've talked a couple times about me making birthday cards for her kids, but something always seemed to come up to prevent me from following through. I finally decided to make it a priority, and will be creating a year's worth of birthday (and some graduation) cards for her. This posting shows the first half of the cards, and I plan to complete the rest of them in the next month to six weeks. My apartment building is being renovated and I have to pack up all my belongings and move to another property for three months starting in April, so I need to work fast before all my crafting supplies are in boxes.

Because these cards are going to children overseas and through organizations that have restrictions on what can be mailed to the kids, I have to keep these cards as flat and light as possible -- no ribbon, brads, or other bumpy embellishments, and as few layers as I can manage. Eek, that's hard! I don't normally make super fancy cards, but my style isn't CAS (Clean & Simple) either, so this is quite a challenge for me. Here's what I came up with:

Card 1: This is the most elaborate card I made in this batch. It's going to India, and the sponsoring organization allows a little more freedom in its mailing policies. The card base is Stampin' Up!'s Island Indigo, and I used a layer of Watercolor Wonder designer series paper. I embossed the Swallowtail stamp onto cardstock vellum and fussy cut it tightly along the edges, then colored some areas on the back side with markers. I attached it to the DSP and added a banner sentiment. The butterfly on the inside is also cardstock vellum, and the wings lift slightly to give a dimensional look.

(Click on any photo to enlarge it!)

Card 2: I chose a Gumball Green card base and used my Big Shot with my (free during Sale-a-bration) Decorative Dots embossing folder to add some texture. All of the stamps I used are non-SU!, but I did use SU! markers to color the images.

Card 3: I pulled out an old rainbow stamp pad to ink one of the stamps in the washi tape mimicking Tape It set, then embossed the panel with the Decorative Dots embossing folder. The main image is from this year's Ronald McDonald House supporting set called Tag It, and the tag is cut out using a Chalk Talk framelit.

Card 4: I'm embarrassed to say how easy this card was to make! I embossed some Whisper White cardstock with a retired embossing folder (I think it's called Manhatten Floral or something like that), then used a sponge dauber to gently tap on the embossed lines with Pink Pirouette ink. The three dots are punched from Early Espresso cardstock since I couldn't use brads.

Card 5: I used a Simply Sent kit card base and layered it with a cake! I accented the flames with a glitter pen.

Card 6: The stamps used on this card are non-SU!, but the DSP is Stampin' Up!'s Happy Birthday from the last catalog. Again I used punched dots in place of brads.

Card 7: I embossed the Swallowtail image in white directly onto the Regal Rose card base and then used a sponge dauber to add color here and there.

Card 8: This is pretty much the same card as above, except that I used gold shimmer spray to jazz it up. I'm not sure I like the look, so I sent it to my friend as an extra card she can either use or toss.

Now that I've blogged these cards, I see all sorts of ways I could have made them even simpler. I'll take what I've learned and apply it to the second batch of cards for these children.

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I still have two large piles of cards to take pictures of and edit before I can post them here. If tomorrow's a sunny day, I hope to make a dent in the piles so that I can have another blog post for you tomorrow evening!

Smiles,

Joyce Spear, a.k.a. StamperJoyce