making do, making cards

Remember a while back I made a list of things that I’ve been wanting to use up and make things with? I had some plans to use my CD liner notes to make some kind of book (something I haven’t figured out yet). I made a little art piece with some slides. I also wanted to scrapbook about university (not yet) and continue to color correct my old photos (um, nope). I have been a bit lazy lately, spending too much time online and watching TV.

But I have been working on one project. Printstagrams! I had ordered a big stack of these printed out instagrams a few years ago, right around the time when it looked like instagram might change their terms of service in a way I found completely unacceptable. I thought I was going to cancel my account and maybe lose all the lovely pictures I had already shared there. Social Print Studio was offering a fun product – a page a day instagram calendar, with or without the actual date/calendar part. It was a pretty good deal for 365 photos printed on their luscious cardstock and designed to look like little polaroids. So I got a box of prints, all different, without dates on them, representing my first 6 months or so on instagram.

And then…  …

Well, they were too precious to get rid of, but I didn’t really have any use for them. A few have shown up in my Christmas scrapbook. But otherwise they sat in the lovely box they came in, hidden from view and useless.

You know how annoyed I get at beautiful things that don’t have a use! I couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, display them all, but I couldn’t just leave them in a box.

So a couple of weeks ago I started sorting them. I put them into rough piles based on what they were pictures of. I had one stack that were just random and odd and mostly meaningless. Another pile were quirky/fun/funny and reminded me of specific people. Another large pile were daily life and trip pictures – shots of my nephew, his dog, my friends who came to visit, selfies, usies (is that what you call selfies with a friend?!), and pictures from around the house. There were also some pretty pictures of a generic sort – flowers, clouds in the sky taken from 35,000 feet, pretty scenery, autumn leaves.

The daily life ones ended up in Project Life pages that I will be sharing very soon.

I thought that the pretty/generic ones and quirky/fun ones would be perfect for greeting cards. So I ordered some simple white greeting card blanks & envelopes online and got to cardmaking with the stuff I have stashed in my Project Life ottoman. I used most of my remaining 3×4″ papers as backgrounds. My baggie of patterned paper offcuts came in handy too, along with some embellishments and washi tapes I had collected.

I added some letter stickers to some of the cards, but most of them are just plain for the moment. I thought about penciling in a small title or sentiment on the white space below the photo for a very low key message on the front of the card, but I haven’t tried that yet. Most of these will be note cards rather than birthday or specific event cards. They’ll be great for those “just wanted to say Hi!” notes that are fun to send to friends. Everybody loves getting something pretty by snail mail.

I’ve spent several hours working on these lately while re-watching Once Upon a Time episodes. Luckily I’m not in a hurry to get the cards done, because the show is so full of awesome detail that I spend an awful lot of time watching the screen instead of crafting! It’s a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon, and we’ve had our share of those lately.

I’m really happy that I was able to use supplies that I already had on hand. I have stepped away from the patterned paper/embellished style of PL for now, so I had a lot of lovely supplies that weren’t being used. I didn’t mind buying the card blanks because they were the only missing piece to being able to turn these bits and pieces into something useful. It’s also fun to try to use techniques and supplies that I had seen other people use, but which were a bit much for my Project Life pages. I still ended up keeping things very simple, but I did try some layering. I probably should have pulled out more of my fancy embellishments to try to use – not that I have a lot, but they are also being wasted right now. Maybe I will find a way to use them on the remaining cards I have to make. I think it’s about time to take stock of what I have in my PL storage ottoman.

I have more than enough stationery to last me for the next few years, so I’m going to have to make more of an effort to send things regularly to my penpals and buddies. I thought I might even give some cards as gifts. But I believe that most of my friends would just end up hoarding the cards… as I would tend to do… so maybe I’m better off writing them a quick message inside and mailing them out. Then people can feel ok about keeping them.

I haven’t made cards for ages, so this was quite satisfying, blending several of my passions into one project.

Thanks for stopping by.

I’ll be back soon with some Project Life and a little Project 333.

Jo:)

 

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