Cards Received

Here are a couple of cards people have sent me recently. Many thanks to Patti and Lisa for thinking of me and sending me such beautiful cards. They will both be added to my my inspiration board!

Patti's sympathy card speaks of peace, warmth, faith, and and trust. The appealing texture, four anchoring brads, and simple color scheme all work together to communicate a beautiful message that's perfect for expressing comforting sympathy.

Lisa's Happy Valentine's Day card communicates a completely different message...one of joy and celebration and appreciation of friendship. The bright, cheerful colors and level of detail in the design put a smile on my face. Check out the beads on the heart banner!

Thanks again to Lisa and Patti for brightening my day with your beautiful artwork!

Blue Birthday

I don't think anyone would feel blue to get this blue birthday card.

This simple, linear design gets its interest from the extremely curvy, rounded modern-style...well, what in the world do you call that design? A stylized flower? An abstract CAS splatter? Whatever it is, it's fun, especially with those fabulously oversize rhinestones.

I picture this going to a teenage girl. That substitution of 2 for to bothers me but might seem perfectly natural to a teen!

Happy End of the Week to you!

Supplies
stamps: CAS-ual Friday Bold Wishes
ink: Memento Luxe tuxedo black, Hero Arts cornflower
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestones

Kid Cards, Correctness, and Y Chromosomes

For those of us whose inner children were mistreated, making kid cards can be tough. Really tough. Over the years, I've tried to let go and keep them fun and loose, but seriously, people. loose isn't me.

Today's card uses a simple little background stamp and a sentiment from Endless Birthday Wishes, a set from Stampin'Up!

A Stampin'Up! demo chastised me for not using the proper spelling of the company name, with the apostrophe and the egregious, deeply annoying exclamation point. I'm torn between a desire to only ever for the rest of my life use the abbreviation SU (with no egregious enthusiasm) and an editor's abiding desire to be correct.

Oh, how conflicted we first-world citizens can be!

Anyway, here's a kid card for my nephew, who is six going on three.

My mother and I were talking on the phone last week when my nephews and niece had a snow day (they live in Maryland). Mom, who lives with my sister and her family, was talking to me about something and then yelled, "Pull your pants up!" I glanced down and realized her comment wasn't directed at me because my pants were up. Because I am an adult, mid-day, talking on the phone with my mother. Then Mom told me, in a shocked voice, "He pulled down his pants and rubbed is bottom in the dog's face! Can you believe it?"

My poor mom raised two girls, and now she has four grandsons. Yes, Mom, I can believe it.

Oh, the Y chromosomes!

The card, by the way, uses the Kaleidacolor Caribbean Sea pad, which has such fun and tropical greens and blues. Of all the Kaleidacolor pads, I'd say it's my favorite. The sentiment is stamped with Memento Luxe tuxedo black for maximum opacity and pop.

Supplies
stamps: Stampin'Up! (SU) Endless Birthday Wishes
ink: Kaleidacolor Caribbean Sea
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue

Wild Speculation and Big Wishes

Source

It may or may not have come up on this blog that "someone" has a bit of a passion for coffee.

So "someone" made this card to give to her sister who shares the passion for coffee and also has a thing for the color brown.

Seriously, as a child, my sister felt sorry for the color brown because no one liked it, so she claimed it as her favorite color.

I love my sister.

Anyway, this was a fun card to make. The sleeve on the cup was stamped on a scrap and glued down because I ruined two pieces of paper trying to stamp it directly on the cup.

I do not love two-step stamping. This "not love" will be the source of a future rant post. For now, I'm too tired to muster the righteous indignation necessary to do it justice.

As for the card, it displays the Kaleidacolor Cappuccino pad in shades of brown. Brown: it's not just for autumn anymore.

In eight hours I will have a coffee cup in my hand. That really is the only certainty about tomorrow. Everything else is just wild speculation. Apparently, Ms. Hoffman and I lead parallel lives or something.

Good night.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey (cup), CAS-ual Friday (sentiment)
ink: Kaleidacolor cappuccino
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: clear rhinestone hearts, Copic marker, craft foam, glue

Work Process and Birthdays

Sometimes, when you need to make a largish number of cards on the same theme, it can be helpful to begin by pulling all the related stamps, punches, dies, designer paper, embellishments, etc., that relate to the theme into one place.

I needed a fair number of birthday cards, so here's what I found in my stamp and punch stash that was suitable for birthdays.

I certainly wouldn't need all this, but having it gathered into one bin certainly helped spark some ideas...such as the idea for this card.

I love the tall, skinny profile of this 3.5" x 6.25" card. (It fits in a ready-made envelope from Marco's.) To make this, I took a largish scrap and created an alternating pink-and-orange pattern with a border stamp from CAS-ual Friday's Bold Wishes set. This stamp was very easy to line up, by the way. After stamping, I cut the scrap down to fit nicely on my card base and set it on the card where I wanted it.

Note: Do NOT glue pieces to a base on which you plan to stamp. Set them where they need to be, and then stamp. No matter how good a stamper you are, you will screw up stamping every now and then. You'll miss a spot while inking, or you'll drop the inked stamp on the card, or you'll have a dog/cat fur on your stamp that leaves a mess, or you'll press too hard or not hard enough, leaving an ugly image. See? There are just too many things that can go wrong. If you've glued the piece down, you've ruined the whole thing. But if you just position pieces on a card without glue, you can always grab a new card base and use the pieces parts of your previous effort to make a fabulous card.

After stamping the sentiment (and making sure it was right!), I glued down the stamped panel, added bling, and sat back with a smile!

These large rhinestones are so shiny and pretty! I love how this card is modern feminine. It's kicky and not floral and ever so blingy. What's not to love?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Birthday Bash Sentiments, CAS-ual Fridays Bold Wishes
ink: Hero Arts orange soda, bubble gum pink; Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestones

When a Card Needs a Little Something

When I came up with the design for my sons' valentines, I got excited. It meant using a lopsided heart punch that hasn't been used in a very long time. So yay me for Using My Hoard!

But when I finished the card, it was missing something.

It's okay, but seems to be missing something.

That's when I remembered that there's a smaller version of the same heart in my hoard, and that little punch would punch this card up a notch!

Now that's better! These cards (I made two identical ones) will be given to my sons, so no need to keep things flat enough to mail. Both hearts are popped up with dimensionals.

On a side note, the weird line at the bottom of the letters isn't there in real life...the ink must be thicker there, and it reflected the light oddly. In real life, the sentiment looks fine. The Memento Luxe ink is delightfully black!

Comments on this post are fascinating.

Karen @ Misplaced Mojo left a long comment about using Evernote to index her stamps. If you're interested in indexing your stamps electronically, give it a gander. Thanks, Karen, for sharing so much useful information!

Karen also brought up an interesting point. She says she doesn't feel guilty about her hoard of stamps, and I agree with her completely. We really shouldn't feel guilty about money we spend on ourselves for creative mental health practices...unless we're lying to our significant others or stealing funding from our kids' college funds.

My need to purge simply comes from feelings of being overwhelmed by too much stuff. Research on choice and happiness shows that there's scientific validation for feeling one's creativity stifled when one has too many supplies. We all, however, have different levels of tolerance. I've commented before that one person's burden is another's blessing. What is "too much" for one crafter might well be "not enough" for another.

Despite my purge, I still have lots of stamps.

Laurie J and Kim Ross asked what I do with the purged stamps. For now, they will live in the unfinished area of the basement to see if I retrieve them at some point in the next year. At the end of this year, I'll see if our community assistance center wants them. If not, I'll likely sell them on the blog in flat-rate USPS boxes with embellishments and other things I'm finished with. There's not a lot of demand in my area for crafty donations, so selling is likely the best option. The cash will go into my New Stamps account. With birthday and Christmas gift money, that is how I pay for my crafting.

And that's all I have to say about that. For now, at least.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Memento Luxe black, SU real red
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: heart punches, dimensionals

Kaleidacolor Valentines #3, #4, and #5

Let's speed up these Kaleidacolor valentines, shall we? These three are going to my niece and two nephews. They are the smaller format (4 7/8" x 3 3/8")...a darling format for valentines!

A little cascade of hearts with the added interest of a spectrum of pinks and purples points to a little sentiment.

These arrows come from a Hero Arts set, while the sentiment is from Papertrey.

Hearts and arrows...the essence of a valentine.

I hope my Kaleidacolor valentines strengthen your resolve to buying a few of these most excellent ink pads. Nobody is paying me to push them, but seriously, I've had so much fun with them, especially in the last year. Even this purple-and-pink pad (Berry Blaze) gets used (obviously) even though I rarely ever use purple on cards.

Kaleidacolor pads have been around for a long time, but sometimes it's fun to rediscover something old and have new fun with it.

If you don't have one, get one. If you do have some, take them out and play!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey and Hero Arts
ink: Kaleidacolor berry blaze
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: heart punches, dimensionals

Kaleidacolor Valentine #2 and Thoughts on Purging

Having so much fun with the Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze spectrum ink pad. Here's the second installment, which is going to my sister, who hates Valentine's Day with a passionate hate.

Card Size 3 3/8" x 4 7/8"

To make the heart, I stamped the Kaleidacolor inks onto a scrap of paper using a Hero Arts Shadow stamp. (If you don't have one of these old shadow stamps, any largish solid stamp will do since you're just going to punch a shape out of it anyway.) Then, using a heart border stamp from some Papertrey set whose name escapes me, I created a ground for the large, popped heart. The sentiment at the bottom comes from Keep It Simple: Valentine's Day.

The heart bling was added for interest. Not sure it's needed, really, but once you put it on, you can't take it off. Sort of like my wedding ring on those bloat-y days, if you know what I mean.

Anywho, I had a weird urge to purge...stamps, that is. For the past month, coming back from a rather long break stamping, I've felt weighted down by too many stamps. Too much choice is bad for a soul, or so I read in some recent research on happiness. I pulled out all my white stamp-storage boxes (which mostly contain wood-mounted stamps) and all my clear stamps (mostly stored in the green boxes), and went to work moving iffy or unwanted stamps into an empty box.

I filled the box and needed another one for a bit of overflow. Egads.

And it. was. easy. Sadly easy.

In the end, four white boxes were empty. It felt good. The sentiment dilemma is still there, though. Just too many of the durn things and I still end up not having what I want half the time.

First-world problems are my specialty.

Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed by your stash? Does having too much choice stifle your creativity? Do you purge regularly, or do you just hoard and hoard and hoard to your heart's content?


Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Kaleidacolor berry blaze
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: dimensionals, heart rhinestones

Kaleidacolor Valentine #1

Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze is perfect for Valentine's Day Cards! Here's the first one I want to share using this pink-and-purple spectrum pad.

Card Size 6.25" x 3.5"

Each of the five colors was stamped on a scrap, and then the hearts (from Papertrey's Heart Prints) were punched out, popped up in  a line, and sent out to my mother with lots of love!

The discussion on yesterday's post was fascinating. Some admitted to hating Valentine's Day, but many of you see it as an opportunity to share love with friends and family. It inspired me to make a few more! Thanks so much. Truly, I have the best readers in blog-land!!!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink Heart Prints, Hero Arts sentiment (discontinued)
ink: Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze
paper: Papertrey White
accessories: heart punch (Papertrey), dimensionals

Another Valentine and a Question or Two

Love, love, love the simplicity of this little card!!!!

Card size 4 7/8" x 3 3/8"

The sentiment is from Papertrey's Keep It Simple: Valentines. That font is adorable and made me squeal with delight! The whole Keep It Simple line is brilliant, actually. The trio of hearts is from Papertrey's Love Birds set. The smaller size of the card is just right for Valentine's Day.

Now for some questions.

How many Valentine's Day cards do you make and, more importantly, send?

Typically, I only give them to my husband and sons, but this year I'm making more and sending them to my niece and nephews, sister, mom, an aunt and uncle, and perhaps a few others. The uncle sends me a valentine every year, so I figure it's time to send him some love, too. This change is really provoked more by Operation Write Home closing than anything else. It's fun to make valentines, so why not still make them and just send them myself instead of sending them to someone else to send?

Does that make sense?

But some people see Valentine's Day as a day to celebrate romantic love only, at least for adults. That seems sensible to me, too, as a part of my simple self resents how over-blown so many holidays have become. (Yes, Halloween, I'm talking about YOU!)

I'm curious what y'all think. Do you go crazy for Valentine's Day, or do you, like my sister, roll your eyes and wait for all the pink and red hearts to go away?

Note: I honestly don't think there's a right or wrong answer here...just personal preference and philosophy. I'm just interested in your thinking on the subject! 

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Love Birds, Keep It Simple Valentine
ink: SU real red, Memento Luxe tuxedo black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: silver metallic marker, craft foam, glue

Alan Rickman Inspired My Valentine

Y'all, I was so shocked and saddened last week by the news that Alan Rickman died. I LOVED him in Sense and Sensibility, in which he played a good guy (rare for him), and I laughed at his portrayal of a frustrated actor in Galaxy Quest. He played a lot of really bad guys really well, and his Severus Snape--such a complicated villain--was nothing less than brilliant.

That performance in the Harry Potter movies inspired my Valentine for today's blog post.

"Always."

Card size 4 7/8"x 3 3/8"

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Heart Prints
ink: Real Red (SU)
paper: Papertrey white, Tim Holtz deco sheets
accessories: heart punches (Papertrey), red heart rhinestone (Michael's)

Color and Quitter Strips

Yesterday's post asking which color combination you preferred provoked plenty of comments...enough to conclude that the clear majority of those who responded preferred grape jelly to pumpkin pie. I expected the voting to be closer, but then, I like pumpkin pie.

I loved the comment by Claudia, who wrote, "Isn't it fun how we all see things differently?"

Yes! Yes, it is FUN!!!!

Some people seem to think that we all need to agree about everything. I don't understand that. Difference makes life interesting and FUN! Some of you preferred grape jelly, some preferred pumpkin pie, and hopefully at least one or two of you who didn't respond agree with me that they are both interesting.

Colors provoke strong responses in us, although I find over the years my antipathy for certain colors (orange, most noticeably) has faded. These days, I like playing with all the colors in the Crayon Box.

I hope you find the colors you like playing with and play with them enthusiastically!

Today's quitter strip (a.k.a. book mark) is brought to you by the colors Green and Blue.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Peaceful Garden, Hero Arts shadow, Clearly Besotted sentiment
ink: Impress Fresh ink basil, Sicillian blue; Memento Gray Flannel
paper: Papertrey Ink white
accessories; white eyelet, gray floss

Which Color Combo Do You Prefer?

Most of the color combinations I pin on my Pinterest Color My World board have at least four and sometimes six colors. I prefer using one or two colors, so sometimes, I pick two and play. Today, I've got two color combo pairs, inspired by this pin. Which do you prefer?

First up, Hero Arts pumpkin pie and SU cherry cobbler:

Next, Memento grape jelly and Hero Arts pumpkin pie:

I didn't have pumpkin-pie bling, but I did have half pearls that were an almost perfect match.

So, do you prefer the cool dominant of the grape jelly or the warm dominant of the pumpkin pie? I'm agnostic...just interested in other people's color preferences!!!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Big Hugs
ink: various
paper: white Papertrey
accessories: rhinestones and half pearls

Sunset Through the Trees

Kaleidacolor's Berry Blaze ink is making me happy.

As I explained on Tuesday's post, these colors came courtesy of a large Hero Arts shadow stamp, a Kaleidacolor ink pad, and a water spritzer. The result is a lovely watercolor effect that, with Berry Blaze, evokes a beautiful sunset. So I stamped this birch grove from Papertrey's Through the Trees, cut it out, mounted it on the card with craft foam, and stamped the sentiment from Papertrey's Peaceful Garden.

The Memento Luxe tuxedo black is a thick pigment ink gives great coverage over the Kaleidacolor dye ink.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Through the Trees, Peaceful Garden; Hero Arts shadow
ink: Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze, Memento Luxe tuxedo black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: spritzer bottle, craft foam, glue

Fun with Punches: Part 2

In yesterday's post, I used Martha Stewart hydrangea punches for a layered focal point that took advantage of some rather dark purples and greens (shown below, right) stamped using a Kaleidacolor Vineyard pad and large shadow stamp. Today's layered, punched focal point is lighter and brighter, using the greens-and-blues Kaleidacolor Calypso panel (bottom left).

My first instinct for the Calypso colors was aquatic, but I really, really needed a card to send to the daughter of my friend who passed away in November. My friend loved butterflies and actually participated in an effort to save an endangered moth here in Ohio. Using a butterfly made more sense.


Now, I'd never thought to layer butterfly punches, but the hydrangea punches were designed to be layered, and that put layering in my brain. So I made this card, which also uses Martha Stewart punches.

Some of you may be breaking out in hives at the thought of all that white space, but I adore this clean-and-simple card with its linear, clean, right-justified sentiment and askew, curvy, bejeweled butterfly. More importantly, I think my friend's daughter will love it.

Note that the sentiment on yesterday's card was stamped in espresso truffle because the black was just too harsh. With the brighter shades of green on the butterfly, however, the high-contrast black is perfect. It pops!

Check out your punch and/or die stash for the same image in various sizes. Are any suitable for layering? Experiment! Play around! See what happens! Let your creative freak flag fly!

Up tomorrow, something different with the purple-and-pink panel....

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Everyday Blessings, Hero Arts shadow
ink: Kaleidacolor Calypso, Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: glue pen, Martha Stewart butterfly punches, rhinestones, Bic marker to color the rhinestones, water spritzer

Fun with Punches: Part 1

As many of you already know, I don't own a die-cut machine. It's been tempting over the years, especially because my husband has five very expensive hobbies: cooking, photography, swimming, biking, and running. I do paper crafts.

Seriously, he owes me.

But for a number of reasons, I've resisted the siren song of die-cut machines and all those dies I would buy if I had a machine to use them on.

Recently, I realized that I have a large stash of punches that are going unloved and unused. So be prepared for plenty of cards with punched shapes in the coming weeks. REMEMBER: Even if you don't do punches, you can use any of the techniques I show with your dies. I keep it simple, after all.

Today's card started with my playing around with an old, old, old Hero Arts shadow stamp and Kaleidacolor ink pads.

After inking the stamp, I spritzed it with water and stamped it. The soft, artfully blotchy and blended results were very inspiring! So what do I do with all this gorgeous, colorful goodness?

The two images on the left showcase bright and cheery colors, but the one on the right seems serious and a bit dark and muddy. As I explored my stamp drawers, the Martha Stewart hydrangea punches called out to me. Here's the result:

PTI's Everyday Blessings set gave me a sentiment that fit the mood of the darker colors, and the layering of the hydrangea punch and a touch of bling combine to create a strong, powerful, interesting focal point.

Note that the hydrangea placement evokes the cross of the crucifixion. That's on purpose.

The first card I made with a hydrangea from this color scheme didn't quite work. The layout wasn't right, but also, the combo of Memento Luxe tuxedo black with the soft, dark colors didn't work. This card uses Memento Luxe espresso truffle, which is a really dark, warm gray shade. It's not as harsh as tuxedo black and makes the perfect neutral to combine with the olive and purple flower.

Even if you've got a die-cut machine, pull some punches out and play around with them. They deserve some love, too!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Everyday Blessings
ink: Memento Luxe espresso truffle, Kaleidacolor vineyard 
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Martha Stewart hydrangea punches, glue pen, rhinestone, craft foam, glue

I Like Big Bling

Played around with a new stencil and came up with this clean layout. The big bling makes it!

First I taped the stencil down using temporary adhesive and, using a stencil brush, pounced ink from Kaleidacolor's Fresh Greens inkpad to create a gradation on a large scrap of card stock. Then, I cut out the border strip, making sure that it was fairly centered.

Glue the border onto a card base, add a sentiment and bling, and the result is fresh and modern!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey sentiment
ink: Kaleidacolor, Memento Luxe
paper: Papertrey
accessories: stencil, temporary adhesive tape runner, rhinestones, stencil brush

Design Process: Evolution of an Idea from Meh to Better to Best

Slowly but surely, my crafty mojo is returning. I'm probably making one card in four that's blog-worthy, but that's better than the 1-in-10 of last week. The process works, so today's post walks you through some of my process at work.

Let's start off with a meh card. I pulled out Mendhi Medallions from PTI and decided to make a thank-you card with a happy color for the medallion and strong black for the sentiment. Nothing else.

Meh. Not bad, not good. Just meh.

This card is fine, but there are a few design quibbles. First, the sentiment is the focal point, but its placement is sort of off...not really a strong position for the eye to feel comfortable. It's not in a sweet spot and doesn't obey the law of thirds. Second, the vertical orientation feels wrong and creates a rather top-heavy design. Third, it's just rather dull. I do like that the font of the sentiment is heavy enough to cut through the busy medallion design and to be very read-able, but overlaying it resulted in a cramped feel to the whole card, which is weird given all that glorious white space.

So I found some strips of card stock in my scrap drawer, chose a horizontal arrangement, and felt much better about the whole idea.

Better!

This layout provides a much more pleasing design. There's room to breathe (plenty of room!) but the raised panel, with its clearly defined space, works well. The center of the medallion is top left, the sentiment is bottom right, and the asymmetry is ever so appealing. The design pleased me enough that I made two more cards in different colors.

There's still something missing, however. The design is solid, but it's begging for a little detail to take it from better to best.

Bling.

Oh, yeah.

Just a little, tiny bit of bling.

Nailed it! The center of the medallion was just a bit too undefined, and that small rhinestone carries a LOT of weight, doesn't it?

And that's how I got three cards that make me really happy!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Mendhi Medallions, Gina K thank you, Hero Arts thanks
ink: Hero Arts butter bar, fresh peach; Ancient Page henna; Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, rhinestones, Bic/Sharpie/Copic markers to color rhinestones to match the inks

Color Inspiration

Source

My cards generally have either one or two colors plus a neutral (usually black), but my "Color My World" Pinterest board contains 447 pins, each with four-, five-, or six-color schemes.

Sometimes, we just need to break out of our habits and play around, don't we?

Tip: Whenever you're going to stamp a sentiment over an image, it's a good idea to use a nice pigment ink (which is opaque) for the sentiment and dye ink for the image. That way, the sentiment stands out over the dye inks and is more easily read.

This card will go to a friend who is fighting that respiratory crud that is going around here in southwest Ohio. It's an icky bacterial infection, with a lingering cough.

Stay healthy, readers. Stay healthy.

Supplies
stamps: Technique Tuesday One of a Kind, Gina K sentiment
ink: Memento sweet plum, pear tart, bamboo leaves; Hero Arts butter bar; Ancient Page amethyst; Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, corner chomper

Snow Storm

Before we get to today's card, I want to pass along a question from reader Laura H., who asked me if the Tim Holtz Deco Sheets work well with dies. As I don't have a die cut machine of any sort, I'm useless to her on this, but perhaps one of you fine stampers can help her out. How do those glimmery, adhesive-backed sheets work with dies?

Thanks in advance!

Now, for the snow storm.

Generally speaking, I love white space. Well, duh. But sometimes--very rarely--my CAS-lovin' heart looks at a card with lots of white space and says, "Meh. Kick it up a notch."

That's what happened with today's card. Originally, there were just three snowflakes arranged in a lovely triangle over the sentiment. Boy, did it look blah. I suspect the sentiment is just too large and the snowflakes too spaced out. The idea of Winter Wonderland just didn't go with two smallish and one mediumish snowflake.

When I started adding the large and small snowflakes to the edges of the card, the whole design came together. The veritable snow storm of lovely purple flakes makes much more sense with the sentiment, lending some overall unity to the design.

So white space isn't always a good idea.

Wow. You have no idea how hard that was to type.

Supplies
stamps: A Muse Snow Crystals, Rubber Cottage sentiment
ink: VersaMagic pretty petunia, Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestones, corner chomper 

Tim Holtz Deco Sheets: A Review

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "Lateblossom and Tim Holtz? Nawwwww!!!"

But seriously. I saw the package of Deco Sheets at Michael's the other day and reached for it without thinking. When I read there were 8 sheets of shimmery, glittery adhesive-backed goodness in the package, I also realized they couldn't possibly be very thick...which is an improvement on the heavy glitter card stock that broke my holly punch a few years back. Perhaps, just perhaps, the Deco Sheets would be the Goldilocks of glitter paper: not too thick, not too thin, but just right.

Yay!

My initial card uses a punch that also caught my eye at Michael's...a Fiskars layered petal punch that annoyed me immediately by not punching through heavy Papertrey Ink white card stock. Ugh. But it went like butter through the Deco Sheets.

My mad photography skilz don't do justice to the shimmer of this beautiful paper, but the close-up comes close.

Here's what I noticed about the Deco Sheets:

1. The actual sticker is very thin, so you're not adding bulk to a card at all.

2. The adhesive sticks well after being pressed, but if you set the sticker down in the wrong place by accident, it WILL come up without damaging the paper. At least it did for me.

3. My worries that the backing would be hard to remove were unfounded. Peeling the backing sheet off was much easier than I expected. A few petals required several attempts, but my limited patience was not tested at all.

4. The paper isn't slick like some of the stickers I've purchased in the past; it has a fine texture. But it also doesn't seem to shed glitter like the glitter card stock I have. The glitter appears to be extremely fine and sparkles A LOT.

Yippeeee!!!

Now, the Fiskars punch was relatively smooth and simple, but it got me thinking. Would the Deco Sheets work as well with a really detailed punch shape...like a snowflake?

No worries. The Deco Sheets behaved admirably, even with this detailed snowflake, and the backing was still relatively easy to pull off.

So, if you've been looking for an easy, mess-free way to add glittery punched or die-cut shapes to your cards, Tim Holtz Deco Sheets might just be what you're looking for.


Full Disclosure: Because there's some internet law thingie, it behooves me to tell you that Tim Holtz did NOT pay me to say this. I stumbled across the product in Michael's and decided to give it a try, paying for it myself (without even a coupon!). I am not now--nor have I ever--taken money from Tim Holtz or from whatever company he works for or from Michael's to hawk wares. I simply like the Deco Sheets and thought I'd share!

Supplies
stamps: Clear and Simple thank you, Clearly Besotted best wishes
ink: Memento Luxe gray flannel, black
paper: Papertrey White
accessories: Tim Holtz Deco Sheets, Fiskars punch, Martha Stewart punch