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