Patterned Paper 3B: The Last of Abrianna

This week I made three more cards from the K&Co. Abrianna stack I’ve been using.  That makes ten cards to give away as a set, and while I’m pleased with all of them, I’m glad to finish with this stack and move on to a new one.

Here they are.  All using chipboard, layered stickers, and diecuts from the collection.  No stamps!  The sentiments are stickers.

These are some acetate diecuts, and the sentiment is a Momenta sticker.

The sentiment on this one says, “Leave a little sparkle wherever you go,” and it’s from the Tim Holtz “Small Talk” sticker pack.  The diecut butterfly is indeed covered with a layer of sparkle — wish you could see it better in the pic.

This one is my favorite of the batch:

Isn’t it cute?  I don’t usually do cute, but this card certainly is.  This one followed one of the sketches from the CARDMAKING AND PAPERCRAFT article that I based this project on, with the corner accents and the flower cluster coming forth from the bottom one.  I’m really pleased at how the flower cluster turned out.  It’s a mix of diecuts, printed chipboard, and stickers.  The sentiment is from that Momenta sticker pack.

I’m glad I completed this project, but I am ready to move on.  Novelty is a big part of crafting for me — always wanting to try a new stamp set, a new medium, or a new technique.  Working within the constraints of one collection, even for a little bit, is a challenge for me.  I stopped buying kit subscriptions because I realized that I got bored with the coordinated materials in a kit long before I had made any appreciable dent in them.  I abandoned them and it wasn’t cost-effective for me.  This might be a weakness, being unable to stick with a project or a theme, but I think of it as a feature, as the IT guys say, not a bug.  Look, it’s just a hobby, I should be able to do what I want.  Pleasure.  That’s the whole point, right?  Not obligation.

Patterned Paper 3A: Abrianna Again

Here are some more cards I made with the Abrianna stack.  Simple, but I’m quite pleased with all of them:

No stamps on any of these cards, but paper, die-cuts and rub-on sentiments.  The sentiment on the lower left says, “Best Wishes,” and on the lower right, “On Your Birthday.”  These were die-cuts I got in a pack of freebies from one of those British crafting magazines.  No relation to the Abrianna collection at all, but I was delighted to see how well they fit with these cards.

Almost done with the set of ten. I will give them away as a Christmas gift.

New Stash-Crashing Technique: The Use-It Box

I got this idea from a YouTube channel called Mouse Potato Designs, whose creator, Felicia, an art journaler, has also been on a crusade to winnow out and use up her stash.  She calls hers a “Use It Up Box.”  I would not be so grandiose as to suggest I would actually “use up” a whole anything at once, so I’ll just call mine a Use-It Box.

Basically, it’s just a clear plastic supply box that you keep on your desk or work surface, in which you put things from your stash you would like to actually use over the course of a month or so.  The idea being, if it’s on your desk and you see it, you’re more inclined to use it.  And when it’s time to start a new project, you go to the box and start with those materials.

I really like this idea, so I have inaugurated my first Use-It Box.

Inside I have:

Sticko Epoxy Leaf Stickers

These are shiny/glittery and puffy stickers.  I have a sheet of green ones and a sheet of orange, so since fall is coming around, it seems like a good time to use those.

K & Co. Layered Leaf Stickers

Also in fall colors, so let’s use those too.

Liquid Pearls

I pulled out an array of neutral/metallic colored Liquid Pearls for the autumn palette: Bisque, Gold, Avocado, Copper, and Silver.  I went a little crazy a while back and bought the *entire* range of Liquid Pearl colors, and I never use them.  I have an idea for a masculine card with these.

American Crafts Self-Adhesive Ribbons

I don’t sew or do needlecrafts, so I don’t have many “notions” in my stash, but I do have and like these ribbons, because they are self-adhesive — they have a runner of tape on the back.  I chose orange and green for fall, and the blue as a contrasting color.

Awesome Blossoms Coloring Pack

This an adult coloring book from Paper Wishes, printed on card stock, and sized to go on the front of an A2 card.  “Coloring for Adults” is quite the fad right now, and I have a couple coloring books, but I like that these ones are heavy enough paper to use on cards.

So that, I think, is a good starter group for my first Use-It Box.  I don’t want to get too ambitious, and fill it with so much stuff that I’d never use it all.  This seems like a manageable amount of stuff, but of different, fun types. I’m looking forward to see how this will work out.

Do you have a Use-It Box or anything similar?  How does it work for you?

Patterned Paper 3: Abrianna

My next patterned paper project is a series of cards done with an old 12×12 stack from K & Company called Abrianna.  I bought this stack back when I first started papercrafting, and along with it I also bought for the first time a lot of the accompanying embellishments: layered stickers, diecuts, chipboard. (They were on sale.)  So many, I never realized I would be hard pressed to use them all!  Back then I would buy a lot of stuff at one time, because I didn’t know then that every paper and craft company came out with a whole new line every six months.  I thought I had to stock up.

I bought the embellishments because I wanted to see what it was like creating with a coordinated suite of products, see if it was any easier or better.  It is easier, as everything is designed to go together, but I enjoy the creativity of bringing disparate products together for my work.  If you are pressed for time, or are feeling creatively dry for a while, working with a collection is a good fix.

I have actually used this stack, Abrianna, rather a lot, but I found a project to use it some more.  These cards are based on an article in the January 2015 issue of CARDMAKING & PAPERCRAFT magazine. (Bowman, Nikki, “Forest Friends,” CARDMAKING AND PAPERCRAFT, January 2015, Issue 139, pp. 74-75.)*

The article is about how to use a paper collection and the accompanying embellishments to put together some quick cards.  I have followed Bowman’s lead — square kraft card bases, two layers of patterned paper, and finished with the diecuts or other embellishents.  Her collection had sentiment diecuts, but I have had to go elsewhere for mine.  The card with the peacock has a stamped, embossed sentiment, and the other three are stickers.

The “True Friends” collection from Fancy Pants in the article, which has a more autumnal palette, geometric shapes, and animal diecuts, and the Abrianna collection here could hardly be more different in style or color palette, but this is a good template to follow to work with many themed collections, I think.  If you’ve followed my blog at all you know how much I enjoy contrasting bright colors with kraft cardstock.

The lower right card is kind of a hot mess — I wasn’t thoughtful about where I put the word stickers.  But there’s no dismantling it now, so I’ll live with it.  A little girl might like that card.

The peacock card didn’t work with the double-matted squares of paper — he, the peacock, is just too big and overhung the paper and it looked unbalanced and messy.   So I modified it and I think it works well.  I would have liked to use a stamp that said “Congratulations,” (you know, proud as a peacock) but I didn’t have one that fit.

The sentiment on the upper left says, “Sending my very best.”

These are supposed to be quick cards, but they haven’t been quick for me.  I have been struggling lately to find the time and the inclination to craft.  I plan to make ten cards in this set and give them away as a gift.  But it’s been taking me so long I figured I’d better show you what I have.

I would like to enter these in Darnell’s NBUS Challenge #5, for although I have used the Abrianna collection a lot, the sentiment stickers I used on three of the cards are new. Hah!

*I am a librarian by trade, so you know I have to cite that article correctly!