Great Interest at Hobby Lobby Today!

Well, I spent 5 hours at Hobby Lobby today (9am-2pm)... meeting folks, giving out 40% off coupons (I printed off internet last night), and talking about cardmaking classes...


A lot of positive interest and feedback... People were very kind in admiring my cards... I was fortunate to have a high-top table right inside the door so I could "pounce" on them as they came in... I had a nice "spread" and thought they showed well... had to make a couple of signs which HL requires be in frames... had some handouts and business cards, etc.

Here's a picture... I even had a framed printout showing all the Veggie Tales projects I've created so far... even though I didn't have the actual items, I spoke to several people about these dies made by Dies Direct... I think they will be very popular... hope to be getting some "accessories" for the VT characters for their "holiday attire"... can't wait!
One lady I spoke with said she was the Activities Director and would be calling me... not sure if she was at a 55+ community like ours or at an assisted living/nursing facility... something I had not thought about as a "market" for classes... think she said she was in Clermont but I said I'd go there!

Hope you've had a great Saturday too! Blessings!

NEW!!! Classes at HOBBY LOBBY!

We are fortunate here in Orlando to have a new HOBBY LOBBY store! I'm so excited...
I was first introduced to them when our daughter in the St. Louis area took me to one near her about a year ago... been dying to have one here ever since! I am on their calendar to teach cardmaking classes on Tuesday evenings at 6 and will add additional classes as interest warrants... hopefully there will be a lot of interest... and I'll be able to add some daytime classes on weekdays and Saturdays. The first few classes will be an introductory class with a booklet handout that explains some of the terminology, tools, techniques, etc. but we will still make at least 2 cards or other papercrafted items.

The projects for each class will be different so you can come as often as you like and learn new techniques and tips. Please come and bring your girlfriends, coworkers, daughters, and mothers... we will have a great time and you only need bring your smile to class... everything else will be provided and you'll leave with beautiful cards you'll be proud to give and friends will be thrilled to receive! You will need to pre-register so that I know how many students to prepare for... you can do that by clicking on the Hobby Lobby Classes tab at the top of the blog. Then choose the date you want from the drop-down menu at the bottom, then click on the checkout button to the right.

Elegant Fun Fold Card

I found a tutorial for this card called "Fun Folds (or Fancy Folds) Card" and after watching it promptly made four of them. They are very easy to construct yet when completed they’re exquisite and look as if they took a lot of time and effort.

You start with a 12x12 piece of designer paper or lightweight cardstock and trim 1" off of two adjacent sizes which gives you an 11"x11" piece. Then fold diagonally from corner to corner to create a large triangle.

Place the long edge of the triangle against the top horizontal edge of your scoring board and make vertical scores at 3" and 5.5" from both the left and the right ends toward the middle. Then turn it over and make a horizontal score at 3.5" down from the top point towards the middle, this will be parallel to the long edge of the triangle.

On the shorter sides of the triangle, you will see that two of the scores intersect, marking a small triangle... cut out the small triangle (basically making a "notch" on those sides).

Next you will fold the outer points of your triangle towards the middle at the 5.5" score lines and use your bone folder to make a nice sharp crease, then fold those points back towards the outside at the 3" scored lines and crease with the bone folder.

You will then take the points on top of each side and bend them towards the top, creating diamond shapes. You can then glue the bent back flaps underneath the outer half of the diamonds. You can also glue the top most pointed flaps together if you like. (If you don't glue them together, you could actually "hide" or enclose a gift card in there that would be securely inside the card, behind the main square center panel.

Decorate the card as you like. I used ribbon to hold mine closed and glued the ends of the two ribbon pieces underneath the point of the diamonds when I secured them to the flap. Then wrapped the ribbons around the back and tied them in a bow back in the front.

The top flap will tuck inside the top of the outermost diamond. I decorated both diamond shapes with a piece of pearlized cardstock that I ran through my Cuttlebug with one of those very tiny embossing folders and added a few itsy bitsy pearls... I also added a few more pearls and jewels to the middle of some of the flowers.

The inside center panel has two layers of pearlized cardstock that I cut with 2 of the Dies Direct's French Scalloped Flair dies (ST010). I stamped and powder embossed a birthday sentiment on the smaller of the two pieces which I rotated 45 degrees on top of the slightly larger one.

(A personal tip: This paper, although gorgeous as it is, had no glitz to it so I added a little! I recently found CLEAR glitter gel pens (2 in a pkg at JoAnns) and absolutely love them! One night while watching tv I just took my little gel pen and went around the edges of some of the flowers on this 12x12 sheet of dp... it makes a sutble but stunning difference! You may not be able to see it in my pics above, but the recipient of your card will surely notice it!

Blessings and Happy Crafting til next time!

~Kathy

Dies Direct Kathy's Corner
Cheery Lynn Designs blog
My personal blog

Cute Halloween Card with Larry

I ‘m back with another installment of Veggie Tales items made with Dies Direct exclusive dies…
In addition to the Larry Boy die, I used Dies Direct’s Cute Ghost (A188) and the dripping letters B-O-O (A191) dies.

(Although I didn’t add them to this particular card, you might want to add some cute bats using the Going Batty (A194) die which gives you three different sized, embossed bats… They’re really cute… just use a glue dot on their body and lift up their wings for a nice 3-D effect on your projects.)

This is a rather clever pop-up card and I thought the Cute Ghost was just perfect for the popping up part. Don’t you agree? (When you pull on the left and right sides of the card at the same time, he pops up!)

I made this card after studying the tutorial on the SplitCoastStamper’s site… here. It is called a “wiper” card and the tutorial (with video at the end) was written and recorded by one of my favorite designers on SplitCoastStampers… Beate Johns (her name is pronounced be-ah-ta)… She is one very talented lady!

You will need two 4¼” x 8½” pieces of cardstock for your base. I used two different colors. The printed black background is this great embossed and embellished cardstock I found… raised images and some glittery effects also. The small “ghostly greetings” (from Stampin Up) was stamped in white and heat embossed. You will need another small piece of cardstock measuring 1 ½” x 3” to hold your pop-up image of choice. You will need some strong adhesive tape like Stampin Up’s or Score-Tape to assemble your card.

When you watch her video, listen carefully to the tips she gives as she’s constructing it. There are even a few variations of the card at the end of the tutorial… a square version and one with two pop-ups (one on each side)! There are nearly 200 examples of Wiper cards made by other talented designers in the gallery on SplitCoast here. You will not be lacking for inspiration to create your own! Of course you can do a wiper card for any occasion, but it’s really perfect for a cute Halloween card.

(My personal tip…. when viewing/reading a tutorial on the SplitCoastStampers website, there is an option on the right side of the screen for printing out the tutorial. I highly recommend that you do this especially for those techniques you know you will make again. I keep them in a 3-ring binder for later reference.)

Here’s another Halloween card done as a pull-up, stand-up card (see previous post for link to directions on SplitCoast).

That’s it for today… keep checking back for more Veggie Tales ideas from Dies Direct!

Blessings and Happy Crafting,

Kathy

They're coming! They're coming! The VEGGIE TALES are COMING!!!

I can't begin to tell you how excited and honored I am to be designing projects for Dies Direct's new line of Veggie Tales dies for papercrafting! My first couple of projects star Larry (the cucumber) and Bob (the tomato) - just in case you're not familiar with Veggie Tales... you can read about them here on Wikipedia.

As a mother and grandmother, I've been a Veggie Tales fan for many years. I am a HUGE fan of their Silly Songs CD... the Cheesburger song being my all-time favorite. My older daughter Claudia (39) can do an awesome imitation of the French Peas... our family loves the good, clean humor (and subtle lessons) that the Veggie Tales provide for our kids and grandkids. If you're not a Veggie Tales fan, you should be... and if you think you can't enjoy that kind of silly humor... you need to lighten up and tray harder!

The first one pictured here is a stand-alone pop-up type card that can serve as a Thanksgiving Day table decoration. It has a short, 4-line blessing on it. There’s a link to the tutorial on the SplitCoast website to construct this particular style of card…. free-standing, pop-up card tutorial. There’s even a video at the end of it that you can watch before you try it yourself… And for additional inspiration, you can also check out the photo gallery of cards made by others here.

The blessing on this card was found on the very useful quotegarden.com website… it reads: “Gather round the table, thank the Lord above, for food, friends and family, and for this feast of love.”

My second Veggie Tale™ creation is a birthday card…the design/construction is one I had been wanting to try for a while but it wasn’t until my grandson received one from a fellow cardmaker while in the hospital for his appendectomy… that I finally tried making one!

It was much easier than I thought it would be. I found the tutorial for it here on Splitcoast (it’s called a tri-shutter card), printed out the instructions, and went to town… I think it came out rather well… One of the Veggie Tale™ silly songs is sung by Larry – “Oh Where is My Hairbrush” so I printed out a sentiment from my computer that read: “I was hoping for a new hairbrush for my birthday, how ‘bout you?”… May be a bit corny, but I thought it was funny. I’ve made several more tri-shutters since this first one… one of the nicest things about them is that they are free-standing so I feel they are perhaps enjoyed a little bit longer than the “average” card. If you’d like to see some others for inspiration, check out the gallery on Splitcoast here… tri-shutter gallery.

I hope these get your creative juices flowing with ideas for using the new Veggie Tales dies from Dies Direct.

I'll have some more ideas for you tomorrow!

Blessings,

~Kathy

My personal blog: http://www.kathyspassions.com/