Sara's Blog

Last week Keith and I took a few days to visit Rome, a city we’ve both wanted to see for so long. How beautiful! We had a great time…ate a lot, walked a lot and ate a lot more!

I’ve put a few of the 175 photos I took in the Gallery—of course, my new challenge is to get them all scrapbooked, so this morning I went to a photo center to have them printed. The very busy clerk directed me to the photo kiosk (in Dutch) then scurried to the back room somewhere. So I think I will have photos to pick up in a few days…we’ll see if I operated the machine properly!

One note: In the Gallery you’ll see Keith sitting innocently in a cute little motorized bicycle car. I thought it would be fun to take a relaxing ride around the Villa Borghese park. I forgot that Keith Naumann is a speed-demon on a bicycle (even one like this). Five minutes into our ride, I was shrieking, “Apply the brake! Apply the brake!” as we rocketed down a sloping path, narrowly missing a gelato cart. “We aren’t going that fast,” Keith said calmly as we made a dramatic gravel-spraying u-turn, “It only goes about 20 miles an hour.” Turns out being a white-knuckled passenger was good practice for our taxi ride to the airport the next day!

PS. The summer issue of Paper Wishes should be coming to you next week! I’ve just gone through it and it is packed with cool stuff—I’ve got my eye on about 20 new things I’ve just got to have!

Earlier this month, I went to the Art Specially stamping convention in Zeist. While I was there, I saw a great card example on display in a booth and of course, as soon as I got permission to take a photo…my camera batteries died. (Argh!) So I dug out my little notebook and made a quick sketch. I love the idea of stamping a single image several times, cutting the paper into sections, then re-piecing it. It’s a quick, simple way to get a unique effect. The original card used a flower image, and I figured the technique would work well with swirls as well.

For this card, I stamped the swirl from our Winter Swirls set three times onto a piece of watercolor paper, positioning one swirl vertically and two horizontally. The two horizontal swirls are placed in opposite directions.

I filled in the open areas of each swirl with blue watercolor, then cut the piece of paper into thirds and inked the edges of each third with Faded Jeans Distress Ink (this will help each piece stand out.) Turn all the pieces face down on your work surface, then tape them back together. Mat the piece on black cardstock and attach to the front of your card. I also added small clear rhinestone stickers at the center of each swirl—I think it just adds a subtle, sparkly effect.

As you can see by my sketch, the original card was cut into six sections. I only cut mine into thirds, but I think this technique is so versatile you could easily adapt it to different numbers of sections, or different stamp images. And you could also dress up the design with a stamped sentiment, ribbon or other embellishments.

PS. For those who notice that brown sheet underneath the third photo, that’s my Craft Sheet—it’s probably the very best crafting investment I’ve ever made because it protects my work surface when I’m painting, inking, stamping or embossing.

This week I stopped in at Hema, which is a Target-esque store here in the Netherlands. (It’s one of those stores you go to for a single item, and leave with five things you didn’t know you needed but were so fun/cute/absolutely necessary you just had to have them.) Anyway, I was shopping for printer paper and passed by the card section when I saw this colorful “congratulations” card.

I really like the layout of the card and how it’s divided into uneven thirds: Pattern at the top, message beneath and larger area of a different pattern at the bottom. So last night I sat down with my card making must-haves (cup of tea, chocolate, Classic Tales podcast and oh, yes—supplies) and made two variations on the same card design.

I was really pleased with how versatile the layout is, working for both a bright, colorful style and a more muted, vintage look. The colorful card is made with Citrus Use ‘Em for Anything papers; the vintage card is made with Bohemian sarapapers™. Both stamps, “celebrate” and “happy birthday”, are from the Expressions set. I’ve accented each sentiment with colored pencil.

Thanks for the inspiration, Hema!

Sympathy cards are some of the very hardest to make. Gloria, a Webisode viewer, reminded me of this when she emailed asking us to show more sympathy cards. So last night I was experimenting with our acrylic stamps and markers and made up this “thinking of you” card. I like the softness of the pink and green papers and that chenille background paper seems comforting and warm. Of course, an elegant botanical image is always appropriate as a sympathy card focal. With sympathy cards, I try not to get too elaborate in design or embellishments—simplicity and sincerity seem more suitable.

Here’s how I made my card:

1. Cut a piece of chenille patterned paper slightly smaller than the card front; center and glue.


2. Color the flower acrylic stamp with pink and green Marvy markers, applying the marker directly onto the acrylic stamp. If the ink on the stamp starts to dry before you’re done coloring, simply breathe onto it to reactivate the ink. Stamp the image onto a 4"x2 1/2" piece of white paper.


3. Insert a silver brad to the left side of the stamped flower. Wrap gray embroidery thread around the white paper, making an “x” at the brad. Secure on the back side with clear tape.


4. Attach the stamped flower paper to a 4 1/4"x3 5/8" piece of green texture paper. Stamp “thinking of you” at the bottom right. Mat the piece top and bottom with pink texture paper, then mat the entire piece on white paper. Glue to the front of the card.

Tip: I stamped the flower onto a piece of watercolor paper, which is a thicker paper and gives more stability when wrapping with the embroidery thread. I think it also lends a nice touch to those extra-special cards. The marker technique does work with regular paper and cardstock as well, but of course you’ll get different effects with different types of paper.

The flower is from the Botanicals acrylic stamp set and the “thinking of you” stamp is from our Expressions set. The paper is from the Cardmaker’s Pretty Creative Pack.