Julie Finn
I am not much of a paper crafter.
I’m just too messy with the glue, for one thing, and I use too many buttons as embellishments, and whenever I make a layout, whether it’s a greeting card or a scrapbook page, something is always, always, ALWAYS crooked.
But when has being bad at something ever stopped me from doing that thing?
Um…. NEVER!!!
And that’s why, when I received a free copy of The Complete Photo Guide to Cardmaking from a publicist, I jumped right in and made a bunch of cards, anyway. Never mind the messy glue. Never mind all the buttons.
And yes, my glue is still pretty messy–you can see it on a couple of the cards in the photo above. Oh, well. And fine, I did use too many buttons. To be fair, whereas people who craft with paper all the time probably have loads of cute embellishments on hand to give their pieces variety, what I tend to have on hand are buttons, so that’s what I use.
But seriously, don’t you think the buttons look cute on this card?
I accidentally touched one a second later and smeared the glue a little. Oh, well…
Glue and buttons aside, I think that you’ll find my greeting cards remarkably well aligned, don’t you think? There’s a tip in the book for cutting the frames for your images nice and straight.
Oh, and did you know that you should cut little frames for your images? It makes them stand out!
I also used the book’s tips for playing with surface alteration, and I’m pretty proud of the burned edges that I gave that card on the right, in the top photo.
I know that sending actual greeting cards isn’t so much of a thing, anymore, but I really like to have a few handmade greeting cards on hand. If you by chance remember someone’s birthday a few days ahead of time–rare, I know, but it happens–then it’s easy to make that day extra special by sending them a real, live birthday card, and I think that it’s kind of relaxing to sit down with my kids, when they’re working on their schoolwork at our big table, and write a note to send to a friend.
It’s not quite an adult coloring book, but you know what you could do?
You could turn your finished adult coloring book page into the front of a greeting card!
I received a free copy of The Complete Photo Guide to Cardmaking, because I can’t write about a book unless it’s encouraged me to take a lighter to something old and flammable.
