No Gifts Please
I found myself in the predicament of having a gift for my mom's birthday but no card. I think sometimes my subconscious rejects buying cards because they've gotten pricier. Why spend $6 on a card when I can spend $6 more on the gift and the card will end up in the trash anyway? Maybe that's why I didn't buy the card and maybe I just forgot. For the purposes of this post, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I gave a cool card anyway and didn't have to drive back to the store.
Apparently making cards is my new favorite thing to do. I dug through my desk and found some of my crafting supplies. What? You don't have a box filled with glitter and stamp pads? For some of you (or most of you) you'll have to invest a little money up front to buy some supplies. It'll be worth it because you can use them over and over again. Plus, Michael's always has a 40% or 50% off of one item coupon online somewhere. I never go to Michael's without one. Although, now that I think about it, most of the stuff I buy is on sale anyway so I can't use the coupon. I digress.
I have been hoarding decorative stamps for a while and hardly ever use them. I can't remember why I bought most of my crafting supplies. I think I have an addiction. Either way, they eventually come back around and make themselves useful. In this case, they were a life saver. As I was digging through my supplies trying to figure out how to make a card that didn't look like my 12 year old son made it, I landed on my stash of stamps. The light bulb went off and a craft idea was born. This is usually how it happens with me. These posts make it seem like I'm the Martha Stewart of Pinterest. I'm more of a cheap, lazy version of Martha Stewart...whatever that would look like.
In any case, I pulled out all of my birthday related stamps (yes, I've apparently hoarded a handful of birthday messaged stampers) along with any cake or cupcake themes ones. I grabbed some heavy off white card stock my husband bought a while back for his resumes. I'm pretty sure I've used that card stock more than he has; note to self, very good to have heavy card stock on hand as it serves a variety of uses. I only had 4 or 5 different colored stamp pads but it was good enough. And, here's the kicker, I also grabbed my embosser. Now this is where I definitely sound like Martha Stewart. Who owns an embosser? I do. Why, you ask? I have no idea. On one of my various craft store trips I thought it was a good idea; and I had a 50% off coupon burning a hole in my pocket (see above).
If you don't know what an embosser is I'm going to give you a quick tutorial. We'll call it "Embossing For Dummies." Not super original but it'll do. When you use a decorative stamp the process is something like this; pick up stamp, tap stamp onto ink pad, place inked stamp onto paper, paper comes away with a cute little stamp. An embosser turns the cute little stamp into a professional looking piece of art by making it looked raised and glossy. How, you ask? Simple. Follow the above steps but after you stamp your paper you sprinkle some embossing powder over the stamp. Apply heavily and then just lift the card up and gently let the excess fall back into the container (or onto some scrap paper which will later be emptied back into the container of embossing powder). The powder can be reused, I've had my same container for a few years now. The trick here is to make sure you use an ink pad that uses a lot of ink so the embossing powder will really stick. When you're allowing the powder to fall off the paper don't brush it or tap it, you want as much powder to stick to the ink as possible.
The actual embosser looks like a cheap plastic hair dryer/curling iron hybrid. Or at least mine does, I'll bet Martha Stewart's is pretty fancy. My cheap-o one does the trick just fine. You plug it in and it shoots heat out which you point at the paper. I know what you're thinking, "Why can't I just use my hair dryer?" I actually tried that and realized that hair dryers shoot heat and air out which then blows all of the embossing powder off of the paper before heating it up. I felt pretty stupid so I'm saving you from having that moment yourself. The embosser just shoots out the heat without the air part. When the heat hits the embossing powder it becomes raised and shiny. Voila, your DIY craft card that looks like your kid made it now looks fancy and Pinterest worthy. Good luck and send me some photos of your finished products so I can see!
