Gold!

Today my mom was working on a craft project for her kids at school. It involved spray painting yogurt containers to become flower pots for little sprouts the kids were growing for Mother's Day. Well the paint ended up not being able to cover up all the wording on the containers so she turned to plan B. Find something to cover up the body of the container. She found some gold contact paper and covered the containers in that. They looked awesome after and the kids are going to finish decorating them at school! My mom had a bunch of gold contact paper left over and of course she gave it to me. (Usually crafty leftover materials end up in my hands). So the first thing I did was start playing with it! 

Obviously I tried misting it first! (See last post) And it kind of worked. I used the same honeycomb stencil as last time and the same mint color- I misted the contact paper and it was all sorts of runny. I dabbed off the wet parts and was left with something like this! (below). I actually kind of like it. It reminds me of old pennies (in a good way). Then I decided I should try cutting out words! They turned out alright but I did get a few creases. Small cut out pieces of contact paper are apparently really hard to get to stick down clean. Here is what I cam up with! 

Frustrated by the creased words above I set out to make a card that the words were smooth on. In order to accomplish this I chose a super short word- and simple lettering. And I really like how this one turned out- especially with a little pink mist in the corner! 

 These two cards were mostly experimental/ for fun. I'm not even sure what to do with them! I guess I'll keep them on file until I need a card for one of these reasons! Since I was quickly falling in love with the shiny gold contact paper look I knew I needed to put it on a card- a real card that I would sell. I scrolled through the current custom orders in my head and then it hit me.... The nautical/sailing wedding. Weddings scream gold- and I love blues and golds together. So I set out to create a cute gold anchor wedding card. I sketched an anchor on the back of the contact paper and then cut it out. Once I saw how shiny and beautiful the anchor looked the rest of the card just sort of made itself. I felt like I knew exactly what to do- I made a cute blue rope out of embroidery thread- mounted it on white and blue paper- added in a woodgrain paper to hint at a wooden boat- topped it off with a cute sun charm that I magically found- and ta-da this card was made!

I also got the opportunity to use my gold sharpie I just purchased, by adding a cute phrase on the inside! 

I am really hoping my customer is happy with this card! I am digging the gold- and I can't wait to use it on more cards! 

Misting! An addicting new craft technique!

Hey all! So I'm writing today to share in my love of such a fun, amazing new crafting technique. (Well relatively new). I first fell in love with this technique while reading Dear Lizzy's post on Paper Party about different ways to use the mist! I would highly recommend checking it out her video is totally inspiring with amazingly great ideas!

So last night I was at Micheal's and ran into some of these mists (there was a sale- how was I supposed to say no?) They didn't have Mr. Huey's (a very popular misting brand) but they did carry Heidiswapp brand which sells similar mists. I bought 2- even though I wanted them all- and started playing with them as soon as I got home!

Here are 2 videos I made using Vine- to show my first experiments using Color Shine Mist.

The first is Color Shine Mint Green. 

And I used little chipboard hearts on white cardstock. 

The second I am using Color Shine Primrose.

I also am using her 6x6 Honeycomb Stencil! 

After playing around for awhile with all the fun things you can do with misting- I decided to make my very first set of cards to sell on Etsy! I used the Mint Green color and the Honeycomb Stencil to create these cards. I am so pleased with how they look- and I cannot wait to make more! Check out the listing on Etsy and give me a favorite if you like them! 

Have you ever used misting for scrapbooking, card making or any other crafty projects? If you have I'd love to hear about it!! 

Renewed Passion

Hey there! Sorry it's been a bit since my last post. Things have been getting crazy around here! I wanted to just share my excitement with all of you about my recent sales at Everyday Hello! After my shop opened back in March I had made a few sales which was soooo exciting- but since then business had really slowed down. I was not finding as much time to make new cards to post, and was feeling slightly discouraged that I wasn't getting any sales!

Well that all changed a few weekends ago when I made a few sales to some family. It reignited that passion to craft - and the confidence that people do like my cards and will buy them. The past week or so has been a little of a blur with all the orders I got for Mother's Day Cards. I had several custom card orders and a few of my regularly listed cards sell! It has been so exciting and super rewarding to be selling my work. I even have a few custom orders (4 cards!!) still waiting to be made for upcoming events. I feel so good now that I've finally earned a little profit from my products (aka made up the money I've invested plus some) and to celebrate I went and bought a few more fun supplies to make cards with and a new organization system for storing and sorting orders! (Wooohoo I love organization!).

I am feeling so encouraged and inspired to keep making cards and especially inspired to make more custom orders. Let me just talk to you for a moment about why I LOVE custom orders. Part of the reason why I enjoy making and selling cards is because I feel like I get to be apart of the meaningful exchange of support/love/etc between two people. It's my way of helping others express their feelings and showing their loved ones just how much they care. So as you can imagine I really love getting custom card orders because I get the opportunity to create something so personal, meaningful, specialized, and unique for one specific person. If you place a custom order you have the chance to choose some features you'd like on the card but I also have an open ended comments area to share any amount of insight or personal tidbits about the recipient. It is so fun for me to turn instructions like "Loves pink, enjoys gardening, and is super girly" into a beautiful unique piece of art (card) for that person! It's like turning their personality into a fun crafty card that reflects who that person is and what they like! Such a fun creative challenge for me to tackle and I LOVE every second of it!

Ok, enough of that rant! In other news I updated the official Everyday Hello Website! Check out the gallery of purchased cards to see what I've been working tirelessly on! Here is a preview of some of them!

Also I'd really like to encourage you to consider ordering a card for someone special. I'd love the chance to be apart of that. If you have any special requests or ideas- leave a comment here or fill out my contact form on my website/or etsy and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Have a happy inspired day! I promise I'll post more very soon!