Tuesday 15 October 2013

Trick or Treat

This is the Halloween edition so be prepared to be terrified and shocked. Stop it; I am not talking about my writing and grammar, I promise to keep them horrors to a minimum. I cannot promise that there will be no tricks but if you are brave enough to look, even through your fingers there will be plenty of treats. Let the blood and guts flow as the ghouls and zombies rise.   


Some great Halloween greeting cards, yes. What too fluffy and cute for you but please this blog post is in the style of the classics, I have to get you relaxed and at ease before I can scare you out of your skins. I also have to show the sensors that this is not just another “B” rated hack and slash horror blog. If you need more scroll down, I dare you!

How was that? What! You want darker or blacker, you are starting to frighten me now. Are you sure you are human, maybe you are a ghoul or a ghost, ok give me another chance, let me give one more go.  Scroll down, I dare you!

What kind of demon are you? Ok I will give up the black arts and tell you my sources if only you will spare my sole but I warn you do not click the links unless you have the power. Scroll down, I dare you!



You must be from the Ninth Circle of hell or Hates himself to know that to make a truly horrible Halloween you need to make it yourself, so I will give you the links to the tombs that will give you the knowledge and tools to make your own horrible Halloween. All that I ask is that you forget my name and never call upon me again.  

Crafts U Print the first point of call for all your scrapbooking and card making needs. 

Mygrafico your second point of call for all your scrapbooking and card making needs.

At Digidesignresort for the cost of your email and name you get their news letter full of tips, trends and freebees. 


Happy Halloween. 

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Unique Greeting Cards

Finding unique greeting cards to send to your loved ones can be hard; having looked long and hard for a greeting card that fits them and the occasion it would not be great to know that someone has sent them the exact same greeting card, the chance of this happening can increase for holidays where card giving is popular like “Thanks Giving” or “Charismas”.
Many of the large greeting card manufactures that have stores on the high street or in shopping centres may have at what first seems like large selection of greeting cards which quickly drops down when you start to look at the individual categories. Some stores that sell lots of different goods as well as greeting cards may well have some unique greeting card produced only for their company along with a selection from a number of the large greeting card manufactures. Your next stop on your search for unique greeting cards would be small independent greeting card stores. By their very nature they will have the smallest selection of greeting cards but each one unique from the cards in the large branded stores. This is because they will be getting their greeting cards from the smaller manufactures that are unable to supply the lager branded stores and if you are lucky they will have greeting cards made by local artists.
To find the largest selection of unique greeting cards you need to venture onto the internet where you can find the work of tens of thousands of artists and designers from all over the globe. My first point of call would be Greeting Card Universe that only produces greeting cards, finding cards is easy by typing in “key words” or using their very logical categories that can be very specific “happy birthday estranged farther from daughter”. You can alter the inside verse on all the cards and on some of the cards you can alter the text on the front or even add your own photo to a section of the front of the card. You can even ask an artist to alter one of their designs for you or you can put in a request for a design you have in mind that will go out to all the artists on the site and you will get to see how artists with different styles interpret your request and all for no extra cost to you.
The next place to look would be the gift sites where you can find artists and designers work for sale on many items from clothing to clocks and puzzles to phone cases as well as greeting cards. Two of the biggest would be Zazzle and Cafepress press, the large number of products and designers on each of the sites can make it a little daunting in finding what you are looking for but is well worth the effort. Other sites are more tailored to the artists manly focusing on art prints and canvases but also include greeting cards, sites like “Red bubble” and “fine arts America”. Then there are the newer and smaller sites where the market place is not flooded with the designs of the more prolific artists like Mydoodle and Societ 6.
Renae Birthday Cavalier Spaniel Card
Renae Birthday Cavalier Spaniel Card by myshelle
Check out Spaniel Cards online at zazzle
One thing that all the websites above have in common is that once you have found and purchased your unique greeting card that design is still there for any number of people to come along and buy it, even if you have had a design changed by an artist on greeting card universe, the artist will think “one person liked the changes enough they bought it, maybe others will buy it as well” so leave for all to see and buy. The next group of websites are where you can buy handmade products only. On sites like www.Etsy.com or www.Folksy.com  you can find beautifully hand crafted greeting cards that by their nature are only produced in small numbers.
To get truly unique greeting cards for you loved ones and friends is to make them yourself. STOP, before you click away from this site thinking that it is going to be too hard or fiddly and you have no artist talent in you give me a chance, after all you have read this far why not read the rest of it. Now, I am not talking about making your unique greeting cards from scratch though I am sure that in a short time and with a little practice that is exactly what you will be doing. I am not even talking about using the wonderful kits with easy to follow instructions that you can down load and print out over and over again from great sites like Crafts U Print or My Grafico.
Embellishing greeting cards that you have acquired, I like to buy packs of holiday greeting cards from charities or thrift shops, these are not so expensive that you will worry about making mistakes and are a good starting point to hone your talents. When choosing your greeting cards try to pick a simple designs or pleasant images that have plenty of space to place you embellishments, the ideal card is one that you think is nice but just needs a little bit more decoration.
Many of the tools that you will need you may already have around your home; pens, scissors, marker pens, paper glue and if you have children you may have a lot more like paints, glitter, colouring pens, paint brushes and more. A quick visit to your local craft store or the craft section of a department store will give you an idea or the range of embellishments that you can use to decorate your cards with. You will need to have self-control not to buy everything you see, I know that I do. Buying a few stock items to get you started will do today, as you get the bug for making greeting cards you can build up your stock of what you like and know how to use and what tools will be useful to you. To start, for the price of one or two greeting cards you can get a selection of rhinestones, glitter glue and foam pads.
Taking a perfectly pleasant greeting card like the one above by adding a little embellishment you can make it uniquely your own.
tools photo tools.jpg
Above are some of the tools you might find useful when creating your greeting cards and below is a small selection of rhinestones, glitter glue and foam pads, this small selection is enough to make many cards.
glitter and rhinstones photo glitterandrindstones.jpg
By just adding a little glitter glue in different colours can make a big change to a greeting card. Using glitter glue is good for intricate work, if you want to cover larger areas it would be better to apply glue and then sprinkle on glitter, remember to put your card onto a large piece of paper or card so that you can collect the unused glitter.
silver glitter photo
cardwithsilverg-1.jpg
silver and gold photo
silverandgold.jpg
red silver and gold photo
redsilverandgold.jpg
Adding a few rhinestones to key points on your greeting card to finish off. Let the cards design or image speak to you as to where to add the glitter and rhinestones. When you first start it can be hard to know when to stop “less is more” after all you want to add to your card not overwhelm it.
close up 2 photo
Untitled-1.jpg
Try different styles and effects, do not be worried about making mistakes as you can always start again on another card and above all have fun.

Now the before and after.

snow and rhinestones
snow and rhinestones by martinspaperstore
Shop for Martinspixs Cards online at Zazzle.com






Sunday 14 July 2013

Birthday Greeting Cards


Birthday cards are the one type of greeting card that everyone gets every year. As wonderful as it is to receive a Birthday card from a loved one or a friend, a little bit of the magic can be lost if your receive the same Birthday card from two different people, worse still if you receive the same Birthday card from the same person two or more years in a row.


Receiving the same Birthday card from two people can seam like a small chance when you go into one of the big greeting card stores and are faced with thousands of greeting card. The biggest section of Birthday cards will be the General Birthday card that may then be split into pretty, funny, sexy, photo and graphic cards. However if you are looking for something more specific the selection quickly drops off., you may be able to find 18th 21st 30th and 50th Birthday cards but how about 62nd 88th and 109th Birthday cards and you will find Mother, Grand Farther, Sister and Aunt but not Step-Mother or Sister-in-Law and so on.


Luckily, there are a number of sites on the internet that have thousands of artists from around the world with hundreds of thousands unique cards already on display waiting for you with more being added every day. Many of the sites let you customize the already unique cards or let you design your own cards. At http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/martinscardstore you can ask an artist whose style you like to modify one of their cards or have a request go out to the community of artists to design something you have in mind, all at no extra cost.


Here are some of the websites where you can find Birthday Cards in no particular order, many of them offer other products like wall art, T-shirts and bags as well as greeting cards. Each of the sites has a different style and method of navigation; I leave up to you as to which are the best.

Cafepress 



Mydoodle 

Redbubble 


Zazzle 


Want a more personal and unique Birthday card then why not make your own. If you have not made a greeting card before it is not a problem, just head over to http://www.craftsuprint.com/default.cfm?r=891099 or http://mygrafico.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=500 where you can get tutorials and tips on how to make greeting cards. You can also buy all kinds of embellishments to decorate your greeting cards and even card kits that you can down load and print off over and over again (for personal use) saving you money for years to come.


Looking for inspiration, then follow me.










Sunday 20 January 2013

Valentines Day Greeting Cards





Valentines Day is coming around again and this is your opportunity to show how much you love that special person in your life or maybe let someone know that you want him or her in your life.



From the 15th century until the mid 19th century, people would send hand made cards filled with hand written sentiments expressing their love for each other. With the arrival of mass produced cards in the mid 19th century, these soon took over as the most popular type of card sent by lover’s right up to the present day.

Macro Purple and Pink Flowers Valentines Greeting Card
Macro Purple and Pink Flowers Valentines Greeting Card by PhotographyByPixie
You can sell cards , invitations, stamps and more on Zazzle.com!


In today’s world of convenience, you can buy greeting cards when you fill up your car, when you do your weekly food shopping, form your local store and that is without going near a national or local greeting card store. This is great but you may notice that their selection from which to choose from, big or small maybe very similar if not the same.





Now in the first decades of the 21st century with scrap booking becoming popular again and the internet is giving lovers the world over many new ways of expressing their love with sites like where you can customize your cards to make them uniquely yours. At sites like Greeting Card Universe where you cannot only customize your cards but you can ask the artists to design a card just for you. If you would like to make that special card your self then Crafts U Print is the only site you will need for info, templates and tips to make that card a success even if it is your first time or MYGRAFICO ARTS & CRAFTS Find that unique ideal Valentines Day gift for your loved one over at Holiday Headquarters or at  Gifts by Pixie you could do a lot worse but not much better. 








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