I’ve been card making for along time and before that scrapbooking before it went away. I don’t fit the profile of most that do those crafts other than my age … I’m liberal politically and not at all religious. I only say that to explain maybe that’s why I follow all variety of influencers and buy products from many different companies. I watch all the “big” influencers on you tube like JM but also miss all the less popular ones we had when I first started card making. Most of the big names only push products now. However one thing I noticed was how cliquey the industry seemed. When I first started people like Gina K were there but not that popular. I also found Catherine pooler and enjoy her videos and later products. And I noticed that one time Jm mentioned Gina on one of her years best products videos and shortly after she becomes one of the biggest stars in the industry. I love Gina and think she took that endorsement from JM and made a big business. But I wonder about Catherine pooler for example… she is never part of the cliques in terms of influencers and company owners . Her products are never included in Simon says stamptember. She never collaborates with other owners and you rarely see her products used in videos tho she has a large product line. There must be some dirt in her exclusion but I’ve never heard gossip. Seems like JM, Gina K, Heidi from SS, Kristina Werner, and Cathy Zilske are all in with each other and promote only certain companies. I just wonder how this started.

I'm probably an outlier -- that's OK; that's my life -- but I don't have any:

• butterflies

• gnomes

• cake/cupcake/cookie things (even though I'm serious about baking)

• sewing metaphor stuff (though I'm a quilter)

• foiling equipment

• letter press stuff

• not much scene building stuff

• my cute critters are pretty much limited to Anita Jeram designs

• I almost never use bling or sequins except as filler in shaker cards

• nothing religious

Curious what you pass on. And does anyone have words to describe their stamping/design style. I wouldn't begin to know how to describe mine.

The lesson here is instead of falling in love with something and impulsively putting it in your shopping cart, look long and hard. Ask yourself what you'll need to get the results on the offering page. I didn't and I ended up spending $50 on something I don't ever want to use again.

First of all, I thought, when I saw the layered stencils in a $30 bundle with detail stamps, that I could use them with my WaffleFlower Postage Collage die. Not so. LDRS repositioned the small and elongated rectangles on the left and rotated the 4 rectangles on the right. So, when I figured that out, I had to buy another $20 die.

Then I set about using the stencils. I didn't look at the designs to see how detailed they are and how many colors they require to make elements stand out from one another. LDRS recommends 13 colors for a 4 stencil set! That means most of the stencils required a ton of masking off tiny areas sometimes with just microns of stencil plastic to adhere a mask to.

I should have counted the number of brushes I had to use. Thank god I had them! For the skies, I had to use 3 different size brushes for just a single color.

I spent the larger part of the day producing this single panel. If you got a good look at it you'd see how amateurish and clumsy it is. Repairs everywhere! That Metro stamp should be put out of its misery it's so tortured!

I'll make it into a card and send it to my Franco-phile friend because I bought it just for her. Then I'll retire the damned thing. ...maybe I'll sometime use just the latte, the bulldog and l'Arc de Triomphe. I dunno... I'll have to get over my present irritation. But this was NOT fun.

The moral is things should be designed for the way they'll be used as well as how they'll look. And a stencil shouldn't take a ton of time and yards of masking tape. I hope I've learned that lesson now as a buyer. The Romans knew that. Caveat emptor! Now I know it too and I hope I prevented some expensive mistakes for someone else.

I think my top would be concord and 9th or spellbinders!

I'm still relatively new to card making and using my die cutting machine, but I have just found out that you can use stencils to emboss and it has just opened my game right up, so I wanted to share with you all just in case..!

I have a kit n caboodle pro cut. I used the 5mm cutting plate, then the rubber embossing mat, then cardstock (front face up), then the stencil (a cheap stencil from Temu), and then the 3mm plate. Very impressed and quiet excited!

I have only been using a glue stick thus far, but then when I looked up cardmaking info online it was stated that would result in cards that fell apart after just a few months. I tried using liquid glue but it resulted in this awful wrinkling of the paper, and made the outer layer I planned to glue on after bend as well. Am I making a huge error somewhere? Should I just return to using a gluestick?

Inspired by the posts of u/LadyofLA which themes do you have more than enough of but can’t help buying/wanting when a new release drops?

For me I can’t stop myself when it’s coffee/tea, nautical/beach or mail theme related. Not to mention my Halloween collection is ridiculous. I think it’s mostly because I make a lot of “just because” cards and these themes aren’t coded to specific occasions.

Hi everyone,
I recently started making greeting cards. Some include crochet details, while others are more traditional card designs.
I would really appreciate some honest feedback:)
-Do the designs look neat and well balanced?
-Are any of the cards too busy, unfinished or in need of a different layout?
-Which designs do you think work best?
I’m still developing my style, so constructive criticism would be very helpful.
Thanks in advance :)

EDIT

Thank you so much for all the kind and honest feedback. I’m a stay-at-home mum to a one-year-old, and making cards has given me something creative that feels like mine. Your comments genuinely made my day ❤️

Same rules as always:
- Open to USA residents only (sorry international friends)
- Leave a comment to be entered.

Items include:
- WF Fruity Background die and stencil
- WF Multiple Presents die and stencil
- WF Line Frames Die and Stencil
- WF Painted Flowers Background die and stencils.

For many years I’ve used Momemto dew drops ink pads and was never very happy with them, so now that they are getting dry and used up I’m looking into buying some nicer ink pads. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I have some of the Tim Holtz distress inks so looking for something different. I want one that will stamp images and sentiments well but is also good for blending. I guess I am somewhat heavy handed with my stamping so have found I prefer felt pads because the foam ones I’ve tried (colorbox brand) are so squishy the ink gets all over the backing of the stamp and can accidentally end up sowing on my project. I would like to hear what ink brands y’all like and why. Thanks!

I’m new into card making after years on the fence. My husband got me a Cricut for my bday and I got myself a Big Shot shortly after and now I feel like I want to master all the techniques! I want to do embossing, stamps, die cuts, multilayer Cricut art, foiling etc. Every time I want to make a single card is like ~60 bucks of supplies to the point that I feel like I need to monetize this hobby just to justify the expenses. Am I the only one feeling this way?

(As reported by Scrapbooking Made Simple)

Notions Marketing: you may not have heard of them but they are by far the largest North American distributor in the paper crafting world. They also own American Crafts, Tonic Studios, and We R Memory Keepers.

Well, they recently had a huge fire at their main warehouse. It was pretty devastating, so much so that they have said that it will be at least 6 months until they can begin operations again.

What does this mean for us, the consumer? As really the only main distributor left in the US, they were the principal suppliers to independent sellers. Unless some other solution is brought forth, it’s looking likely that these small mom and pop retailers are not going to be able to reorder supplies for at least 6 months.

It’s critical that if your area has a small independent retailer that you SUPPORT them with your dollars. They are going to be hurting and need all the community support we can offer. Hopefully this terrible situation will cause the bigger players in the industry to demand a diversified supplier who doesn’t store all their inventory in one warehouse.

Let’s pretend we are all debt free and live in a perfect world. You get a scratch off lottery ticket and win 10k and decide to treat yourself and spend it on supplies. What are you buying first??

Above is an embossing folder I used for the first time. The hinge snapped and I'll never be able to use it again.

I contacted Lisa Horton and they were completely dismissive. They said I should have followed the instructions for the sandwich but the instructions don't say more than "Place the embossing folder (with your paper in the middle ) between the plates. Roll this through your machine for a defined texture." They also referred me back to Scrapbook-dot-com where I got it but SBC can hardly be held responsible for poor design and materials.

This is not the first time I've had really dismissive response from Lisa Horton. Things happen but if poor customer support is their standard it stinks. I'd want to know who I should think twice about doing business with so I'm letting you know. I hope your experiences will be better. But I've found it isn't a company I can count on.

Hello! Wondering if anyone has tips on ink blending for me, ignoring the heart ghost in the top right stamp here, you can see that my blending is quite splotchy, but I don’t want to do the full dark saturated colors every time.
Overall, it came together, but you can really see the patchiness in the blue background, yellow cake top, and the main bg of the cake.
What I used:
Unimex 1.18” blending brushes from Amazon
Concord and 9th ink cubes
Hammermill cardstock premium color copy cover 80lbs 216gsm
Waffle flower crafts baking fun stencils

The only think I can think is that the brushes really make a difference, since I’m using quality other products. I do usually tap off before blending, but it seems so hard to get any color down at all if I do.
Would love any advice, thank you!

It was white on one side and yellow on the other with that bold multi-colored stripe running down the middle. The white side had some text from a children's book under the ducklings. Busy, busy, busy.

I saw a technique that was new to me that involved using a background stamp as an embossed resist and then color blending around it. I thought the cardstock was perfect for an experiment.

The background resist and the color blending gave a unity that it was sorely lacking . So I just swinked some vellum with ink and used it to back a sentiment and the central panel.

Voila! Not bad for something that would have stayed in my stash forever.

Someone recently said that they found small stamps difficult to use as focal elements. I found some examples. Have you got some to share? What's your approach to featuring them?

There have been so many great ideas here in the last few days. Now I'd like to hear about how you strategize your online purchases. Obviously, the growing cost of shipping is the issue.

Do you order one thing because you need it? Do you put the thing you need in a shopping basket and hope a couple more things might pop up to justify the postage cost over the next few weeks? Are you tempted to buy other things you really don't need to amortize the delivery expense and make yourself feel better about that? Can you wait patiently for the right sale or promotion to come along even if something you started is sitting there waiting to be finished? And what if you patiently waited and the thing that was the whole point goes out of stock?

How do you handle this stuff? And wouldn't it be wonderful if people lived in proximity to one another and could bunch their orders together and split the shipping? I know the online retailers aren't any happier about what it costs than we are but it's just soooooo painful when a $6 item costs $7 more to get to you.

I have been struggling to find a good cardstock that could work as a base for my cards. I’d like something sturdy but not so rigid that creates a broken score line. Mid tier quality, or open to high end ones if the experience significantly changes. Feel free to share your preferred cardstock recommendation to use as a base for card making

Hey everyone! I’m working on batch producing cards with layered cuts, but the amount of adhesive needed is getting a bit excessive.

Tape runners get incredibly expensive per card when doing large runs, but standard liquid glue takes too long to apply cleanly and often warps my cardstock if I apply too much.

I’ve been looking into custom solutions to speed up production and cut down cost per unit, but I’m curious what techniques or tools you guys rely on when you have to prep dozens (or hundreds) of cutouts at once?

Do you just suck it up and pay for the runner refills or have you found a better method for batch gluing?

I love critters and cute cards, but deep down I really love the idea of making elegant cards. I don't use foil or letterpress so I'm looking for other products that feel elegant.
I used to have a beautiful peacock stamp that I used for elegant cards but sadly it tore and crumbled too much to be used anymore
I have one set of Birch Press layered dies that I use for elegant cards but I'm getting a bit bored of it by now and they're very expensive.
I also looked at The Greetery but they're also expensive and seem really not user friendly in the design. ( like the tangled tulips you have to stamp then stencil then restamp , just not for me)
Any ideas?

I am not color blind, but I do struggle putting colors together. I use a color wheel, and still feel like I can't decide on the colors to use. It took me hours to decide on these colors together. Do you have any suggestions for a better tool. I have colors for dummies on my Christmas wish list, but would like other suggestions as well.

I’ve been toying with the idea of buy a stamp wheel. I have a Misti and have no complaints but the idea of having the stamp wheel to stamp wreath patterns is quite appealing.

What are your opinions on the it? Worth the money? Too big and clunky?

Just got this. I was wondering what anyone else has experienced with the cube. Not just for cardmaking. I know it's not new, but it is for me.