Quick Cards for a Good Cause

Hi everyone! I have been busy behind the scenes, catching up with life in general. We traveled to Iceland for Christmas, New Years and our grandson's first birthday, and since we got back, I just seem to be behind in everything. Early in February, I went to a gathering of women from my friend's church. The goal was to put together Valentines for the church to sell to buy blankets for accident victims and homeless people.

The woman who had organized the gathering said that she had wanted to also have some cards that were not Valentines, for people who don't give Valentines. I thought of how I am able to make a large volume of Christmas cards by starting early and making cards each month towards that goal. I decided to try to produce at least 10 cards per month for this cause, and that means that I should be able to contribute at least 120 cards by next February. Since I wanted the 10 per month to start in January, I was already behind.

I have not taken time to properly photograph the cards I'm making for the blog, but I will try to do that sometimes going forward. Here are a few rather poor quality photos, so you can see what we've been doing. My friend Deb Kuttel and I collaborated on all of these cards, and we will be joined by Pam and maybe others as soon as tax season is over.

Part of what makes these quick and easy is that we did not have to mount them on base cards. These are just card tops. The base cards are printed with the charity name, and will be done later.

For the designs of the January cards, we were all over the place. There are a few that we made just alike, but most of them are different. This took more time, and for February, the cards are pretty much the same except for color. The colors on all of these cards are Distress inks blended with brushes.

These first cards were done with a Simon Says Stamp center cut card (SSS101805 Center Cut Heart). This is a large background stamp, and there is also a die that coordinates with it 

(Deco Heart sssd11935). We used the Sugar Pea Designs SPD-00113 Thanks die on these as well.

We stamped and embossed all of the Center Cut Heart cards using Versamark ink and either JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder, or Ranger Gold embossing powder.

Sorry for the poor lighting on these. We made a couple of each one of these last 3. For the card above we used the fairly new Hero Arts Thinking of You Stamp & Cut set (DC273); the Simon Says Stamp Scollap Stitches die set (SSSD111612); and the Impression Obsession Cover a Card background stamp CC089 Floral Lines. We stamped and embossed the background using Versamark ink and JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder. We were able to make 2 cards with each stamped panel. I added a heart to the card above from my stash, saved from a previous project.

For the card above, we used the same exact dies and stamp as the one before, which shows how versatile they are. I love dies that I can use over and over and still get a different look.

For the card above we also used the Floral Lines Impression Obsession stamp and JudiKins White Diamond embossing powder. The die on this card is the Simon Says Stamp "Thanks Scallop Border" SSSD111508. I love this versatile die, and use it quite a bit. I added a little heart about the "Thanks" that I had in my stash from a previous project.

These are just some of the cards we made. We only spend a few hours working on these, and I think they will make a great first batch of cards for this very good cause. I did not take the time to write down all of the products we used, but have tried to list most of them under each card above.

I also had some leftover stamped and colored panels that I plan to make into cards just like these for my own stash of cards to use for various occasions.

I'll try to post the February cards in a few days. Thanks for stopping by!