Share the Love: Special Delivery 2014

Last night, I learned about a Really Great Thing.  It's a project organized by the administrative team at Etsy, to bring a little extra cheer to recipients of meals-on-wheels in NYC on Valentine's Day.  And all you have to do to participate is make cards!  I'm definitely in!  You can participate, too, if you like: just follow this link for more information.

And if your heart wants to, but you just don't have time to make a card, let me do it for you!  You can let me know in a few ways:

* "Like" my Facebook page; or

* "Favorite" my Etsy shop; or

* Leave a comment on this post.

For every "like", "favorite" or comment, I will make one more card to send to NYC.  And thanks for sharing the love!

The DIY Holiday Card

I heard a piece on the radio last week about the decline of the annual holiday card.  And you know what?  It made me sad.  I love social media, I love how connected we can be, I love seeing my friend-from-elementary-school's kids growing up on Facebook.  But I also love mail.  Oh, how I love mail!  And I love seeing those cute family photos, I love hanging them up across the mantle, and I actually keep them.  I do.  I have a special album.  I'm not a keeper of many things, but yes, I keep those holiday cards.  

The thing I don't love is how expensive it can be to have a nice card printed.  So - you knew where this was going, didn't you? - I made my own!

First, I bought some kraft paper card stock and envelopes, some cute Christmas washi tape, 

and pulled out my glue and paper trimmer.

Next, I went to an online infographics design house (like Piktochart) and played with one of 

their free pictograph designs, changing a font here, switching up the layout there, 

to make our year-in-review blurb.  

Then, I printed it out, two on a page, and took it to my local copy center 

to have it copied onto my card stock.

Trimmed it all up to make 5"x7" cards.

Then, I took my stack of family photos - which we took ourselves using a tripod and my husband's mad photo editing skills, then had printed at Costco - and using a dot of glue in the middle, and washi tape at the edges, attached them to the back of the card.  

Done!  Here's the front and back.  And each card cost about 70 cents, including the envelope.

Happy Holidays!

Sketchbook Tuesday and A Very Exciting Happening

As promised, here is this week's offering from my sketchbook!

And, I am pleased as punch to announce another offering I've been working on for weeks and weeks and weeks: The Paper Loom is now an open shop on Esty!  

Here's a little bit of what you'll find there, with more to come soon!