Commitment Renewed

By Sharon | January 21, 2012

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Wait, I think I’ve heard that somewhere. Oh well, it’s true because I plan on renewing my commitment to card-a-day. I plan on tweaking it a bit but keeping up with my “Handmade by Shay” theme. I’d like to do a little more scrapbooking and experiment with other crafty or creative things. I decided to start out easy by putting together a card that was prepped months ago. It’s from one of my SEI club kits so it started out pretty easy. Here are the pieces I started with:

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Here is my finished product:

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I only needed scissors to trim the ribbon, some double sided tape for the doily, glue dots for the buttons and flowers, a paper piercer for the brads, and a rub-on stick for the quote on the inside. I thought it was a great quote for the first of the year so take pride in how far you’ve come, and have faith in how far you can go. Wishing you a happy and creative 2012!
~Shay
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Updated Shopping

By Sharon | January 23, 2012

Hey, everybody. As I hope you saw, I plan on renewing my commitment to being crafty. I’ve been working hard on getting pictures updated and cards made. If you would like to order a card, simply contact me with the card’s name and your email address. For easier browsing, I’ve put all my cards up on my flickr organized into sets by topic. If you’d like a custom card and want other design ideas, please check out the Handmade by Shay set. For anyone actually reading, I’d love to get some feedback. Why do you read Handmade by Shay? Are you a friend or family member? Do you like the design ideas and content? Also, which blog format do you like to see? Do you like mostly photos, video, or the in depth photos and directions? Please, take a minute and let me know what you think in the comments below!

Thanks,

~Shay

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Be Mine

By Sharon | February 6, 2012

I made this valentine for myself to send this year. I copied the idea from this card:

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I started with a precut white and blue card, using the blue for the inside. I decided to duplicate the look by making a heart mask that covers most of the front of the card and stamping the flowers in shades of yellow and blue. My message was a circle instead of a line so I hid it inside the heart. Here’s my duplicate:

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Technical specs: a mask is a term used in graphic design. It basically hides some of the background so let a shape appear. To do that with paper, you use it more like a stencil. I grabbed a sheet of printer paper, hand drew the heart, and cut it out using an exacto knife. I then lined up where I wanted the heart to appear and taped it in place. The last step was to stamp.

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Wishing you…

By Sharon | February 5, 2012

Today’s greeting card is one I made for my Aunt. I heard she was having foot surgery so I thought I’d wish her a speedy recovery. It was very easy to put together after freehand stamping the messages (no guidelines) and cutting out the butterflies by hand.

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Warm Fuzzies

By Sharon | February 4, 2012

Today was full of trial, error, and failure. I had this great idea for a pretty, simple card that didn’t turn out at all. Here are my tries:
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I ended up using stamps from the same collection with different colors, a cute message, and a grass sticker.

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Blue & Green Hello

By Sharon | February 3, 2012

When I started this card today the only thought I had was to weave some ribbon that I’ve had for a while. This led me to add some flower rub-ons using similar colors. I still had a lot of white space so I decided to stamp another flower and simple message using more blue and green. The final touch was matting the green onto blue and mounting it to the cardstock. I owed a friend of mine a note so I decided to use it for her. My handwriting is bad enough so I added some green lined paper to the inside of the card and wrote in blue ink. I hope she likes it!

 

 

 

 

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All you need is Love

By Sharon | February 2, 2012

Today’s card was quick and easy using a single stamp, pearl embellishments, and an orange heart. Side by side is the inspiration and my version.20120126-174818.jpg20120126-174845.jpg

Valentine’s day is around the corner! If you’d like a free handmade card, check out my love and friendship Flickr set then contact me with the card name, your name, and your mailing address.

Thanks!
~Shay

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Green Birthday

By Sharon | February 1, 2012

Today’s card is dedicated to my brother who had a birthday on January 26th. Love you, bro!

Stamping tip: To create a straight and centered message, draw pencil lines with a ruler and begin stamping in the middle of the word. Don’t forget to remove the pencil lines when you’re done!

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Love, the Master Key

By Sharon | January 31, 2012

I spent some time the other day flipping through magazines and stealing ideas. Today’s valentine is inspired by this card:

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I started by pulling from my scraps all the different colors I wanted to use: black, red, white, pink, silver. I got lucky when I came across this quote: “Love is the master key that unlocks the gates of happiness.” I knew then that I could finally unwrap this fantastic key to my heart paper. It took me a while to visualize the end product so I started by making the card from black cardstock.

I started trimming my key paper because I knew I wanted to cut out at least one of the keys and use the backside for the upper left square. I also trimmed some red polka dot paper and began lining things up.

I wanted to use the scalloped edge so I trimmed down and inked the quote square.

 

 

 

 

I also cut out silver hearts, a key, and trimmed and inked the key background block.

    

I laid everything out on the card and realized I needed a bit more silver. I pulled out some silver glitter tape and saw that some of it was already punched perfectly for this card! I was finally ready to glue things down.

    

For the inside of the card, I added pink lined paper for easy writing and a little lock for the key.

Don’t forget about my free valentine offer. If you’d like to send a valentine, comment on which one you’d like and contact me with your name and address.

Cheers! ~Shay

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Love Ya

By Sharon | January 30, 2012

This is another design experiment. I wanted a more masculine valentine’s card but liked the design of this one.

Here’s the example and step-by-step photos:

And the final product:

 

 

 

 

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Sky is the Limit

By Sharon | January 29, 2012

*This post was written on January 2 before I had access to the blog.*

I’m keeping things quick and easy this week with another card from my SEI kit. Here’s the example:
I thought it was another great card for the new year because the sky really is the limit when it comes to creativity and imagination. I also really like the design because I am totally looking forward to spring and nicer weather. The flags and pinwheel really remind me of that. Here are the photos of my steps:
      
Technical specs: to create the pinwheel, start with a square piece of cardstock. Make cuts at the corners toward the center on all four corners. The piece I used was 2.5″ square so I made my cuts 1″ long using my paper cutter. After you’ve made the cuts, bend one part of the corner and secure in the center. I used glue dots before poking the brad (and flower) through.
Here’s my final product:
Here’s to blue skies and unlimited creativity!
~Shay
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Your Voice

By Sharon | January 28, 2012

I’ve had these music stickers for a while and with the thoughts of Valentine’s Day I finally found a good use for them.

  

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