One of my New Year’s aspirations (not resolutions!) was to learn another craft – card making. I’ve been tempted for a while, mainly because I have a stationery fetish and it seemed like a legitimate excuse to play with paper, stamps, stickers and glue.
I visited my local homewares store over Christmas, which I know sells lots of card making supplies. However, apart from the obvious (like paper and envelopes) I wasn’t too sure what the rest of the stuff was for. It turns out there are many techniques in card making and all of them seem to require baffling specialist equipment.
I did some online research on card making. If I thought the world of cross stitch was twee, it’s got nothing on card making. Happily though, I came across Lucy’s Cards blog – I really like her simple, retro style. I found out about Hero Arts through Lucy’s blog; they make stamps and other paper crafting supplies. I’d like one of each of their stamps, please (!) but I’ve started my collection with these (all images from Hero Arts website)
Hero Arts have a learning section on their website with some useful guides on stamping and card making and there’s also a gallery of ideas. Despite this, I found it hard to know where to begin, so one of my lovely crafting friends offered to give me a basic introduction to card making. I’ve made a couple of cards now – I’ll try to take photos of them at the weekend, assuming we have any daylight.
I thought card making would be a cheap hobby, but I was wrong! You need to spend money upfront on basic supplies. As a minimum you need: card; envelopes; a paper trimmer; scissors; a cutting mat; a craft knife; a scoring tool and various adhesives. For stamping, you need: ink; stamps; acrylic blocks (if you are using clear stamps) and baby wipes (for cleaning stamps). Finally, you’ll probably want to buy some patterned paper and embellishments such as buttons, ribbons and stickers. I tell you, there’s no end to it. The next thing I need to get is storage.
So far it’s fun and it has more of an instant gratification factor than knitting. It’s taking me a while at the moment, because it’s all new, but some card designs can be made in 10-15 minutes. Also, I love the idea of sending people something handmade rather than mass produced (and aren’t shop bought cards expensive these days?).
It concerns me that I am taking on one too many crafts, though. I struggle to fit in everything already, so adding something else is stupid. Ho hum, it’s the unnecessary things that make life worth living, I guess.
PS if you’re from the UK, do you remember a political thriller called ‘House of Cards’ broadcast in the 90s, starring Ian Richardson? Mmm, he was so deliciously evil.
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January 21, 2011 at 4:52 pm
CraftyCripple
I think that having a wide array of craft skills is a good thing. I do understand though with a full time job, actually using all of those skills may be impossible, but its good to know how to make things when you want to.
If you want to learn a new craft, some of your other crafts may suffer a little neglect in the beginning, but after a while your crafts will all fall into their new balance.
Knitter’s sometimes need a quick fix craft to make them happy during those long slogs! Have fun with the card making and I can’t wait to see the results.
January 21, 2011 at 4:53 pm
The Girl
This is definitely something that I could easily get suckered in to and have so far resisted. It’s kind of like the world of scrapbooking, the possibility of spending ridiculous sums of money is just too tempting!
But I do want to dip my toe in to the world of cardmaking – cross-stitching them is great but so time consuming sometimes, it would be nice to whip something up a little quicker!
January 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm
mooncalf
Oh I watched that quite recently for the first time: “You might well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment” Brilliant!
Card making has always shocked me with how much equipment and materials are involved. To create one effect. And then you need to buy a whole load more for the next decorative effect. Paper and stickies and special printers and inks and stuff.
But I suspect my own hobbies would not bear close financial examination either
January 22, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Claire
I love the idea of New Year’s aspirations – I’m still working on my 101 in 1001 project to get around the idea of resolutions.
I’m avoiding new crafts like the plague. They’re as addictive as crack, I tell you..
January 22, 2011 at 8:17 pm
knitsamadworld
I am an ex-card maker. I really enjoyed doing it but my circle of friends and family isn’t huge so I ended up accumulating a card stash! My other problem was that I didn’t want to keep making the same or a similar card over and over again so I would keep buying a new stamp or new stickers etc for almost every card. It worked out far more expensive to make my own cards than buy them.
I still have quite a lot of card making stuff though, maybe I’ll make one or two with some leftovers – uh-oh!!
February 4, 2011 at 10:28 am
WorstedKnitt
Sounds like a nice new hobby!