Today's Outgoing: May 6, 2015

Today's batch of missionary mail. Also, got new address labels! Check out my cute little foxes. :)

Plus, made these simple, cute cards on my Cameo. Free Dingbats + Silhouette Sketch Pens = easy awesomeness. Seriously easy.

DIY Butterfly Birthday card

Inspired by this pin, I made this with my Cameo, but wouldn't be a difficult one to do the old fashioned way provided you have the right punches. The sentiment isn't real clear in the picture, but it reads "Hope this year is your best one yet". Super easy and highly adorable.

Kyoto Kuties Birthday Card

If you are the kind of person who roams the internet in search of free files to pair with your Cricut or Cameo but haven't yet come across the Kyoto Kuties, you have been missing out, my friend! The free SVG file  actually comes in several formats other than just what was compatible with my Cameo, and includes a readme to inform you which format works best with your machine.

 The designs included with the Kyoto Kuties pack are obviously very cute, and excellent quality. Lots of layers make each image detailed and nicely dimensional. The card base is my own design that was pretty easily assembled out of the design tools and freebie shapes that were included with my Cameo. I really liked the peekaboo design for looks, but discovered I hadn't planned well to leave space for writing. I suppose this is a great option for those people that you care enough about (or are obligated enough ;) ) to send a card to, but are just a little bit lost for words. 

Overall however, I am quite pleased with the way this one turned out. 

DIY Cupcake Birthday Cards

Made half a dozen cupcakes from scratch... PAPER!

See what I did there?

Today's Outgoing: March 5, 2015

This cute little lion on a spring is going out to my cousin Kristie who enters the Missionary Training Center today to prepare to serve as a missionary in Finland for the next 18 months. Congratulations, Kristie!

DIY Birthday Cards

I don't know about you, but I've recently discovered March is a very busy month for birthdays! Therefore, I spent my weekend trying to crank out a few birthday cards.  The one with the flaming cake is by far my favorite design (which I stole from here via Pinterest). I've kept that one up my sleeve for years waiting for my dad's big 60th birthday which happens to be next week. (I'll warn you that all those flames are painstaking to assemble, but so, so worth it.)

 Though I did arrange this one myself, the cake used on this green model comes from the Silhouette store. However, you can download my new favorite font for free (Oooh, alliteration!) right here. This is an especially good font for die cutting machines because it looks naturally connected which means fewer pieces to glue down. For instance, Happy Birthday is in all of 6 pieces instead of 14 as it would be with other fonts.

 Lastly, this one is almost exactly styled as it comes from the Silhouette store, with the exception of the googly eye stickers. IMHO, it's the googly eyes that really make this one.

 

DIY Happy Giraffe Card

I gotta start using a better camera.

I whipped up this cute card a few weeks ago just to use up my last giraffe sticker, but not gonna lie,- I'm pretty impressed with the results!

Today out of the blue I felt like I should drop something in the mail again for my cousin serving a mission in Mexico. I never heard if his birthday card survived the iffy Mexican postal service, but I decided to try again anyway. Maybe it's just a meaningless whim, and maybe it will never get to him, but a little happy mail never hurt anybody.

I'm told that his family has had luck with the pouch system (AKA the ugly mail system. Seriously, you can't even use envelopes!), but I'm not going to give up on regular mail just yet.

Today's Outgoing: January 5, 2014

Today was a busy card making day. In 2014 I resolved to send all of my family and close friends a birthday card. I didn't do perfectly, but things went well enough that I wanted to do it again this year.

This card is going to go out to my cousin Jason who is serving a mission in Mexico for our church. Apparently the mail system there isn't the most reliable, so hopefully it will make it. If not I'll have to try a postcard version.

Most of the pattern came with my Silhouette Cameo software, but I modified the words because I didn't want to glue each letter individually. The balloons are also inseparable from the black piece, so I had to learn how to draw the balloon shape in the program to make all the colored ones. Sounds harder than it was.

The Many Wonders of Washi Tape

/drool

I recently had the chance to experiment with washi tape for the first time (largely thanks to an awesome sale at Joann's which made them just a buck per roll instead of $3.00). 

If you don't already know, washi tape is the semi-opaque, brightly colored, wildly patterned Japanese tape that behaves like a cross between Scotch tape and masking tape. Considering it's self adhesive and comes in a million colors and patterns, there is an infinite amount of possibilities!

As you can see, my first experiment was to just make a simple, bright border on some envelopes for my happy mail. I particularly enjoyed the striped outline as it reminded me of old timey air mail envelopes. (I wonder why we don't have to use them today. Anyone know why that is the case?)

My second washi tape experiment involved these adorable birthday cards! The washi tape part itself was a snap, but embossing the background was pretty time/energy consuming. I'm quite happy with the results though! Everyone needs some special happy mail on his or her birthday.

Click here for some sweet project ideas from Tinker With This

Since washi tape is so versatile, there is a plethora of creative project inspiration floating around the internet. I think my next experiment will be to decorate our light switch covers with washi tape. I like that it will be easy to remove if we move since we're apartment renters, and  it will definitely give our place some much needed zest since I'm too lazy to paint. (Mostly every time I think about it, I can just imagine getting a giant rent hike and having to undo all the work when we move out.)

If you haven't yet given washi tape a shot, I highly encourage you to try it! If you have, or have any other awesome project ideas, tell me about it!

Cuppy Cake!

The finished product

Allow me to introduce you to a clever but simple card inspired by this pin. Mine's not quite as cute as the original, but  considering I made it completely from supplies I already had around the house I'm satisfied with the final product. 

As I do have a full time job, I'm completely in favor of "mass producing" handmade gifts like this.This pattern is simple enough I easily whipped out a batch of half a dozen in less than an hour.  Just gotta add a little note inside and then they're lined up and ready to go!