coffee bean cards

Custom wedding card, and Christmas news

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:42:00 +0000

I need to have a whole great big separate post about Christmas cards, because man alive it is getting big around here. I sold over 200 Christmas cards in 3 days because of a free shipping promo I ran, and I've got a lot to talk about!!

Before that - - here are a few pictures of some wedding cards I whipped up for a customer to choose from after being given these guidelines " a fall-themed wedding with champagne, frappuccino and cranberry colors"

Card One:

Card Two:

Card Three:

A few random bits.

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Instead of buying loads of new papers, I've been doing some custom orders (see below) that are allowing me to raid my "scraps" drawers. It is only half full now, and before it was overflowing. Here are the 3 main drawers I use to organize my papers, though there are others elsewhere.

I'm starting to get a few of these "smooch" things, I looove the tip of them for coloring in and the ink is super shimmery and nice. I get these at my Archivers.

I've been doing a lot of watercoloring lately, here is the setup to fill in all the little monsters I put in the shop today.

And even though this is annoyingly sideways, heres a pic of a girlie birthday card I recently made for someone, I was happy with how pink it was without being barfingly pink, you know? :)

Custom moving cards

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:05:00 +0000

I also recently completed a custom order for "We're Moving" cards. I was allowed the creativity to make each one different, which I loooooove. I've got a whole drawer full of papers that I've only got scraps of, so doing a load of individual cards allows me to go through and use up some of my favorite papers that I just dno't have a lot of. Plus it is super fun to be creative. :) I used watercolors in the stamped images, and printed th text from my computer. The back are for writing the new address in, and they came with envelopes, as always. I loved doing this order!

Sorry some of the pics are sideways. :/

Thanksgiving Invitations

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Here is a custom order I did for Thanksgiving invitations. I was shown an image of a turkey handprint, the kind kindergartners do as crafts every fall, and told to work around that. Luckily I have a kindergartner who offered up his hands for me, and earned a little pocket money in the process. He loved getting paid for a job! :)

This is the final turkey guy:

The set up:

Sizing the paper pieces:

Making some mistakes... (to do 20 cards we must have done at least 40 handprints):

Cleaning his hands off every once in a while between prints:

Final stages of the messiest bit:

Initial handprints:

The print:

Adding the matting and legs:

Adding the eyeballs, felt beak, and words (which are up on 3D adhesive):

A close-up:

The finished product, which also included RSVP cards for the insides:

Blue! Red! Purple(ish)! Orange!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:00:00 +0000

4 necklaces I made this morning. 5am wake-up calls are good for being productive, if you have enough caffeine and your kid takes a nap.And if you don't think the picture of my 2 year old holding the blue beads isn't precious, then your heart is dead.

BLUE

RED

PURPLE(ishblueishgreyish)

ORANGE (same design as the one I posted about earlier)

I love the big discs on the purplish blueish greyish one, I think I'll get some of those in green and make that one for myself.

owls, papers, and necklaces

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:25:00 +0000

Sometimes when I go to Archivers to buy paper, I find a piece that I love so much I really don't want to part with it, and just want to make it into wallpaper in my bedroom or something. I've listed a few cards lately that have some of my uber-favorite papers recently, but I kind of secretly hope no one buys them because I like looking at them so much!!

Also - I'm still not sure why blogger sometimes turns my pictures on their sides. This doesn't happen when I post the pictures anywhere else, so I guess I'll just have to put up with it and so will you! Sorry. :/

I've also got several new owl fellows on the site.

And finally, I did manage to figure out the technique I wrote about in my last entry, and look! My 2 favorite necklaces to date. Pretty oranges and reds!

necklaces

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Right! Lets start this off by saying That I don't know how to bead. I got the supplies as a gift from a friend who beads, and I've just taken those tools and totally guessed at what I'm doing.

Then I bought this necklace on etsy from marolsha.etsy.com ( which I ADORE ) and sat there examining it, trying to figure out how to do the technique she used. I know I could just buy a book or something, but I kind of like crafting in the dark and just figuring it out on my own. This is the necklace I bought and am now working on the technique she used:

Pictures of that project to follow.

So anyway. My 4 yr old beaded along side me while I did the following necklaces, done while Henry was asleep.

Here is the 1st necklace where I tried to figure out how to hang a pendant using a jump ring. It looks uneven, but thats just how I'm holding my neck. I kept this one.

This one, a simple grey & black one, was given to a friend.

I've since taken this one apart because I didn't like the plasticy look of the brighter green beads, but you get the idea. I'm still learning! I love this pendant though.

Here's the simple black one again:

And here's a purple one I gave to the same friend, my first success at putting a pendant on, this is done all purpley.

So that is it for now, beginning stages to be sure. I bought some beautiful beads yesterday and the tools that I *think* I need to make the kind of necklace in the first pictures, we shall see! That's what this craft experimenting is all about. After I'm sick of beading I think I'll go back to teaching myself how to embroider, that was going quite well I thought.

Custom pregnancy announcements & wedding thank yous

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:16:00 +0000

I've been obscenely busy since returning from England, I think I'm finally at the final stages of catching up. First, let me show you a custom pregnancy announcement order I've done. my instructions were to use greens and purples mostly, to be sweet but not childlike, and to use a sentiment about a miracle.

I stamped some of the papers, and I really like how the same ink and same stamp looked so different on 2 papers. The dark purple paper is normal bazzil card stock, the light purple paper has a shimmer to it that you can't see in the photo. But I thought the different effects were cool, especially since I didn't do anything differently!

Here are some of the cards, I was really happy with how this order came out:

Before that, I had a big promotion in my etsy shop hoping to get over 1,500 sales, and it worked! Well, not 1,500 sales, but 1,500 cards sold - since mine all come in packs and some are sold privately instead of on etsy. FIFTEEN HUNDRED!! Not too shabby for less than two years, it means I'm averaging about 75 a month thuogh it gets a LOT crazier and busier around Christmastime of course. :) Here are some of the cards that were in the promotion (and congrats again to Mandy who won the $20 Amazon gift card I was giving away!)

And then before that, I did the Thank You notes to match the table tents, name card, and invitations I did for Kim's wedding. I did 60 of these, with slight variations from card to card:

Here is how they look while I'm still in the mass stamping stage:

And this one shows the stamps, ink, and the first swirls put on each card:

So! I've got another custom order in the pipeline, and I've also been doing a lot of beading recently making several necklaces for myself and for gifts to others. But I won't post any pictures until they've received their gifts, to not spoil the surprise. ;)

Acryclic stamp storage, Airplane activity book for kids, and Scrapbook pages

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:20:00 +0000

I've been busy! Finishing 2 custom orders, reorganizing the craft area (as in, putting it in a new room!), and doing the long list of crafts to be done before flying to England again. First, let me show you my stamps.

I got this idea from Papertrey Ink, a stamp company that I purchased some stamps from. (www.papertreyink.com) The stamps came with a simple cd jewelcase for storage. So I've gone and bought a few cases of jewel cases from Office Max for just a few dollars, then figured out which categories I needed (swirls, words, birthday, animals, birds, etc...), printed out little labels, taped the labels to the side, spent about 45 minutes feeling mega organized, and then voila!

A few hundred acrylic stamps FINALLY neatly organized! And since they are in cd cases, they fit perfectly into little cubbies made just for DVDs or cds, or on a shelf unit. Perfect! This has really freed up SO much space, plus it makes it easier for me to see at a glance what I have.

THEN.... I had to do the billion 6x6 scrapbook pages. I do these twice a year or so. I make 3 mini scrapbooks - 1 for the grandparents, great grandparents, and god parents - who all live in England. So I go to snapfish (which I love), print out about 200 pictures, crop them, then make a bunch of pages.... 3 of each design!

Here is the stash showing pictures from September 08 through last week:

And here are some examples of the pages I do. I like th keep them nice and simple since I do SO many of them. And once again some of these pictures are sideways.... I'm sure you can cope!

And finally - - the Airplane Activity Book! I made this last year: (http://coffeebeancards.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-6x6-project-and-so-many-cards.html)

This year I've printed off some of the favorite sheets from last time, then added more. I took this idea from an activity book we bought at Barnes & Noble called "Scribbles" by Taro Gomi, the same person who wrote the famous "Everyone Poops". It is one of those "non coloring" books where they give you an idea and you draw it yourself, or fill in the blanks with your own creativity. I love the book but wanted to make one more train oriented for Philip.

This year I've added pages such as:

Draw a LEGO village.
Draw some very SILLY cargo on this flatbed.

What is in this river?

Draw more airplanes, where are they going?

Etc etc etc...

The book has about 60 pages in it. It keeps him happy on the airplane (that, along with the etch-a-sketch, Leapster2, notecards in a notecards carrier so he can draw pictures and give them to people, loads of stickers, snacks, and a few vehicles to smash around) - - and always lasts during the stay there and on the flight back!

So that is it for a while, we'll be in England just over 2 weeks, and when I get back I'll be doing a MEGA restock in the shop with some super fun bright papers and cards I've been working on. :D

Table tents and place cards together

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Here is the first draft of the table tents for the wedding. There are deep green, blue, and purple papers for the background, printed numbers (using the same font as the place cards) and a flower border. I tried to keep the border on the light side so the numbers were still the most visible thing.

Here is the table tent prototype and the table number prototype sitting on top of my computer desk.

Custom Baby Announcements - The Process

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:55:00 +0000

This is the 2nd custom job I'm doing. I like this series of photos because it illustrates the evolution of a custom order quite well.

First Jen gave me a general idea of what she wanted plus some color suggestions. This is what I came up with, Prototype #1.

Then we decided on a different bird image, text in a box instead of in a horizontal line, and getting rid of the "dotty" border. Prototype #2.

Then we decided the green accent needed to be brighter, and I changed the font. I also changed the swirls to just the bottom of the cards instead of all voer, to keep it simpler. Prototype #3.

This may or not be the final edition we send out, that is just how the process goes. Especially for something like a baby announcement or a wedding invitation, it is really important to go over all the little details with whomever is trusting me with such an important project!

table tents to match the invitations

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:20:00 +0000

I've got 3 custom projects going on right now - this is the first and biggest. Table tents (130 of them) for the wedding I did the invitations for way back yonder many moons ago.

( http://coffeebeancards.blogspot.com/2008/10/anatomy-of-wedding-invitation.html )

I'll also be doing the table numbers for each table - this is the 1st draft slash prototype for the project.

(I wish Milli Vanilli had been invited to MY wedding.)

Making your own valentines - train valentines of course.

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:10:00 +0000

It took a while for me to get this up, but wow I've been busy.

So anyway! Handmade Valentines! I can hardly run my own card shop and *not* make my kids valentines, so this is what we came up with this year. First, Philip drew a train. Then I scanned it and put the image in Microsoft Publisher. That is where I colored in the little red hearts with a Fill tool. Added text. Put 10 to a page, then printed them out. Voila.

Got my crinkle cut scissors out, and my tape.

Oh and also, I printed out 3 larger trains for bigger cards (the valentines were small), one for each teacher and then one for my husband. These had personalized text on them.

Then I bored myself silly cutting them out. Luckily with crinkle cut scissors it is nearly impossible to tell when you screw up. And if you are me, you screw up a lot.

Then I tapes them to red Bazzil paper and cut them out, leaving room at the bottom for Philip to sign his name. Here he is, showing off his work.

This is the finished product.

I made 20 of these.

Philip even personalized a few with smiley faces, or drawings of more trains.

Then I taped a dum-dum sucker to the back of each valentine.

And finally I cut out the 3 larger designs and actually stuck them on to real cards, stamped the inside with one of my favorite 'happy heart day' stamps, and had him sign the middles as well.

And that was Valentines this year! Nice and Philip-like. :)

four sympathy cards for a friend

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:05:00 +0000

I make a lot of cards for people that I never put up in my shop. I never photograph them though, and that is going to change. Sometimes they are some of my favorites... if I make one I completely adore sometimes I can hardly bare to sell it and just use it for myself. :) These 4 cards were made for a friend who needed a sympathy card that wasn't sappy. I made 4 so she could pick and choose, then just use the other ones as needed.

I do NOT know why some of these macro shots still show up sideways but it is driving me batty. And I'm computer literate too! Grrr. Anyway, you get the idea. The red one is my favorite, but the picture doesn't do it justice. I take all my photos in natural light in front of my livingroom door, so on cloudier days I just don't get good shots!

It is from Basig Grey, which I almost always completely adore. I stamped the sentiment straight onto the card for this one which I very rarely do since I'm pretty clumsy and messy... and in fact when I stamped it I pressed too hard and stamped a line at the top. :/ So I covered it with a coordinating Basic Grey sticker. :)

This was was stamped the way I normally do it. Stamped onto a piece of larger paper, then cut out to size.

This was printed. I frequently download creative fonts and use them on my cards. For this one I took a 12x12 piece of Basic Grey paper, cut it to 8.5x11, then fed it into my printer and printed this sentiment. Wihle I was at it I also printed a bunch of other sentiments (thank you, etc) to use at some point later, all in different fonts. Then I added ribbon, matted the sentiment, and stuck it to some more Basic Grey.

And this one was another boring one done the old fashioned super easiest way, but with different paper and ribbon. You can't tell from the photo but I also took a swirl stamp and used versamark to put a shadowy swirl pattern onto the otherwise plain grey/black paper.

Just a few while I do other things...

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:10:00 +0000

I've been busy doing other crafts lately, I'll take photos of the things when I'm finished. i'm making a bunch of things for freinds as random presents. :) Decoupage, painting, embroidery, sewing... but I have managed to squeak a few cards in as well. Here are some of the new ones. Also - a few older listings have been tossed into the SALE bin so go have a look! :)

PROMOTION - a dozen free cards!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:52:00 +0000

PROMOTION!!

All sale between Tuesday, Jan 6th and Tuesday, Jan 13th are entered into a pot, I'll pick a name at random, and the winner gets a DOZEN FREE CARDS, either from the shop or custom made! Go havea look at all the cards, I've listed 62 new ones in the last 2 days!!!

January, Take One

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:57:00 +0000

I do not know why some of these are sideways when uploaded to blogger, but I give up on caring about it, you don't mind cocking your head a little to the side, do you?

Part 1 of my big January restock is up. Part two will be up tomorrow weather permitting, I only like to post items for sale when I can have natural light to take their photos in. :) Here are of few of the recent goodies, including $1 valentines day cards. Christmas went so well, I'm giving VDay a go! :)

Skull revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:53:00 +0000

I don't know why sometimes these come out sideways, I don't do anything differently!!
So anyway... sideways photo of the same card with an added star punch and 4 metal blobs. My intention is to make the star glittery, but I have to get more glitter this afternoon as it all got used on Christmas crafts. :)

Custom baby shower invitations, step one of many

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:06:00 +0000

My next custom order is for baby boy shower invitations featuring skulls and guitars! This was my first idea, and I'm running it past the cutom orderer to see if she likes the ribbon, the color combo, if she'd rather have more prominent skulls, different text, etc etc!

I have silver metal ball things to adhere to these as well, but I don't want to put them on all the prototypes until I can get to Michaels to buy more! On this design, the metal ball would be attached to the white 'it's a boy' sign, and also one on top of the ribbon at the left side of the card.

Also, the 'boy' part of the text won't overlap with the guitar, but they will be close together.

I also think the 'it's a boy' sign might look better off center, maybe off to the right.

feature pages feature pages

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:03:00 +0000

Hey wow! I've been featured on an awesome blog! WOO HOO!

http://michvanetta.blogspot.com/2008/12/3-days-to-go-coffeebeancards.html

Now I wish I could put my big restock in sooner. :)
Have just finished my own 15 cards for the big preemie project though... only 2 days until delivery! -------> www.preemiepresents.blogspot.com

The January Plan, and Holiday Thank You!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Well Christmas is officiall over for the shop, and it was a wonderful year! My $1 a card plan worked out SO well for me, there were many times that my shop got compeltely wiped clean and I had to rush to make more! So for next year, I'll be starting my holiday cards a few months earlier. I sold 275 individual holiday cards!! AMAZING! Thank you to *everyone* who helped make this happen. :)

January is going to start off with a BANG! Over the course of a week or two I plan on COMPLETELY restocking the shop, sending a lot of current stock into the SALE pile. My goal is to get 97 new cards in there, a whole bunch for each category. Once I finish the custom order I'm working on, I'll get on it!

I've also decided to focus on grown up valentines instead of kids valentines. And there will be some REALLY sweet ones this year. Like Christmas, the Valentines cards will be going for $1 a piece to encourage people to send handmade... or to send at all! :) I will also be holding a contest in January. My idea is that whoever buys from the shop over a certin period of time, like maybe a 7 day period, 2 people will be randomly chose to receive a free set of cards. But not ordinary cards... like a free DOZEN or free CUSTOMS. I don't know yet! I have to clear my mind of Christmas before I can really get on that wagon.

No pcitures of my crafts today, everything I've made I've bundled up and mailed too quickly to take pictures!! But they will be positively flowing soon, you can count on it! :)

Holiday crafts for my 4 and 1 yr olds

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Now that Christmas cards are done, the real crafting began. Here are a few photos of what we've been doing lately. Also, have alook at the really BIG project we are doing over here: http://preemiepresents.blogspot.com.

Sock puppets!

Snowflake Ornaments!

Better Bananas!

Drawing pictures to frame as gifts!

custom solstice cards, and a bit more.

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:55:00 +0000

I think I've said that I'm done making Christmas cards. Starting in September means that by Thanksgiving i'm burnt out. And if I didn't say that out loud, I felt it in my soul. So what did I do last night? I MADE CHRISTMAS CARDS. but i swear, this is the last bunch!

More pics of the custom order I did for Trish, who requested this owl, this sentiment, and swirls.

Why is this one sideways???

And here are some that I put in the shop this morning. Done! DONE I SAY! because now I have to make MY CARDS. :)

Good News x 3

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:58:00 +0000

Three Records!!

1. I have reached 100 positive feedbacks on Etsy! My 100th feedback was an awesome one as well, from Kim. She placed the recent wedding invitation order I finished up and she loved them! I've never felt so nervous sending out cards as I did with those. So, 100 positive feedbacks! Woo ho!

2. I had my best day ever yesterday! I sold 71 cards in one day yesterday, almost all of them in Christmas packs, which beats my previous record! I could hardly believe it. :) Of course, I had thought I was done making Christmas cards, but in order to have at least a few packs on there through november I stayed up way past my bedtime last night making more. :)

3. I have sold 1007 individual cards in the 15 months I've had my shop open. I couldn't believe I had hit the 1000 mark, I kept having to recount! But yep, my Christmas card packs rack up those number pretty fast, and so there are now over 1,000 cards with my name on them floating around in the world. !!

And here are some macros of the recent goods, some of them still available.

snowflake cards and preemie presents

noreply@blogger.com (Lady Nunn) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:07:00 +0000

First things first!! Many more Christmas cards up, and TONS more on their way in the next week.

NEXT....

Over on my normal family blog, I have details of a project I'm doing over the holidays for the parents of premature babies who will be in the hospital over this holiday season. If you click the link you'll see why I'm doing it and what exactly I'm doing.

The story:

http://flyingnunns.blogspot.com/2008/10/preemie-presents.html

Current update on the project:

http://flyingnunns.blogspot.com/2008/11/preemie-update.html

So I did a bit of stamping today for it and wanted to share. I needed an alphabet with both uppercase and lowercase letters so I could put all the text on at once.

I used an alphabet set from River City Rubber Works that I adore. ( http://www.rivercityrubberworks.com/ ).

These photos are all out of order. Blah. Anyway, here are the finished bags, stamped on both sides. I'll color in the lines and then do more embellishment stamping around the text next.

Here is the production line.

I liked how the letters looked so much that I quickly got 5 cards out and stamped them up, I'll finish them off later and show you the results.

I also made sure to put my coffee bean cards stamp down at the bottom.

The end for now, I've got tons of crafting to do and two very ornery boys who make that pretty difficult!