I came across this super cool idea at Lift Bridge Cards and Crafts and couldn’t wait to try it out.  Deb has a great how-to video that shows you step by step how to make these panels. I’m posting the pics I took each step of the way, but I strongly encourage you to check out the video as it explains everything very clearly with lots of pictures for each step.

I made a grid and started adding ink.

Then, I finished inking with a second color.

Once my panels were inked I added stamped images and text using the same colors I used to ink the squares. I also added an accent color.

Then, I removed the tape.

And, cut out the panels.

Once they are done, you can add some accents and use the panels to make super quick and easy cards like the one at the top of this post. I trimmed my panels down before using them on cards since I usually make 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ cards. This is a great way to get a nice selection of cards made quickly and they all match, so it would also make a nice gift set for a friend.

To get the complete how-to, check out the video at Lift Bridge Cards and Crafts!

A few months ago Mr. CH was offered a promotion/transfer and we jumped at the chance to get out of the very, very small town in central Illinois where we lived for just under two years. So, I haven’t had a lot of time for blogging–or crafting–with the big move. But, we are now all settled into our new place in Little Rock, Arkansas and we just love it here!

No longer must I drive nearly an hour to buy craft supplies…and groceries, for that matter. Now we have all the amenities of a city with the beauty of the rolling hills we love so much. After living in central Missouri for many years, we just weren’t used to the flat, endless cornfields of central Illinois.  When I stepped on my balcony in Illinois, I saw a corn field. Now, I see this:

While I was gone I attended two craft workshops and completed my Year of 40s. I won’t bore you with the lists, but here are the final numbers: I easily exceeded my goal of making 40 new recipes; I exceeded my goal of 40 craft projects, but they were not 40 “different” projects; I didn’t quite achieve my goal of reading 40 books, but I did finish 37. Overall I was pretty happy with my results, although I was a little disappointed in my book total. Fortunately I am doing much better this year. I made a goal in January to read 50 books in 2012 and I am already at 41 for the year, so I think I’ll make that goal.

While I was taking a break from blogging, I took some time to think about my blogging goals and what I wanted to achieve. I decided to drop my book blog; I’m just posting my book reviews on GoodReads, now. And, I’ve decided to split my food and craft posts into two separate blogs. I want this blog to focus primarily on crafts and my new blog will focus on food and nutrition–not that there won’t be some crossover.

Thanks to all of you who stuck around during my extended absence. It’s great to be back!

In one of my early posts, I shared my pattern for simple crocheted dishcloths. I made a bunch of these for Vegangirl when she moved out of the dorm and into her own apartment. Soon after she realized she also needed some potholders, so I’ve been working on those.

They take longer to make than the dishcloths–because they are much bigger–but they are super simple.

To make a potholder:

• Choose a cotton yarn and whatever size hook is given on the packaging for the yarn. I used Sugar ‘n Cream yarn and a size G hook. One 4 oz. skein should be enough to make one potholder.
• Chain 37 or however many you need to get the size you want.
• HDC in the third chain from the hook and in every chain til the end of the row. Chain 2 and turn.
• HDC in first HDC from the hook and in every chain until the end of the row. Chain 2 and turn.
• Continue the above row until the potholder is square. I check for squareness by folding the piece in half on the diagonal. When it is square, the two diagonally opposing corners will meet when folded in half diagonally.
• For the next row, HDC in the back loop to the end of the row. Chain 2 and turn.
• HDC in first HDC from the hook and in every chain until the end of the row. Chain 2 and turn. Continue until the potholder has doubled in size.
• Fold in half and match up the edges. The potholder should fold easily on the line where you crocheted into the back loop. SC all the way around the folded potholder going through both halves to make one square with a double thickness, adding 3 SC to each corner.
• Finish with a slip stitch and weave in the ends.

That’s it! Don’t worry if it seems a bit lumpy. Once you wash it, it will lay flat. (Mine in the pic above hasn’t been washed yet.)

photo by lorenabuena

This week is the one year anniversary of The Crafty Homemaker. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year. I’ve had fun sharing a variety of craft projects with you and in the process I’ve learned a lot about setting up and running a website, blogging, and photography (and I still have so much more to learn!).

I thought it would be fun to look back over the last year and see which posts were the most popular. I was actually pretty surprised by the results.

Here are the top five hits during my first year:

Number 5–Decorative Bottle Cap Magnets

Number 4–Faux Dichroic Pendants

Number 3–Faux Opal Pendants

Number 2–Do You Zentangle?

And…Number 1…with more than twice as many hits as any other post I’ve written…Zentangle Glass Tile Pendants

Thank you all for your support over the last year! I love getting your comments and emails. It makes the whole process worthwhile.

I can’t wait to see what my top five posts are next year!

If you’ve read my most recent blog post or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you have probably seen me hint about a big new project I’m working on. Since starting my Year of 40′s challenge, I’ve been reading more books and writing up small reviews. I’ve posted a few of them on this blog, but I didn’t really feel like they fit with The Crafty Homemaker’s theme. I posted them on GoodReads which is a wonderful way for me to record what I’ve read, but it doesn’t really give me an opportunity to discuss what I’ve read with others, and GoodReads only allows me to catalog books with ISBNs, so that leaves out ebooks, zines and blog articles.

So, after much consideration I decided to start a second blog devoted to reading. It’s called: That’s What I Read.  Although I will continue to post the books I read for the Year of 40s Challenge on The Crafty Homemaker until the end of that challenge, all other reading related posts will appear at That’s What I Read. I’d love for you to visit it and let me know what you think!

Although I haven’t been posting here very much while I’ve been getting the new blog off the ground, I’ll be able to give plenty of attention to both blogs now that the groundwork has all been laid.

In other news…

I’ve got a few updates on my Year of 40s Challenge. I posted craft project #20 yesterday and I have completed and will be posting #21 in the next day or two (depending on whether or not I continue to have power in this crazy ice storm).

I’ve made several new recipes recently:

• Emeril’s Oven Roasted Chicken Wings (#21). I used chicken legs instead of wings and just cooked them a bit longer. They turned out great!
• Polenta with Corn and Thyme (#22). I used 2% milk and dried thyme since that’s what I had on hand. It was wonderfully rich and creamy. And I put the leftovers in the fridge overnight, cut them into squares and fried them up for breakfast and served them with eggs. Yum!
• Tomato Soup with Cheese and Bacon Toasties (#23). I used this recipe more as a general idea than an actual recipe. I used a regular onion and canned tomatoes for the soup. And I used homemade bread and cheddar cheese for the sandwiches.
• Chicken and Spinach Casserole (#24). I used the rest of the bread I made for the recipe above to make the croutons for this casserole. I also used leftover roasted turkey from my freezer stash instead of rotisserie chicken. This casserole was rich and satisfying.
• Dilly Beef Roast (#25). I used a sirloin tip roast and didn’t add a whole jar of pickles. Instead, I  added about 2 cups of pickle juice from a large container of good quality pickles. I used Sriracha sauce which is hotter than regular chili sauce, so I only used about 1/4 cup. I love how this turned out. You could really taste the dill and it had a nice kick to it. We didn’t eat it on sandwich buns. Instead, I kept the pieces of meat a bit larger and served it with Crash Hot Potatoes and a veggie.
• Pesole (sic) with Pork (#26). I found this recipe in The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American, but it doesn’t appear to be anywhere online. It is a simple recipe using dried posole and pork with a few seasonings. The dried posole was a bit of a challenge to find, but it was well worth the search. It has to be soaked overnight and then after it cooks for a couple of hours the posole pops open and blooms. It almost looks a bit like popcorn without the kernel. It tasted like hominy but the texture was much chewier and heartier. It really filled us up on a cold winter night.
• Chicken Corn Soup with Rivels (#27). The recipe is also from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American. I changed this one up a bit. To make it faster I didn’t start with a whole chicken. Instead I used homemade stock and about a pound of roasted chicken (already removed from the bones) from my freezer stash. I used frozen corn–which I ran through the food processor–but I didn’t use the creamed corn. I made half as much as the recipe called for since I am only feeding three people. Another rich, thick, hearty soup.
• Boston Black Bean Soup (#28). One more from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American. I couldn’t find this one online, either. It was pretty simple. Black beans were cooked and pureed and a thick cream sauce made with flour, butter, cream, and seasonings was added. It was great with sourdough bread or tortilla chips.
• Tee Pon Pork (#28). I didn’t have the star anise so I just left it out. This had a really unique flavor and went very well with rice.

I’ve also read a bunch of new books. In fact, I finished ten books in January. If you want to see quick reviews of these books, check GoodReads. Most of them will probably appear on That’s What I Read with full reviews within the next few weeks.

• #12–Shatter by Michael Robotham
• #13–Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (audio) by J. K. Rowling
• #14–Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers 1941-1965 by Vicki L. Crawford
• #15–Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children from the Onslaught of Marketing and Advertising by Susan Linn
• #16–Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (audio) by J. K. Rowling
• #17–The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman
• #18–The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasure of Traditional Food, One Recipe at a Time by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger
• #19–River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
• #20–Innocence by Jane Mendelsohn
• #21–Living, Loving, and Learning by Leo Buscaglia

I know I’ve been absent from this blog a lot recently. I’ve been working on a new project and I can’t wait to share it with you.  I’ll give you a hint…it’s a new blog! I’ll be announcing more details in the next few days, but now that this other project is up and running I’ll be able to give my craft projects more attention.

Pokeboy and I are listening to the audio book versions of the entire Harry Potter series. We are currently listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We used to listen to audio books primarily in the car, but all the snow has kept us in the house more lately, so we’ve started listening at home on the X-box 360. While listening I’ve been able to work on several different projects. One was this simple, cute scarf.

Using  one 3 ounce skein Bamboospun natural bamboo yarn in cream from Hobby Lobby and size 10 needles, I cast on 10 stitches, turned and knit the first row. For all remaining rows I slipped the first stitch and knit all the remaining stitches. You don’t have to slip the first stitch, but I think it gives a nicer edge.

I continued knitting until it was nice and long–I love long scarfs–but still making sure I had enough yarn left to make the fringe.  My scarf ended up being about 6 1/2-feet long, not including fringe. I then cut 40 1-foot long pieces of yarn for the fringe. Using a crochet hook, I used two pieces of yarn for each stitch to make the fringe. If you’ve never done fringe before there is a great tutorial here.

The bamboo yarn is crazy soft, but it can’t be washed, only dry cleaned. So, it may not be a good choice for items that receive a lot of wear or are used by children.

photo by David Machiavello

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season filled with family, crafts, good food, and fun!

I’ve been so busy with the holidays I haven’t been doing a very good job of reporting on my progress toward my Year of 40s goals. So, I decided to take a few minutes to report how I’ve been doing.

Crafts

I’ve been so busy with holiday cards I haven’t really spent much time working on any other crafts. I made about 20 individual cards to add to the stash of cards I already had to send out to friends and family. I made an additional 40 cards for Mr. CH’s co-workers. Those were not all individual designs. I came up with one design and although some of the paper varied, the cards were all essentially the same. I don’t want to count every single card as a craft project, so I decided to call it five projects for all 60 cards. Here’s my logic: I’m giving myself one credit for every five individual cards (for a total of four) and one credit for the whole set of 40 similar cards. That brings my total for the year up to 18.

Additionally, I forget to give myself credit for the Mini Star Book Ornament. That makes 19.

Not bad. I’m almost halfway to my goal.

Food

I have been trying out lots of new recipes, but I haven’t been keeping very good records. I need to hang on to my menus when we finish with them instead of pitching them in the trash. However, here is a list of the ones I remember:

#17–Last month I roasted a turkey for the first time in about twenty years. I didn’t make our Thanksgiving dinner–we always spend that day with family–but I did get a few turkeys. I can’t count the roasted turkey since I have made it before, but once I cut all the meat off the bones, I used the bones to make homemade turkey broth.

I’ve never made my own broth before, but it was super simple. I just put the turkey bones in the biggest stockpot I own and added about 5 1/2 – 6 quarts of water. Then I threw in a quartered onion, and a carrot and a piece of celery cut into a few large pieces. I brought it to a boil and let it simmer for a few hours. I added salt near the end–although you certainly don’t have to–and strained the broth into large freezer containers. It made five quarts of broth (the additional water boiled away). Since then I’ve been making broth with all my chicken and turkey bones.

#18–Related to the above, I also roasted a whole chicken for the first time ever. That probably sounds crazy, but keep in mind two of my children are vegetarian/vegan, so I cooked only vegetarian food for 12-13 years of my adult life. And, once I started cooking meat again, I generally bought boneless skinless chicken breasts. But, for the past few months we’ve been buying all of our meat from a local farmer who raises pastured meats (also called grass-fed or grass finished).  Pastured meats are more expensive than the meat you buy in a grocery store–although definitely worth it!–so buying a whole chicken is more economical.  After roasting the turkey, the chicken was easy. I coated it with olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkles on some herbs. I roasted it in the oven until the thermometer said it was done. So simple and so delicious!

#19–Sauerkraut and Bean Soup from The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother. Of course I didn’t actually follow the recipe exactly. I used pork steak instead of pork butt and homemade turkey stock instead of beef stock. This was amazingly good! It was so warm and filling. As a side note, this is an excellent cookbook. Not only does it have wonderful recipes, but it’s one of those cookbooks you can read like a book. There is a lot of information about many different immigrant groups’ experiences in coming to America. It’s no longer in print, but there are still copies around.

#20–Tomato Soup with White Beans and Pasta from the January 2011 issue of All You magazine. I used great northern beans instead of cannellini beans and I cooked them from scratch in my pressure cooker. I probably had a bit more than a 15 oz. can since I cooked one cup of dried beans. I doubled the amount of pasta to make the soup heartier and I used homemade turkey broth instead of the chicken broth.  It was a little bland until I quadrupled the amount of oregano and added some red pepper flakes and a sausage seasoning blend (no sausage, just the seasoning blend).  It was much better with the additional seasonings: warming and hearty, and super quick to make–especially if you use canned beans.

I know there were more new recipes we tried, but I’ve forgotten them. However, seeing I am currently at the halfway point, I’m not going to lose any sleep over the forgotten recipes.

Books

My book goal has been the one I’ve had the most trouble keeping up with, but lately I have been really excited about reading and have added several books to my total. Part of that is probably due to my recent purchase of a Kindle. I love, love, love my Kindle. But, I think I’ll share more about that in a later post. Today I want to focus on catching up my goal reports.

I’ve written reviews of all the books I’ve read for my Year of 40s challenge on Goodreads. (I’ve you click on the Year of 40s tag on my Goodreads page, you will only see the books I’ve read in pursuance of my Year of 40s goal.) So, I’ll just give you my rating for each book and if you are interested in reading my review, you can check it out on the Goodreads website.

#7–The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley. I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

#8–Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes. I gave this book 2/5 stars on Goodreads.

#9–The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

#10–The Little Sleep: A Novel by Paul Tremblay. I gave this book 2/5 stars on Goodreads.

#11–Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue. I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

Although I am nowhere near the halfway point in my book goal, I do think I still have a very good chance of achieving this goal. Four of the above books were read in December and I am currently reading four more  books which should all be finished within the next week–one will probably be done tonight. So, if I keep up at my current rate I could definitely achieve my goal. This one will be the hardest, but I’m not giving up yet!

These ornaments make a great small gift, or they can be used to decorate packages. There is a lot of cutting involved, but if you have a paper cutter they don’t really take a lot of time. The directions may seem a bit confusing at first, but once you get started it’s pretty easy to see how everything fits together. Make sure you read through all the directions first so you understand how the book goes together.

Preparing the Pages

Choose three different sheets of matching double-sided paper for the pages. It is very important to use paper–not cardstock. Cardstock will not work for this project. Trust me; I learned this the hard way.

For my pages I choose three papers from the Close to My Heart Mistletoe collection. You will not use the whole sheet of paper, so if you have large scraps you may be able to use those.

From this paper you will need to cut:

• 7 large pages from paper A– each 5″ x 2″
• 7 medium pages from paper B–each 4″ x 2″
• 7 small pages from paper C–each 3″ x 2″

Cut as precisely as possible since trimming edges can be difficult in this project.

Next, fold each page in half so the design you want facing out is on the inside. Both sides of the paper will be visible depending on how you are looking at the finished ornament, but one side is much more visible than the other. You want that side to be on the inside of your folded paper. Again, be as precise as possible since trimming is very difficult on the finished project.

For my small pages, I decided to alternate which design was on the inside and which was on the outside so the finished project would have alternating colors on each page. If you decide to do this, you only need to do it for the small pages (3″ x 2″). Fold four pages in one direction in three pages in the other.

Once all your pages are folded, set them aside.

Making the Covers

For the covers you will  need some book board or stiff cardboard and a piece of lightweight specialty paper. Lightweight fibrous paper like mulberry or washi papers work particularly well, but any paper suitable for covering book board will work fine.

Cut the materials for your covers:

• 2 pieces of book board–2 1/8″ x 2 5/8″
• 2 pieces of decorative paper–3 1/8″ x 3 5/8″
• 1 pieces of matching ribbon (1/4″ width or smaller is best)–approximately 2 feet long

I realize the covers are an odd size, but if I had made the covers a standard size the pages would have been odd sizes. I figured it was better to make the covers an odd size since I only had to cut two of them.

Now, let’s talk about adhesives. I used Yes! Paste for this project because it brushes on smoothly, doesn’t warp the paper (at least not much and it flattens as it dries), doesn’t run, adheres securely, and holds up well over time. It dries pretty quickly, but if you line something up incorrectly you will have time to realign it. I strongly recommend it for this project. A Uhu glue stick also works well. Do not use tape runners or adhesive dots or squares for this project.

Coat the entire back side of one of your sheets of decorative paper with a layer of glue. Place one of the pieces of book board in the center.

Cut off each corner near, but not right at, the edge of the book board.

Carefully fold up each edge. I like to start with the top and bottom, then move to the sides. You may need to add extra glue to some of your corners. I had to add extra glue to the bottom left corner. You can see it sticking up a bit in the picture below.

Do the same thing for your second cover and set both aside to dry.

Assembling the Book

Lay one of the covers back side up on your work surface and brush a narrow line of glue across the middle of the long side of the cover. Fold the 2 foot long piece of ribbon in half to see where the halfway point is. Lay the ribbon on the cover across the glue line so the halfway point of the ribbon is just to the left of the left side of the cover. See the picture below to see what I’m talking about.

You may have noticed the cover above doesn’t look nearly as nice as the finished cover at the end of the “Making the Covers” section. In fact, it kind of looks like paper was glued on and then ripped back off again. That’s probably because paper was glued on and then ripped back off again. It’s been several years since I’ve made these ornament books and I totally forgot not to use cardstock. I cut all my pages out of cardstock and glued everything together before I realized it wasn’t going to work. There was nothing I could do about the pages, but I was able to salvage the covers and the ribbon. The ripped paper areas will be covered by the new pages.

Back to assembling the book…Take one of the large pages (5″ x2″), still folded, and coat one side with glue.

Now, take that page and line it up on the cover so the folded side is even with the left side of the cover where the center of the ribbon is. Center it from top to bottom. Press it down tightly. I use a bone folder to make sure it is stuck all around the piece of ribbon.

Fold that page closed. Add glue to the next large page and place it directly on top of the first page, lining it up carefully and making sure all the folds are on the same side right up against the edge of the cover. Continue until you have added all the large pages.

Brush a line of glue across the middle of the top page and pull the ribbon tightly over the side with all the folded edges and across the top page.

Cover the entire top page including the ribbon with more glue and add the other cover, lining up all the edges carefully. Press down firmly on the book to make sure all the pages and covers are adhered. Open the book up and set aside to allow the pages to dry.

While the book is drying, begin assembling the medium and small pages. Take one medium page (4″ x 2″) and run a line of glue along one inside edge.

Take one of the small pages (3″ x 2″) and line up the outside edge of the small page with the inside edge of the medium page. The folded sides should both be going in the same direction.

Add a line of glue on the other inside edge of the medium page and line that up with the other outside edge of the small page. Make sure the edges line up really, really well.

Set these pages aside to dry and glue all of the other medium and small pages together in the same way.

Once those are all done, take one of your newly made med/small combo pages and add a small line of glue along the outside edge. If you are using two different designs for the inside pages of your book, make sure you choose one of the pages of which there are four (not the ones of which there are only three).

Now, place the page inside the book, lining the edge of the med/small combo page with the edge of of the first large page which is glued to the cover of the book.

Then, add glue to the other outside edge of the med/small combo page and adhere it to the next large page, lining the edges up carefully.

Continuing adding pages in the same way–remembering to alternate if you are using two different designs for your smallest pages–until all the pages are in the book.

Set the book aside to dry. Once it is dry, close it up, tie the ribbon, and trim the ribbon ends.

To make the book into a star, untie the book and open it until the two covers meet. Retie the ribbon.

Add an ornament hanger and it’s ready to hang on the tree.

I first made these mini star book ornaments with a friend as gifts for all of her employees several years ago. She managed a book store, so we printed book related quotes on all of the small pages. It made a touching and meaningful gift.

These star book ornaments can be customized to any theme. You can even add small photographs, although they will make the closed book a bit lumpy.

The first year I mass produced Christmas cards, I chose a very large stamp set (it required a 6″ x 6″ card). It was all open and had to be colored. I love coloring, so I didn’t think twice of it. After coloring fifty of them, I thought twice every year after that. I’ve never again used a stamp that had to be colored in for any of my Christmas cards.

However, since I’m making all my cards individually this year, I can say yes to coloring as I did in the card above.  I stamped the image with Memories Ink since it is waterproof. Then I colored it in with markers from Stampin’ Up and Close to My Heart. I accented the images with gel pens and Glaze pens from Sakura. The gray shading on the snowmen and snow was done with a gray ink pad and a water brush using the technique where you push the lid of the ink pad onto the pad itself to get some ink in the lid. Then you use a water brush to pick up some of the ink and use the diluted ink for shading. The stamps are from Stampin’ Up.

This is a really simple card featuring paper from Debbie Mumm, and stamps and accents from Close to My Heart.

I love heat embossing and it was a perfect choice for this simple card. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey and is accented with rhinestone brads. The sentiment is stamped with Versamark ink and coated with Mirror Platinum embossing powder from Close to My Heart. The stamps are also from Close to My Heart.

Another really simple card, this one features patterned paper from Basic Grey (background paper) and My Mind’s Eye (in the bottle cap), silver brads, and ribbon. The center accent is a bottle cap which has been pounded flat (see my bottle cap magnet tutorial for more info on this technique) and filled with Crystal Lacquer. If I were mass producing these cards, I’d use resin in the bottle caps. But since I was only making one, I used the Crystal Lacquer which is a glue that dries to a hard crystal finish. Both the brads and the bottle cap are silver; I’m not sure why the brads look gold in the picture.

I’ve been cranking out Christmas Cards all over the place. I realized my mail date was only a little over a month away and I knew I needed to get to work. The card above features patterned paper from Basic Grey and an accent from Close to My Heart.

You may have noticed many of this year’s Christmas cards feature the same papers. I’ve been trying to use up the holiday paper I already have and each 12″ x 12″ sheet will  make at least six cards–usually more. I was getting tired of looking at the same paper every time, so I grabbed something new off the stack for the above card. This funky snow flake paper is from Fancy Pants Designs. The stamped image is from Close to My Heart and the image is framed with a slide mount. Remember those? They were all the rage in scrapbooking and card making several years ago and I still have some laying around. Too fun!  The stamped snowflake image is accented with a rhinestone.

More snowflakes in this card. The background paper is from Basic Grey and the glittery paper attached to the clear acrylic tag from Ranger is from My Mind’s Eye.  The stamped images and inks are from Close to My Heart.

When I first started making Christmas cards this year I was looking around on the web at all the different sketch challenges and using those as a springboard for my designs. However, because of the volume of cards I’m making that got to be too time consuming, so I sought out different inspiration. I grabbed my copy of  Paper Crafts: Joy of Card Making, Collector’s Edition off the shelf and just started with the first sketch in the book (the first two are in the previous post) and am working my way through. So far I haven’t skipped any. It’s much quicker than searching for a new sketch online every time I finish a card.