I designed my “Save the Date” cards for our fall wedding this week and I think they turned out pretty well. My sister and I were inspired by old vintage train ticket, circus tickets, and etsy. I would be a jerk not to point you to the great items on etsy that strongly influenced my own design.

Invitealicious Save the Date Cards.

Jamie Konet Save the Date Cards

Punch Card Wedding Invites by Letter Box Ink.

Nelly Bean Save the Date Cards.

Looking back, my only regret is not making them into postcards by increasing their size to 3 1/2x 4 1/4 and printing them on slightly thicker card stock. Because they were smaller than the envelopes, they are a little awkward in the envelope. Ah well, still super cute. I’m going to go ahead and stuff them in the invitations so people can hang them on the fridge.

I used InDesign to lay them out and printed them on a cottonwood card stock at my local print shop, 8 per sheet. So I was able to print off 80 for under $5. The copy shop will cut them in a stack cutter all at once for you too for just $1 per cut.

Fiskars 3-in-1 Corner Punch added the decorative accents. It took about 2 hours to punch them all once I got the hang of using the punch. I used one of those sweet 40% off coupons to get it for just $6 (like the Michael’s coupons that have been popping up in the sidebar/header ad here on the blog).

Single Circle Stamps were hard to find, so I purchased This Alphabet Stamp Set that had a little circle in it. It was on sale for 40% off, so like $6. Plus theteal ink pad, another $3.

The envelopes are from Action Envelope for $10.95 + shipping (50 count), they are the same ones that I use for Craft Leftovers, I love that grocery bag look so much!

I am glad that we went with a little stamp vs. a punch as it’s much easier to tell what the date is supposed to be.

The wedding invitations are going to be a much bigger production. I was inspired by old vintage train ticket booklets from France. We are going to matchbook bind a little book of tickets: the invite, the map, the rsvp card, etc. More on that later.

Until next time!

Kristin

Thanks you Little Leftovers Note Cards

The littlest of leftovers are often the hardest to work with. What do you do with one foot of yarn? A single lone button? Well, I came across these two fun ideas and decided to join them together to make my own leftovers project that uses up those littlest of bits.

I still owe some family members thank you cards from my birthday in April so these will be going into the mail as soon as this post is up!

Make your stamps

What you’ll need:

• hot glue gun
• ink pads or acrylic paint + a stiff brush
• wine corks or scraps of wood or even better: both!
• Yarn scraps
• Buttons

First make your stamps. I got this idea from elsewhere, no, I’m not that brilliant, so go check it out at the source: making button stamps on Martha Stewart and making yarn stamps on PrintPattern – oh my, I do want the Print Workshop book so bad!

Here’s the quick and easy photo run through of how I made the stamps:

Make your cards

This is easy, fold any old piece of paper in half, cut it to a rectangle:

And write your notes.

And done! How fun is that! I love making stamps from little bits. It has me thinking, what other leftovers should I make into stamps?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

I have two fun things to tell you about today. First, the November issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly is in the shop. Order it before Wednesday to get a little off while I print and pack up all the issues. Just $6.50 for the next three days! Woot!

This month’s issue is all about getting ready for the holiday rush and a lovely mash of leftover crafting.

November Craft Leftovers Monthly Table of Contents

The Usual:

• Contributors
• Hi ya
• Coloring Page
• Find the Words
• These are a few of my favorite things
• Crafty Life Comic

The Projects:

• Knit Beret
• Origami Garland
• Autumn Name Holder
• Plush Mrs Turkey Jerk
• Pine cone Napkin Holder
• Woven Recycled Jar Vase

The Articles:

• Interview with
• Holiday Help Part Two
• Music for Making

The Recipes:

• Roasted Apple Butter Acorn Squash
• Mulberry Jam by Su Mwamba

For the first time, you can get your hands on the cards I love to send out the most! Holiday Canniable Snowman Cards! These fun cards are perfect to send to all your holiday buddies, especially if they have similar fond memories of building snowman like me. This card is based on the cover illustration of the Volume 2 Holiday Issue that came out in December of 2009.

You can order singles in the shop, and for a big savings, you can pre-order packages of 10 from now until November 19th. You are guaranteed to get them by December 1st *US and Canada only*.

Singles here.

Pre-order as many as you want here.

Get the November Craft Leftovers Monthly here.

Happy crafting!

Kristin

This past July, I participated in a pencil rubbing swap on Swapbot. It reminded me how much I enjoy and how beautiful this simple technique is. With all the leaves blowing around, there are plenty of things to make textures from. When Kelly C told me she wanted to learn to draw textures, my mind instantly thought about pencil rubbings. I know, not exactly what she had been talking about, but a fun project for leftover paper all the same. Love the way the mind works.

::Materials::

• Scraps of thin paper, tissue paper actually works really nicely if you are gentle.
• Color Pencil or 6B Drawing Pencil
• Scraps of cardstock – 8 1/2 X 5 1/2″ size works nicely for a little thank you card.
• Rubber cement

::Making Pencil Rubbings::

First you will want to pick out some nice leaves, the greener the better really. Dry ones will crumble under pressure.

Then, pick out a soft pencil or charcoal (crayons and markers work well too, experiment a little and see what you like best). After playing around a bit, I liked the way colored pencils worked best. I suggest a softer one like Prismacolor vs Crayola.

Rub softly with the side of the lead to discover the edges of your leaf.

Use more pressure around the edges to high light them and work softly between the veins.

I love tissue paper for making rubbings because you can really pull out all the tiny details.

Take the card stock you want to use for your card and fold it in half. I like the way the raw torn edges look, so I just tore the leaf out of the paper. You can cut it instead. I even played a bit with some decorative scissor for a different look.

Apply a nice thin coat of rubber cement to the back of the paper.

‘

Smooth out the paper on the front of the card stock and let dry (like a minute or less).

Play around with different papers, colors, and leaves. Here is a smaller leaf that I made into a 4×5″ card.

I’ve been trying to get into the habit of giving people thank you cards when they do awesome things – like host a great dinner party. I know it always makes me feel special and “job well done” when I get one. Try it out. It doesn’t have to be for anything “huge”. Maybe a kind word, a good meal, or an awesome craft zine that they sent you in the mail :)

Happy Crafting!

Kristin

Don’t you love it when you have a favorite card game? It’s you can’t get enough of it. Every time you and your friends get together, one of you pulls out a worn box and starts dealing out the deck. I do. And I don’t. After awhile that super-worn box for your cards starts really falling apart and those precious cards start slipping out.

Well, for my favorite “flavor of the day” game, I opted to knit my own little holder for them. I want to keep them all nice and cozied up together. You can hold all sorts of thing in this handy little card deck “box”–craft things of course and other game things too. (Yahtzee maybe?) Heck, looking at it, I think it would be great to fill with papers, slip a pen into it, and carry it around as a note/sketch/writing set. Excellent.

The Stripy Fun Time Knit “Box”

Materials Needed:

• 5 colors totaling 25 grams, worsted cotton like peaches n’ creme

• Size 5.5mm double pointed needles, set of 5.

• Needle and thread.

• Yarn needle

• 1/2″ wide elastic

Directions:

Cast on 18 stitches using the cable cast on.

Knit 6 rows.

Pick up and knit 4 stitches on the side of the work, pick up and knit 18 stitches along the cast on edge, knit 4 stitches on the side of the work. Turn.

Round 1: Knit to end of the work, join in the round and place marker after the first stitch on the first needle to keep track of your beginning point.

::Knit all rows, directions are for striping pattern::

Rnd 2-12: gray

Rnd 13 & 14: bright green

Rnd 15: gray

Rnd 16 & 17: blue

Rnd 18 & 19: light green

Rnd 20: gray

Rnd 21: pink

Rnd 22 & 23: gray

Rnd 24-32: bright green

Rnd 33: Bind off 26 sts, knit to end.

Flap

Using 2 needles, work 6 rows stockinette stitch, ending with a knit row.

Purl to end, pick up and purl 4 stitches, turn.

Knit to end, pick up and knit 4 stitches–26sts now on the needles.

Work stockinette stitch for 8 rows.

Work one row reverse stockinette stitch.

Work stockinette stitch for 6 more rows.

BO all stitches.

Stitch it Together

Cut a piece of 1/2″ elastic 1/2″ shorter than the length of your bind off edge.

Stitch it to the sides, about 1″ from the top.

Flip the elastic over the top, turn the knit flap at the reverse stockinette stitch row and stitch the bind off row to the reverse stockinette side of the flap so the elastic is in-cased in it.

Flip the flap back over the top.

Stitch the sides of the flap down so the elastic won’t scrunch up.

Happy crafting!

Kristin