Tag Archives: cards

Nibs, Ink and Pizza

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My ink, pens and nibs are out again. It’s been a while since I’ve played with them. But if they’re out, I’m usually addressing envelopes. This one is for my sister-in-law’s bridal shower that we’re hosting here at our home.

I love calligraphy; I find beautiful handwriting fascinating. I’m self-taught, lots of books, no classes, but I’m starting to think it might be fun to take one. I bought my first pen set in high school at a local drugstore. That was late 1980’s. It’s the Sheaffer fountain pen kind with three nibs and little ink cartridges – it still works. Then my cousins gave me a Murano glass pen and writing ink around college or soon after I graduated. I was so hooked. Just recently I ventured out with dip pens, which is lots of fun. There was one summer I helped out a couple of friends and addressed wedding invitations for two weddings. The following year I did two more. There are 6 or seven weddings that I’ve been a part of now, I think?

Calligraphy by Julie

The ink I was using was liquid acrylic with metallic particles (gorgeous!) but I kept getting the nib gunked up. The scrap of paper and napkin I was using to wipe down the pen looked really interesting by the time I was done. While I was finishing the envelopes, the kids and husband were making pizza for dinner. Mmmm… it turned out well, considering we don’t make our own pizza often.

Semi-homemade pizza

More (teacher) gift ideas

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…and maybe something for you? Read on.

June just went by like a blur, and as the end of the school year approached, I was giving myself headaches thinking of small, thoughtful gifts for Abby to give to her teachers. As my husband so nicely pointed out, “We don’t have to give everyone a gift, you know?” I know, but at the same time, I think Abby really enjoyed every one of her teachers, the classes and everything she learned. And, I felt it was appropriate to give a little (let’s stress little) something.

For the reader, reading teacher, librarian – a handmade book wedgie. Sounds a bit nicer than book THONG. Haha. Abby picked out the beads and the charm at the bottom says, “Inspire”.

Book Thongs or Book Wedgies

For her main homeroom teacher, (along with this) we compiled a cookbook with favorite recipes shared and handwritten by the students. A couple of parents and I did all the scrapbooking layouts, and it took a few hours. Each page is different and the recipes range from “chocolate milk (pour syrup until your mom says stop)” to “Greek lentil soup (you don’t have to be Greek to eat this)”. This page was my daughter’s. She picked shrimp de jonge. Surprised?

Excerpt from Class Cookbook

Abby would tell me about her art teacher and how he taught her class that a little glue goes a long, long way. “A dot is a lot, that’s what he says, Mom.” So for the art teacher, a custom print that my husband and friend did, and stationery to match (printed at home). I just printed the picture at home on photo paper. It’s intentionally made to look like those motivational business posters or the funny de-motivational posters.

Custom print and stationery for art teacher

I cannot take the credit for the card layout. My cyber-acquaintance, author and designer, Amy Karol at angrychicken made these great cards with sayings. Please, check it out!

So, this might be fun. Would you like to share your teacher gift ideas or end-of-school-year traditions? If you do, we’d like to share some craftiness with you! We’ll randomly select a someone on Saturday, July 11 to receive an Abby-Julie book wedgie or custom 8-pack of stationery with your own quote. Leave your comment between now and Friday night (7/10, 11:59 CST) with an e-mail or some way so I can contact you. Many thanks, friends!

UPDATE: As of 7/12/09, no comments on this post.

Teacher Appreciation Gift idea

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Last week was National Teacher Appreciation Week.  I’m one of the room parents, so I went out and bought a simple flowering plant (kids are studying plants next week) and printed up this card.

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The little faces were stamped with my pinky and ring finger.  Used washable markers to color them up.  My stamp pads are stored right now since I haven’t been  stamping too much lately, and I didn’t feel like dragging them out.

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Just a cute, simple, heartfelt card.  You can find poems all over the web, but this one was from here.

Hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

Returning to Paper

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I really wanted to make some cards for Valentine’s Day. I had been focusing on sewing through the holidays that I thought I’d take a break from fabric and get back to my crafting roots, so to speak!

img_1385Made a bunch of gift tags to get started. I might just make these my first offering on etsy.com. I just haven’t pulled the trigger on my online store.

Then I reached for a book I bought a year ago that Abby and I like. Lots of fun things if you’re patient enough to do it. It comes with templates, paper, little wire hangers… not sure what possessed me to start my little project of paper cuttings. Maybe it’s just me trying to fulfill my childhood fantasy of becoming a fashion designer! Ha! I couldn’t draw a person to save my life! This is also where the toy “Fashion Plates” comes in. Girls, you know… the plastic plates you match up with a head, blouse and bottom, then you rub with a pencil to create your fashion model. We digress. That’ll be another blog.

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So here, I’ll stop talking a little bit and show you my paper accessory factory. This…

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…became this.

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Here’s a close up of one of the cards. They’re all slightly different.

They are also being sent out to some lovely friends, but I’ll try to upload something so you can print some at home for some last minute Valentine’s cards!

Not sure if it’s going to work out, but we’ll try!

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Hopefully you can open on your home computer, crop as needed and print on some glossy photo paper and stick on some cardstock. Or maybe you can print right onto the cardstock! Enjoy!

(ps: haven’t figured out what happened with my picture justifications? centered, left, etc…)

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