Hello Crafty Friends!
These past few weeks I have devoted my crafting time to using the older supplies I have had stashed away over the years. I love creating my handmade greeting cards and have looked back at the pictures of the cards I have designed since 2007. My card styles have changed, however the reason and meaning of creating cards has remained the same-to let people know they are remembered and special.
There are four containers of brads, small charms, sequins, and various other embellishments in my craft drawer.
Since many of these add bulk to cards, I have found ways to reduce the bulk and use these items. For instance, remember the ‘candy buttons’ that were popular a few years ago? They came in several different colors and styles. I usually attached these cute buttons to cards using a small square foam that fit them perfectly and added some dimension to my cards.
I had an idea of putting these between a piece of printer paper and running them through my die cutting machine. I squished ’em and was able to attach them to my cards using a small dot of glue. They still added a bit of texture, but not bulk to my cards. It also added some more texture to the top of the button, as you can see in the picture. Not all of these buttons added bulk when I attached the foam square, but attaching the squished button with glue makes it more secure than the foam square. We all want our cards to arrive through the mail intact, and in my opinion glue is much more secure than foam. (Especially if the foam squares are older.)
More texture is added to the buttons after they are compressed in the die cutting machine, using regular plates. I was pleasantly surprised to see these, the more texture I can put on a card, the better!
Another idea I had was to cut off the prongs of some brads I had in my collection. I used one of my handy tools to squish the ends of the cut prongs down into the brad. Then I was able to attach the brad with glue to my card. (If it was a bigger brad, I stuffed it with a sticky zot, and added glue to make sure it was secure.) Not having the prongs opened behind the card, which added bulk, made them easier to mail. When I purchased brads in the past they usually came in packages that held several of these crafty gems. Now I have a way to use these and save on postage!
This technique has allowed to me save on postage and packaging material when I mail cards created with embellishments. And the best part….I am using up my older items!
I hope these ideas help you to use up items in your stash and save on bulk and postage. Thank you for visiting my blog today. Enjoy your crafty time!
~~ Vickie~~
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