Check Out the Glittery Christmas Ornaments I Created

Hey Everyone. . .stop by my Stampin Inspirations blog site to check out the "Glittery Christmas Ornaments" I created using rubber stamped images! I'll be posting a tutorial on how to create it this evening so be sure to check back later tonight!

Posting RAKs tomorrow!!

I received a few RAKs and wanted to post them today but my Internet is running like it's on dial-up and I have Roadrunner. It's drivin' me crazy. . .I received a few wonderful RAKs and I wanted to show them off but it's taking forever to load the pictures so I'll try again tomorrow!

Be sure to come back and check them out!!

My Sick Shopping Addiction

Yeah, I'm a sucker for sales. I do have a shopping addiction and I joke about it but quite frankly, it's disturbing but that don't stop me from buying. Look at what I found at Big Lot. These great DVD size tins for a dollar each. Do you know how much these cost at regular price? At least 3 to 5 dollars each. When I saw them for a dollar each, I bought all of what they had on their shelf. Sick, I know but I couldn't resist.

Now, what am I going to do with them? Well, I'm going to make mini scrapbook albums of my kids, our travel, friends, family, etc. I think it'll be fun. My goal for the month of August and September is to actually create the albums to fill these tin containers.

We'll see if I'll actually do it but I'm determined to use them. My goal is to do 2 a week. My kids are going back to school in a week and I'll have my "free" time back. As much as I love my kids and doing things with them, I would also like more time to craft. Besides, they're not little babies anymore.

I think I'm going to make my shopping adventure a category on this blog site. Maybe by posting what I buy, it'll sort of discourage me from buying more. Why would that discourage me? Well, I'm a little embarrassed of my "need" to buy and to actually show others that I have a problem, well maybe I'll slow down a bit. What do you think? Do you think it'll work? Doubt it but it's worth a try.

Until later. . .I need to cook lunch for my family. . ..

TIC Day #1 - And the Winner is. . .

Hello Everyone! Thank you for all the participants of my first TIC! I had so much fun with this challenge. . .it helped me to work a little harder in creating multiple layered cards. For those who participated, all of your work were wonderful and I hope you'll come back for my next challenge.

For those who didn't have the chance to participate, I hope I'll see you on my next challenge!Anyway. . .now for the winner of the RAK (it's not necessarily a RAK because you had to do something to receive it). I'll be sending a handmade card that I created for the challenge. I guess you could call it a SHARE rather than a RAK. I used a random selector generator to choose the winner.

The winner is JOYCE. Congratulations!

See y'all next time. . .

Blogger's Choice Awards

Tejal at "New Expressions Everyday" nominated Card Inspired for the "Best Hobby Blog". Isn't she the sweetest. I have the "badge" located to the right of my blog. Vote for my blog site if you want! I'm already a winner for having such kind people visiting my blog sites! Thank you Tejal for being such a sweetheart! Tejal is a really nice person. . .when I was feeling a little "blue" and "uninspired", she sent me encouraging notes and even jokes to lift my spirits up. . .which by the way, it did. I'm always grateful for the random act of kindness I receive from people I've never met. This blog site have been a great avenue for meeting wonderful people, even if it's online through my blogs! Thank you, friends!!

To answer the question "What do I do with my cards"

To answer this question. . .

I usually sell my cards to repeat customers. Many will ask me to design a card for them and they pick which ones they want. I sell to friends and family and at craft fairs during the holidays.

I don't advertise selling cards that are on my blogs. I'll post them after I've sold them. I also sell cards on Ebay if the company don't have a strict Angel Policy. Click Here for the website that will provide the Angel Policy for various stamp companies. Here is another website that provides information on the subject of Angel Policies. . .Click here This website provides more info on companies that are Angel companies and ones that have an Angel Policy. . .Click Here

Just as a note. . .Angel Companies and Angel Policies are not limited to rubber stamping. . .it includes all crafting so be sure to check the Angel Policies for die-cut companies for products such as Cuttlebug, Sizzix, Cricut, Accucut, Quickutz, etc. Some do have restrictions as well!!!

Penny Black and Stampendous are Angel stamps other than a few specific series or stamps that do have an Angel Policy. "Angel Stamps or Angel Company" means you are allowed to make cards using their stamps and sell them. "Angel Policy" means they have restrictions. Some will have a few restrictions such as giving credit to the designer or no retail stores or internet selling. Some are pure or absolute "Angel Companies or stamps" meaning there's no policies whatsoeverl and those are the best ones!!

I don't mass produce any of my cards. . .all my cards are one of a kind and I usually don't create more than one or two cards of the same image at a time unless it's individually requested by a customer. Stamp companies don't like "mass production" meaning selling a lot of cards at once using the same image and design.

My cards that are created with Stampin Up stamps are restricted to swaps, personal or craft fairs. I don't sell these cards on Ebay because SU is VERY STRICT and will hunt you down if you sell them on Ebay or on your blog site. So. . .word of caution if you advertise your Stampin Up cards for sale on your blog sites. . .some busy body will snitch on you!!!! There are people who appointed themselves as the SU Police! Haha! Don't worry. . .not me - I don't operate that way!!

X-Fest San Diego Sunday, May 20, 2007

If you didn't read my previous post, I went to the X-Fest in San Diego yesterday and OMG, it was awesome. It would have been just a regular concert festival if it weren't for a few memorable events.

X-Fest is a concert festival which features various rock bands. The featured bands were 30 Seconds to Mars (the most awesome band ever), the Bravery, Social Distortion, Plain White T's, Sum 41, Shiny Toy Guns, Say Anything and a few other bands. We were at the festival for 9 whole hours and we left before Social Distortion played their set.

Okay, here is the memorable event. . .we were watching Sum 41 do their set and we were sort of on the outskirt of the stage next to the promotional booth. There were a few people at the booth and nothing was really going on there. After a little while, my son suddenly said "hey look it's 30 Seconds to Mars at the booth"! If you don't know by now, I'm major fan of 30 Seconds to Mars and Jared Leto, the lead singer of the band.

****30 Seconds to Mars - Jared is the one on the front right****

Anyway, we rushed over to the booth and 30 Seconds to Mars were setting up for an interview. OMG!!!! Jared Leto was like 3 ft away from us. . .if he stretched out his hand, I could have grabbed it! Unfortunately, he did not. . .oh, well. He was a bit scruffy looking, unshaven, messed up hair but no matter, the guy is gorgeous.

He is so friendly and very nice person it seems. At one point of the interview, he discussed the fact that his mother was an RN and that he has great admiration for nurses. Can you believe it? I wanted to scream "hey Jared, I'm a Nurse"!! After the interview, he walked over to the audience and was telling everyone hello. He has beautiful skin. He's a vegan so I guess eating lots of veggies does wonders for your skin! Too bad he was wearing big sunglasses that covered half his face. He also talked about the fact that they are working on a new album and some other stuff. I was just too shocked to hear everything he was saying.

30 Seconds to Mars set was awesome. I mean absolutely awesome. He has an absolutely awesome voice. They stole the whole show! The other bands paled by comparison! I've been to a lot of concerts and their set was one of the best I've been to. Sum 41 was great too. . .but not half as good as 30 STM.

Oh . . .another interesting thing happened. While we were waiting for Sum 41 to start their set. . .I felt a security guard push me to the side so I turned around and guess who was standing next to me. . .Avril Levigne and her husband (the lead singer of Sum 41). Boy those two are munchkins. . .seriously short. . .about my height (5 ft). I think Avril Levinge in fact is shorter than I am and her husband can't be taller than 5 3". The dude is short. Avril is very blond, very pale looking, and wears a lot of eyeliner. . .she looks exactly like how you see her on TV and magazines.

Overall, it was a great event and I can actually say that I saw Jared Leto in person and not just on stage. It was an absolutely memorable day! If you've never heard of 30 Seconds to Mars, scroll to the top of my blog site and click on the pictures to view videos of the band in concert. Enjoy!

***Here is Jared as a movie star******



****Jared mixing with the Hollywood crowd*****

Daily Special - Technique Day - Metallic Vellum Blossoms Tutorial

Hey Everyone. . .stop by my Stampin Inpsirations Blog site. I have a tutorial on that blog site on a technique I call "Metallic Vellum Blossoms". If I have the time, I'll create a sample on this blog site using a non-Stampin Up stamp but in the meantime, go check it out. I think you'll like it!!

I'm in the middle of cleaning my messy, messy room! I'll post something on this blog site, once I get my room cleaned up!

Hope y'all have a great day!

30 Seconds to Mars concert tomorrow! Whoohoo!

Until later. . .

Update on yesterday's post - Hanging Envelope Organizer

This post is for my subcribers. Because updates on previous posts are not sent to subscribers, I'm just letting y'all know that I updated yesterday's post on the "Hanging Envelope Organizer" and added a tutorial. Please visit my blog site and refer to the previous post to be linked to the tutorial.

Until later. . .

Check Out My Search Engine

Yes, you can now search my two blog sites and my website for specific projects, tutorials, techniques, etc. The search engine is located to the right of my blog site right below my picture. It only searches my three site (Card Inspired, Stampin Inspirations blog site and website). I'm so thrilled that you can now search my blog sites and website without having to scroll down my archive. Try it out! Please do. . .and tell me what you think!!

Response to My "Tell Me About Yourself" Questionnaire

Because my questionnaire was so long, I'll post a few of the responses I received each day until I cover them all. It was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally fun reading your responses and I want to thank you for taking the time to fill out my questionnaire.

For the first question "How long have you been rubber stamping?"

The majority responded 1 to 4 years. I'll be making 4 years this year so I had this in common with my respondents. The average was 2 to 3 years. BUT. . .approximately 30% have been stamping for over 5 years and 5 of the 49 respondents have been rubber stamping for over 10 years and Linda Y. has been rubber stamping for 15 years. I never heard of rubber stamping up until 5 years ago. . .imagine, someone rubber stamping for 15 years! Linda Y. . .you should create a blog site and share your vast rubber stamping experience with all of us!!

There were a few newbies <1 year - approximately 7 of the 49 respondents have been rubber stamping for less than a year. Shelly, Emily, Rochelle, and Kris are super newbies. . .they just started stamping! Welcome to the world of rubber stamping!!! I hope you stick it out and continue to learn!

The second question was "How often do you rubber stamp or make cards?"

An overwhelming majority responded with either daily or several times a week. There were about 5 of you that rubber stamped occasionally like once a month or once a week. Wow, it's really great to hear that I'm not the only one that rubber stamps daily or several times a week. Honestly, I thought I was a minority and that most rubber stampers rubber stamped a few times a month. I thought I was spending too much time with this hobby and I've been rest assured that I'm no different from many rubber stampers out there!

Trish rubber stamps daily and said "A day without stamping is a day without sunshine". Hahaha! I like that!

Okay. . .that's the two questions and responses for the day. I'll do two more tomorrow~

Until later. . .

Stampin Up Perfect Layers

Whoohoo! Received my Stampin Up Perfect Layers. I haven't used it yet but I'll try it out tonight and I'll do a product review. I bought it because I wanted to see if I can get a cleaner edge to my card layering. I typically eye-ball the edge and cut but I've seen cards with perfect looking edges and found out they used the Perfect Layer. We'll see. There doesn't seem to be much to it. . .just a see through type of ruler that you cut along the edge using a craft knife.

Until later. . . .

Made 2 Cards. . . Whoohoo!!

I actually made two cards this evening and they turned out okay. I will add it to my post tomorrow morning. I have so many things to do tomorrow. I feel a little overwhelmed. I will try to remain focused. My problem is that I need to be more organized and not be so ADD. I think I'm slightly ADD but have not been diagnosed. Ha! Sometimes I do feel I have a problem focusing for long periods of time.

Until tomorrow!

Day of Nothingness

I did not make any cards again today. Once again I don't know where my day has gone. I woke up early, drove the kids to school, came home, contractors came over to evaluate how to fix our intercom system, packaged a few items to mail, went to the store to buy printer ink, went grocery shopping, picked the kids up from school, started cooking dinner, and now here I am. I can't believe that it took my whole day to do basically nothing substantial. It appears that my days seem to be filled with these sort of "nothingness" and amazingly, I don't have time to make cards.

I wonder how I did it when I was working full time? I mean I can't figure it out. I still found time to make cards when I was working. It's really weird.

Unproductive Day

I didn't make any cards today. I started off ready to go but everything else got in the way. My craft room is a mess and I can't stand the way it looks right now. When my room is messy, I can't concentrate. It bugs me like crazy. It's almost 6:00 p.m. Geez, where has the day gone? It seems the days are going by faster. I wake up early in the morning and all of sudden it's time to go to bed. It's like a flash. . .and it's not like I'm a very busy person. Imagine when I return to work. . .right now, I can't even imagine it's possible to make cards when I return to work. I can't even squeeze in time to make cards when I'm not working so how will it be possible when I am.

I still need to wash the laundry and clean this room up. I guess I won't make any cards today. I wonder. . .when a person gets older, does time seem to go by faster? I wish it would slow down a little. . .there's too many things in life to enjoy.

Until later. . .

Advise on selling handmade cards

Making cards to sell is a great business if you can develop a client base that buy from you regularly. There are a few things I've learned after selling cards for the past 2 years, here are a few of them:

1. Each customer has a particular taste in design and type of cards they like to purchase. This is important because when buying stamps and other products to create your cards, you need to have a variety of design and styles to accomodate your customers.
2. It appears technique is less important to some customer. If they like a particular stamped image, I found that it really doesn't matter if you colored it with pastels or pencils and did nothing else to it but color it. You can spend hours creating a card with various complicated technique and the card won't sell any faster than if you created it with a simple technique.
3. If the customer is also a rubber stamper, then technique and design may be more important than the stamped image to this particular customer. These types of customers buy your card because they want an example of techniques so that they can re-create the cards themselves.
4. The two previous notes leads to this advise: Know your customers and why they are buying your cards.
5. Customers don't know how long it took for you to make your cards unless they make them themselves. As a matter of fact, many don't care if it took you 5 minutes to create a card or 3 hours. Keep things in perspective. . .many don't understand the process of making cards so don't feel offended if they don't buy the more heavily "technique" driven cards.
6. Sometimes it is more profitable to make cards that are the simplest to make but use quality stamps and materials when creating these simple cards.
7. Buy quality rubber stamps. It can make your job easier when creating a card design. A very nice rubber stamp can make even a simple card pretty without any other additional embellishments to make it nice.
8. Know the cost of each components of your card, down to that single brad or ribbon. Keep also in mind the cost of the glue, tape, ink, envelope, etc. These things add to the cost of creating the card.
9. Sell your cards at a lower rate than your competitors if possible. It's more important to have repeat customers who will buy more than one card from you as opposed to one customer who will buy that one pricey card. You may have profited more on that one card but if your card is too expensive, you may not sell many of them in the long run.
10. Always buy bulk when purchasing cardstock, scrapbook paper, embellishments, etc. It will help to keep your cost low and provide you with various materials to create different design elements to your cards.
11. Don't focus on buying "designer" or "brand name" products unless they are the only ones that sell that particular type of product.
12. Buy tools that will allow you to create various design elements to your cards. Concentrate on buying big ticket items on tools. In the long run it's a great investment. You will only need to buy it once even if it's expensive but if it provides you the means to create various designs to your cards, then it's well worth it.
13. Many customers buy handmade cards because they like the idea of buying a card that is "one of a kind". Be careful about making "bulk" sets of cards. For many customers, it's less appealing to buy a card where there are multiple sets of a particular card design. Make bulk sets if a customer request it.
14. Most important of all make cards because you enjoy making them. . .if the focus is to sell them, you will burn out in no time and the idea of creating cards will become more of a burden rather than something fun. Ultimately, you'll get tired of making them.
15. The truth about selling handmade cards: You won't make a lot of money selling handmade cards, especially if you factor the time it takes to create them so if you are realistic, the sale of your cards is just a little bonus. Make cards because you enjoy making them whether it sells or not.

Hope this list helps you understand the business of selling cards. . .especially, if you've been thinking of starting a handmade card business.