Janet's Smiles

I’m going with Unique for my letter “U” in this 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge.   There are a lot of crafters out there so I try to make a few things that are a little unique.  Tell me what you think about these.

For Valentine’s Day one year instead of making my husband a regular card I decided to use candy to spell out my message.  I taped different of his favorite candy bars on a sheet of poster board and wrote a message around them.  The message says:  (Candy in parentheses)

Baby Love (Baby Ruth candy):

There are more reasons why I love you than there are stars in the (Milky Way) but let me (Take Five) to start:

1)  You take me to fun rock concerts instead of the stuffy (Symphony).
2)  It may not be (100 Grand) but you give me all your money on (PayDay).
3)  You are a great dad to our (3 Musketeers).
4) You show me you still love me even though I have a few more wrinkles and (Rollo)’s than when we first met.
5) B'(Twix) driving through the (Sno Caps) mountains to Reno or watching that Cash Cab guy from New (York Peppermint Patty) we still have good times!

Our life together has been very (Good and Plenty) more to come!

He liked it so much he didn’t want to ruin it by eating the candy!  I guess he could have taken the candy out and left the wrappers.

For my mom’s 90th birthday I made this flower shaped card.  I found different things that happened in 1923 and put them on the petals of the flower.  This is another one that would be very easy to personalize.

These are some of the decorations I made using my Slice machine.  I was really happy with the way the guitars came out.  They will go great in my concert album.

We have a local baking supply store who has a party room for rent.  I thought if I made a mini-album in the shape of a cake I could go to them and see if they would be interested in working with me to offer these to the people who have parties there.

The anchor I made using the Slice design card!

It can be easily personalized with dad’s favorite team colors and if he’s not into baseball or football I have golf or fishing among other activities. 

Have I managed to come up with some unique ideas for gift giving?  I’ve said before I love experimenting.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

Five more letters in this year’s A to Z.  I think I’m gonna make it, how about you?

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-u-is-for-unique.html
via IFTTT

For the letter “T” in the 10th Annual A to Z Challenge I am talking about tools.  Every good craftsperson has their tools.  My husband was a mechanic and he has a garage full of tool boxes with multiple varieties of tools.  The neighbors come by asking for this size wrench or that type screwdriver and he has them all.

I have my tools too.  Of course I have the standard pens, markers, scissors, ink, stamps, all that stuff.  I showed them a little bit in my post for the letter “S” last year when I talked about the Scrapbooking section of Michaels.  These are a few of my more specialized tools. 

The first is my Slice machine.  Many (most) people have the Cricut, Sizzix or a version of them to make their die cuts and alphabet letters.  The Slice machine came out about 10 years ago or so and I was so excited to get one.  It is a portable machine whereas some of the others are not.  I can use the Slice to cut out lots of different letters and shapes for almost any theme.  It comes with a design card that plugs into the machine.

Design cards

 Once the card is inserted you have lots of options to choose from.  I used this guitar to make the guitar embellishment I talked about yesterday in the “Special Order” CD Music mini.

It goes from 2 to 4 inches.

 Each card comes with a booklet that shows all the designs you can make.

 These are two journal tags I made using elements from the Slice design cards and then stamped some lines on them for the writing.

Unfortunately the company that made the Slice went out of business and the Slice is no longer supported by anyone.  I will be sad if something happens to mine.

We R Memory Keepers is a company that makes a lot of punch boards that you can use to make things as well.  This one makes envelopes, bows and boxes.  On the inside it tells you what size paper to use for whatever size envelope, bow or box you want to make and then just by punching the paper at certain points and then scoring and folding, you have your finished product.  I haven’t used the bow or box feature much yet but the envelopes I use a lot with my cards.

 This one makes party favor bags.  I made the orange one below.

 I have a lot of regular punches too.  Some are to punch things like flowers or leaves and some are border punches to use for making pretty borders on the page or edges on cards.

This one will take a 6 inch piece of paper and turn the edges into really detailed finishes.

Sticker makers

 Of course there is the Fairy Tales castle!  How cool to use that for pictures of a Disneyland vacation!

This one made the Christmas holders

This one made the ice cream and mug holders

Quick aside, using the “tools” on WP I see I have at this moment 146 “followers” on my Word Press version of this blog and 23 on Blogger.  Can I get to 150 and 25 before the end of the A to Z?  Hope you come back tomorrow for the letter “U.”

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-t-is-for-tools.html
via IFTTT

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-s-is-for-special.html
via IFTTT

Moving right along in the 10th Annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge we come to the letter “R” which stands for Repurpose, Reuse and Recycle.   I love experimenting with things and when I see some ordinary item I immediately start thinking about what else I could use it for.  Take these Laughing Cow cheese containers.  I really like this cheese so we had quite a few empty ones and I wondered what I could do with them.

And then there are the tea boxes.  I drink A LOT of tea and the boxes were just so cute.

Am I the only one who sees these things and wonders what to do with them?  All of them can easily be thrown into the recycle bin and the garbage company will take them away to melt them down or whatever they do but I think my way is more fun, don’t you?  You can find these and others on my Etsy site and if you can think of a theme you’d like to see one made into let me know!

“Rib” is the prompt for the #SoCS today so I’m glad I’ve been able to incorporate it into my little story here.

Tomorrow is Sunday so there is no A to Z.  I missed last week’s Song Lyric Sunday but maybe I’ll be able to play this week.  I’m going to try to make the rounds to some new A to Z-ers too and make sure I have the letters ready for the last week of the Challenge.  Have a Happy Easter!

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-r-is-for.html
via IFTTT

I was going to use Queen for the letter “Q” and then talk about things related to mothers, because you know we are the Queens of the house.  Then I realized that that was just more of the mini-albums and cards that I had already talked about so I decided to use “Quotes” as my word for today.

I suppose when I am making cards I could leave the insides blank.  That certainly would be easier but then the cards seem unfinished to me.  In the post about Overlays I showed the example of tags I had put in with the sentiment stamped on them.  There is always room for people to add their own messages too, but sometimes I think it takes the “pressure” off of having to think of something to say.  Know what I mean?

I am a collector of quotes and am always on the lookout for stamps and other things with good quotes on them.  One of my sources is the desk top calendars with a different quote on each page.  I have quite a few of those. 

New Job

Birthday

Birthday/Wedding

Mother’s Day

Graduation

Just because

I also love to use stamps.  Some have just words on them that you can mix and match to make your own quotes and some have the whole sentiment.

Would you rather have a card that is blank inside so you can write whatever you want or do you like ones with appropriate sentiments already?  Do you have favorite quotes that would be good to use?  Share!

I hope you are getting a chance to visit some of the other 10th Anniversary A to Z Challenge bloggers out there.  I know that some are new and would appreciate the love.  Tomorrow is Saturday so see you here for some R and R! 

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-q-is-for-quotes.html
via IFTTT

Any good business person knows that in order to sell their products they need to promote them in some way.  I have an Etsy site and whenever I make something new I take pictures and post them on the site, here on my blog and to Instagram and Facebook to let people know about them.  I know that Pinterest is a good way too and I am learning how to navigate that as well. 

Another way I have used for the last few years to promote my crafts is by signing up for craft fairs and Holiday Boutiques.  I had never tried anything like that before but I know that with my type of crafting, sometimes it is better if people can touch the products so I decided to give it a try.  The Etsy site has teams that you can join and one of the teams I was in posted different upcoming events we could register for.  My first one was at an Elks Club event.  My husband had been an Elk in the past and so I was familiar with the building and felt comfortable in the area.

This was my display table from that first vendor event.  It was held in conjunction with an Antique Car show and there was a lot of activity in and out of the showroom.  I didn’t make very much money but it was definitely a learning experience and it showed me some things about how to place my items so they would attract attention.  It also helped me get over my nervousness.

It was a Holiday Boutique so I switched the banner to the gold side to make it more festive.

The events cost money to participate in, anywhere from $30 to $60 depending on the size of the table you get.  I try to feature as many things on the table as I can without having it look too cluttered.

I have a little cup at the end of the table that has my business cards in it and am getting better and better at the displays I think, making it easy for people to pick up things and/or ask questions.

Almost every time I have at least made back the money I spent to reserve the table.  If I do that I call it a win.  At the last Holiday Boutique I actually had a request for some custom made items and that was really exciting.  I have a “Square” device that I can put on my phone or tablet to be able to collect payment with credit cards and that is great.  It also syncs with the Etsy site so if I sell something at an event, it automatically takes it out of my stock online.  I almost had a snafu though because while I was selling at the boutique, someone online bought some cards.  I had to make sure and take them off display right away so someone else wouldn’t try to buy them!  Good thing my phone sends me a notice when I make an Etsy sale!

I am also using this A to Z Challenge as a promotion since I am linking to my Etsy site with each letter.  So far no sales – come on people ~~ just kidding ~~ not really.  Please feel free to share the links with anyone you might think of who likes this personal touch to their cards and gifts.

Okay, enough promotion.  Now on to the letter “Q.”

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-p-is-for-promotion.html
via IFTTT

Koala’s have always been my favorite animal and I have pictures or statues of them all over the house.  Lately though I’ve been drawn to owls.  Maybe I’m looking for their wisdom.  Anyway, at the recent Stamp and Scrapbook Expo I found these kits with some really cute owl overlays.  Overlays are clear acetate pages with pictures or words printed on them.  You lay them over papers to get different effects.

 The first step is to cut apart the pictures.

 I stamped a sentiment on a smaller card and adhered it to the inside.

Here is the finished first card.  I used some of the colored stickers on the envelope and chalked the edges of the front of the card black.  I thought it came out really well.  This is the first time I have worked with these kits and they are pretty easy to use.  Other than tips about how to put the glitter paper on the back there are no “directions” with the kits so you can do whatever you want with the pieces.  They give you a lot too so I know I’ll have some extras.

 I decorated the corners of the front with these stickers and used some glittery pen to color them in.

I used some chalk ink to go around the edges to give it a little pop of color and a more finished look.

For the inside I used a tag and stamped another sentiment on it.

Here is the second finished card.  I used some washi tape on the envelope.  I’m pretty happy with this one too. 

But just so the Koalas don’t think I’ve forgotten them, these two have prominent spots in the studio as well!

Another letter down!  This year the A to Z 10th Anniversary Challenge has been going very smoothly.  One year I didn’t finish all the letters in time and had to go back to add them.  I don’t think I’m going to have that problem this year, thank goodness.  Hope you liked these behind the scenes examples.  Come back tomorrow for the letter “P.”

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-o-is-for-overlay.html
via IFTTT

Most of this A to Z 10th Anniversary Challenge I’ve been showing you the cards I make.  Yesterday I talked about the mini-albums that are a favorite of mine as well.  Today is sort of a combination of the two of those.

I called it the Name Game because I take the letters in the person’s first name and use descriptive words or phrases to celebrate them.  I made the first one for my cousin, Lynda, on the occasion of her birthday.

I think everyone likes to see their names on things, I know I do.   These make great card/keepsakes for people who have everything and don’t need or want presents for their birthdays or who are going through some tough times and need to know people are thinking about them.  Plus, these are small and don’t take up much space. 

It was relatively easy to find descriptive adjectives and phrases for these names.  Can you think of a name that might be harder?  So far I have just made these as personal gifts but I’m thinking of adding them to my Etsy site.  What would be a good name for them?  Would you buy something like this for a friend or relative? 

Plenty of time left to visit the other A to Z folk.  Stop by tomorrow for the letter “O” although truthfully I have no idea what I’m gonna talk about!

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-n-is-for-name-game.html
via IFTTT

We are starting the second half of the A to Z 10th Anniversary Challenge!  Has it seemed like the month has gone fast to you?  In my A to Z this year I am showcasing some of the things I make and that are available on my Etsy site.  If you haven’t visited it yet, I’d love it if you would!

I make a lot of cards but I also like making what I call mini-albums.  They are kind of like scrapbooks because you can put pictures in them and there are spaces for journaling but they are usually about one specific event or theme.

I started making School Days Mini’s like this:

Another style is using the bags with handles.  I made this one as an engagement gift for someone. 

What do you think of my mini’s?  Have a special occasion coming up that you need a one of a kind gift for?  Keep me in mind.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the letter “N.”  It’s a fun one!

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-m-is-for-mini.html
via IFTTT

In the A to Z of Card Making and Paper Crafting, L stands for Love.  I am a big believer in love and I really enjoy making things to celebrate it.  A few are here:

This is a mini-album I made that is like a book but with many interactive pages. 

I have a whole section in my Etsy Shop devoted to “Love” cards and things. 

Well, half way through the A to Z and I bet you couldn’t tell I was winging it the whole way!  “Lips” is our #SoCS prompt so I had to fit that in too.  Multi-tasking at its best!  Hope you are having a good time with the A to Z.  I’m going to try and find some new people to investigate tomorrow.  You do the same!

from Blogger http://asmile4ufromjanet.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-to-z-challenge-2019-l-is-for-love.html
via IFTTT