Hey, y’all! For my final project of April, I have some quick and easy MemoryDex Cards for you! I used up scraps I had leftover from the Easel Cards I made at the beginning of the month, finished off the flower pack from the Scrapbooking Kit, and added a little splatter from the “Fairy Wings” paint in the Mixed Media Kit!
There isn’t a lot of “instruction” for these easy-peasy cards, but I do have a process video for you to check out where I go over briefly what I was using and doing!
As I started cutting my cover stock to size, I decided I would use up as much as I could, and that led me to create a tiered set of cards. All three cards are 4 inches wide, but their heights are 3”, 3-1/4”, and 3-1/2”.
I already had quite a bit of the flowers and foliage cut out from my Easel Cards, but I wanted a few larger pieces, so I cut the tags from one of the patterned papers, the hearts and scalloped edge circles from the cover of the elements pack, and picked out a few of the words from a page in the elements pack.
I picked out one sheet of patterned paper to cut to the same sizes as my three bases, punched the MemoryDex holes along the bottoms, and glued the two layers together.
I tried to keep each card similar to each other, but not identical, so I sorted the pieces I planned on using before gluing everything together.
I also wanted to add a little dimension to the layers – help them stand out a bit – so I used a blending brush and inked up the edges of the ephemera pieces before attaching them.
Because I had already opened the Little Birdie flower pack from the Scrapbooking Kit when I was playing with color, I decided I wanted to finish it off! (If you haven’t heard, I don’t like having partial flower packs!!)
I had one cluster, but three cards, so what else was there to do but dismantle the flower cluster and distribute the parts across the cards as evenly as possible?
After I had all my layers glued down and my Little Birdie flowers on, I realized I needed to add a little “something” to the flowers to create a more cohesive look – all it took was a light brushing of ink from my blending brush! Well I could have easily called the cards done after adding the sentiments, I still felt they didn’t look quite finished – so I added a little butterfly, and splattered on some of the “Fairy Wings” Sparks paint.
Thank you for joining me here today! I hope you enjoyed these quick and easy MemoryDex cards and they gave you some ideas of what you can make using this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit – or scraps you have left from other projects!
Stay Crafty, Friends
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
Hey, y’all! For my final project of October for Tres Jolie Kit Club, I have some November Memory Dex Cards for you. I don’t have a card for every day of the month – although I think it is possible with all of the “(Inter)National Day of’s …”. I just picked the more commonly known days – and National Button Day, since we are all crafters here!
The video is a quick watch – most of the project is die cutting, layering, and gluing – so I really spend the majority of the video time with the assembly of the shaker card and I give an overview of what mediums I used.
First, a warning and apology! I am in the process of switching my recording and editing programs, and had to work out which settings were best for these new programs – so the audio for about half the video is … less than ideal. Fortunately, I think I have it worked out now, unfortunately, it is during the shaker assembly. Sorry! It really got down to the wire of working with what I had, or not being done in time!
My shaker card was the most involved card created! I decided what I really “needed” for this project was to create a large, maple leaf shaped Memory Dex card. Over on my Flickr, you can find the full-sized .jpegs of the shaker parts and my little calendar to use in your personal project(s).
I doubled up the card part of the shaker – made using some cardstock from my stash – so it would have a little extra stability when on the Rolodex tracks since it is heavier than a “regular” card. To make my solid cardstock not so solid looking, I inked up the edges with my Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide, gave it a splatter of water, dabbed up the excess, and dried everything before I glued down the solid leaf, cut from some of the patterned paper from the kit and trimmed off the bit of extra stem from the bottom.
To create my spacer ring I cut two of the outline pieces and used some hot glue between them. And honestly, I think I might have found a favorite way to create the space needed for shakers! There is no dry time, no cutting, and scissors work to trim off any parts that seep out. All I had to do is keep moving so I wouldn’t get any piled up, and if a spot got skipped over, it was easy to go back and fill it in.
For the leaf veins and “November,” I first used a gold marker in my Cameo to sketch the outlines, then I switched over to the blade to cut the pieces out. I left everything on my mat so it would be easier to work on when I added some gold foil transfer to them.
After the foil was on, I grabbed up a piece of acetate and stitched the veins and acetate together. To keep the feed-dogs of my sewing machine from marring the acetate, I just ran it through on top of a piece of tissue paper – which tears off from the stitches super easily! Then I glued down the acetate window piece to the spacer ring using some JudiKins Diamond Glaze.
Since I was in a “let’s see what I can use” mindset, wanted to add a little extra to the shaker and wanted to make sure the edges of the leaf vein cut weren’t going to snag on anything, I brushed on some Peeled Paint Stickles around the edge, and then used it to fill in along the hot glue edge to really “clean” it all up. Then the only thing left to do was flip the window over, add my sequins, and glue the base on.
After the shaker card, the rest of the cards were really just a matter of gluing all the die-cut pieces together! Each card has two layers – except the envelopes – one layer of cardstock, and one layer of patterned paper. I added a bit of random stitching and tucked in and layered up die-cuts and pieces from the cut-apart sheets in this month’s kit.
As I noted in the video, this was the day I discovered my printer had decided to retire, so my calendar is only a black-and-white printout, instead of the original design that I shared near the beginning of this post. The “Native American History Month” Card is actually one of the envelope cards, and inside it, I added a couple of little fact sheets printed from the National Congress of American Indians and the U.S. government’s Native American Heritage Month website. And of course, I have a card to remind me that Daylight Savings Time ends on the sixth, and we “Fall Back” an hour.
The eighth is our mid-term elections here in the U.S., and since I believe voting is highly important and something that should be taken seriously, I had to make a card for that day. The eighth is also the first full moon of November, known as the Beaver Moon or Frost Moon. On the eleventh, we have Veteran’s Day (also known as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day), [originally] to commemorate the end of World War I. For my November 13th card, I have another envelope, but I didn’t to say anything on the outside other than “Fun Day” since it is the Ides of November and the Festival of (the Roman God) Jupiter. And of course, as I mentioned at the start of this post, I have my National Button Day card.
For my last two cards, I have one for (American) Thanksgiving – which signals the start of the Holiday shopping season, so I had to make a card for Small Business Saturday! Don’t forget to support small businesses!!
I used a set of Hampton Art Alpha stamps with my Frayed Burlap Distress Oxide or one of my StazOn inks to stamp the titles and dates and sometimes added some gold embossing powder to make areas stand out a bit more.
Thank you for joining me here in my corner! I hope you enjoyed this project and it gave you some ideas of what you can make using this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit! Make sure you check back with us on Tuesday when the November Kits are revealed! You’re going to love them!
Stay Crafty, Friends
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
We’re halfway through June, and this week I have some Memory Dex cards for you that I created using items from this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit from Tres Jolie Kit Club and items from my stash – quite a few from previous Tres Jolie Kits! Check out my video to see what I did for each of the cards I made – then grab up your supplies and create your own Memory Dex card(s).
I had bought the Heidi Swapp Memory Dex Spinner quite some time ago, and had originally thought of grabbing up some spray paint and changing the color – I might still do that – but I grabbed it up for this project so I’d have someplace to put my cards when they were done, and to make sure I didn’t make them too tall to clear the bottom! Depending on what kind of “–dex” system you have – be it a spinner, a box, something vintage, or something custom made – you can get very creative on how your Memory Dex cards are made! If, for example, you have the Memory Dex Box, you don’t have to worry about height, only width! (After this project was completed I happened to find a vintage Rolodex® system that would allow cards to fit in without any height or width restrictions!! *happy dance*)
Video:
A closer look at the cards I made:
My Concord & 9th “Lucky” Die cuts the three layers – thick line and outline from one die, thin line from another – so I made two lucky cards. The thick line and outline were cut from a half sheet of the white cardstock that I hand-inked up using a variety of Distress Oxides from my stash. The white pieces were from another partial sheet of the KaiserCraft cardstock, and on some of those, like the butterfly, I added some Distress Oxide to give a pop of color. I didn’t have any particular plans when I set out to make my cards, I just cut a lot of pieces and started layering; generally ending with a few of the Eyelet Outlet jewels and/or some of the small Prima butterflies.
I made my “Imagine” card a shaker card by cutting a circle out of the pink striped paper from this month’s kit, adding a sheet of craft foam with a circle cut out as a spacer, and filling it with some of the beads and sequins from the Buttons Galore cube from Septembers (2021) Cards Kit. I just used some plastic from an old package of die cuts – I often save the harder/stiffer plastic packaging for just this reason! – and stitched it in place with some metallic silver thread. My “Imagine” as a layer of the “Gamboge” Stencil Butter on it from the Mixed Media Kit and, while it was still wet, I sprinkled some Lindy’s Magical Powder on and spritzed it with a little water.
These two cards were really a couple of “let’s see how these parts work together” cards! The “grateful” card has a slot cut from the top (the label die from Tim Holtz’s “Stitched Slots”) that I just tucked a couple of large die cuts into after giving them a little color. The flower is just inked with some Distress Oxide, and the leaves have some Lindy’s Magical’s sprinkled on them. I cut the card from my inked KaiserCraft sheet, backed it with some of my leftover handmade paper, and added some stamping, jewels, & butterflies. The “grateful” had originally been stamped, but it didn’t show up very well, so I traced over it with a gel pen.
I wasn’t sure when I cut it if I would use the Bird Branch die, but I added some Magical’s, let it dry, and thought about what I’d do with it while working on other cards. Eventually, it came time to play with it, and I found that I liked how it looked with the oval frame, but the frame needed some color too! So on went some Magical and PearlEx powders. The card is another cut from my inked sheet and has some of the “Grecian Gold” Modeling paste (from the Mixed Media Kit this month!) dabbed on with my finger for a little shine. Then, to add a bit from this month’s Card’s Kit, I popped on a tab punched from one of the papers, added some orange jewels, and a Tim Holtz “Small Talk” sticker from my stash.
These two Memory Dex cards were made from a piece of scrap cardstock that I practiced a couple of mixed media ideas on. I have some texture paste, mica powder, and Magical powder on the base tag/Memory Dex, then I stamped the butterfly from the stamp in this month’s kit, I cut a tag-shaped frame out from my inked paper, layered a couple of more tags vertically, popped in a flower, added my jewels and phrase.
While I was doing all of my cutting, I decided to make a round Memory Dex card, so I used one of my circle dies to cut out the inked stenciling I had done (stencil from this month’s Mixed Media kit!). I stamped on the butterfly and phrase, attached a rectangle bottom, and ran it through my sewing machine a few times. The final touches were some Distress Oxide around the edges and the jewels.
When I first started this card I had thought of just attaching the pocket to another card, but as I was putting it together, I decided that I much preferred the pocket as the card! The top slot is backed by some pink cardstock from my stash, and the rest of the slots are back with white cardstock – what had been the original Memory Dex shaped card. The Tim Holtz “Stitched Slots” die is the perfect size for the spinner, I just punched the slots at the bottom and popped it right on. I used some of the smaller tags, cut with the tag dies from this month’s kit and cut from this month’s papers, to stick on some “Small Talk” phrases and slipped them into the slots. They don’t weigh a lot, so the friction between the papers is enough to hold them in place when they are upside down on the spinner. I then just added some of my die-cut hearts, outlined them with a yellow gel pen, added the label, and another “Small Talk” sticker.
The card with the bicycle stamped on it was probably the fastest to put together because all I did is layer up the different circles I had already cut out! I used the pink striped circle to fill the circle in the card base, then put the layers through my Sizzix using the dot embossing folder that had come with the machine, added that half-circle with some Lindy’s Magical’s stenciled on, and then all of the other plain circles. To add some contrast to all those circles, I popped on one of the smallest tags, then stamped on the bicycle and added the butterfly and phrase.
My “Spring” card was my first of the batch! I trimmed an inch off the width of a 3”x5” index card so it would fit on the spinner, used the stamp from this month to just get the flowers to peek out from behind the tag, and splattered it with some “Lemon” Glossy Spray. The tag is from some pink cardstock I had that was already adhered to an adhesive sheet. I used the thin scraps from my Folio at the beginning of the month, and just randomly layered them on the adhesive. I then cut the tag using the next to largest die in the set, peeled the protective paper the rest of the way off, and brushed on some Finnabair Mica Powder. Then I just finished up the details with some flowers, jewels, a butterfly, and the small tag.
Lastly, my “document” card. The die-cut word was too long to fit on the Memory Dex Spinner, so I cut it where it could be hyphenated, clipped off an end of the cross-mark on the “t” to use as the hyphen, and layered up a couple tags and a tab on the base card. I used some of the “Grecian Gold” Modeling paste on “document,” the stars and diamonds are from my Concord & 9th Lucky Die Set, there’s a little stamping, and a few jewels, and this card was done!
Thank you for joining me here in my corner! I hope you enjoyed seeing these cards and they inspired you to make your own Memory Dex card or two!
Today I’m bringing you my third (and final) project this month using the June Cards, Tags, & More Kit from Tres Jolie Kit Club; a sampler of smaller projects—ATCs, Memorydex®, and a notecard & envelope.
With my three projects this month, I used up every little bit of the June Cards, Tags, & More Kit, and had a fabulously fun time doing it! Check out my video below to see how my samples came together!
Video:
First up, my ATCs:
I used Tim Holtz’s “Crackling Campfire” and “Salvaged Patina” for the color scheme of my ATCs. The bases are Prima ATCs, dyed some white tulle with Distress Oxide Stain, and I used the clockfaces, butterflies, phrases, and flowers (my flowers were different!) from the kit to top them.
Here are some close-ups of each ATC:
Next, my Memorydex cards:
Since these cards are meant to go onto a Memorydex®, I kept them a bit flatter than the ATCs. Three of the card’s color scheme are Tim Holtz’s “Blueprint Sketch” & “Mustard Seed” and three are the same as the ATCs, “Salvaged Patina” & “Crackling Campfire.” I grabbed up some sisal for four of the cards and actually just used my wax seals to hold it in place! I used my last butterfly and gears from the kit and added some cut out pieces from the Stamperia paper pack. (Note: At the time I didn’t have the June Mixed Media Kit yet, so I used some Nuvo Gilding Flakes from my stash. As a reminder, the June Mixed Media Kit comes with a jar of Finnabair’s “Steampunk” Metallic Flakes!)
Close-ups of the individual Memorydex® cards:
And finally, my notecard and envelope:
For my envelope I was 100% inspired by Nathifa (Pronounced: na-tee-fa) from Juicy Christians Studios (in my video I only refer to her Instagram handle because I hadn’t heard her say her name or read the pronunciation yet, and I didn’t want to pronounce it wrong!). I am completely obsessed with watching her make envelopes! When I got down to having only pieces from the cut apart sheet left, I figured I’d try my hand at making an envelope.
I used some Kraft paper from my stash, turned a stencil into a stamp, cut out Every. Last. Piece. of the cut apart sheet, and layered things up—using my black Stabilo to create my shadows! I wrote my name on the back flap, to show where a return address would go, and used a silver marker to create the recipient’s address box. Now I may have finally found a use for all the cut apart sheets I’ve collected over the years! (Fussy cutting isn’t my most favorite activity!)
Here are close-up of the front and back of the envelope:
Thank you for joining me today! I hope you enjoyed these sample projects and they give you some ideas of what can be done with items from this month’s Cards, Tags, & More Kit!
Stay Crafty, Friends!
Did you get a kit? Share what you made in our Facebook Group!
C.J.'s Corner Scraps 