Valentine's Day Cards

I warn you in advance that this is going to be an entry where I gush about how proud I am of Crafty Kid. Everything you see in this entry she made herself, from start to finish, with no help from any adults. 

I was out all day yesterday and came back to find these beautiful cards and a wonderfully laid out crafting work area. Talk about being impressed! She even had my 13-year-old stepson helping her because she showed him how to use the Cuttlebug embosser and he loved it. If that isn't enough, today I showed her how to use Photo Grid and she made the collage image you see above for the blog :)

As you can see she had her crafting area laid out nicely. The biggest problems any crafter faces is the issue of time and space. Nobody wants to waste a lot of time setting things out or cleaning them up. Or waste even more time digging through things to find what they need. And most people have to use their kitchen table (like we do) and so you have a limited work space. I taught her to create work stations for the cards so that she knows where everything is and can easily go from one step to the next. 

She set up the following stations: Paper, Cutting, Embossing, Gluing, Embellishments, and Stamping. Everything was laid out on the kitchen table lining the perimeter, like a horseshoe, and she worked off of the clear space in the center.

Obviously taking time to set up was not her favorite thing in the beginning. She just wanted to get right down to crafting, and this always left a big mess. Scissors lost under paper, embellishments on the floor, no table space when you needed to emboss. Of course that lead to frustration, and let's face it, at 11 you kind of just give up on it at that point. I was then stuck cleaning up everything to make sure it got back in it's place, which could take up to 30 minutes. (Again, goes back to knowing where things are so you don't waste time digging through everything.)

So this breakthrough she had is a big win for everyone! She's productive and happy making the cards, and it took me all of 5 minutes to get everything back where it belonged the next day.

As far as card design, it was her idea to buy the doilies a few months back. Look at how creative she was with using them! I was also super impressed that she mixed and matched so many techniques. (Layering paper & doilies, stamping, embellishments, embossing, shape punching)

Making these cards takes time and patience. I'm proud of her for following through with her creativity and learning at the age of 11 how important it is to be organized.