Christmas cards for sale!

Come one, come all, it's time to buy some Christmas cards!

The shop is now open, please form an orderly queue (or stampede your way through) to the Ham N Mule card shop.

All of the cards that I've posted previously are available to buy, plus Claire's lovely designs.

You can buy directly through the site using Pay Pal and major credit cards or you can get in touch with me directly and place an order.

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Project 54: Mojo engagement card

Short post - and yes this is two in one day which is a record for me (obviously I need to  get out more).

I saw this week's Mojo sketch and had to play with it so I rushed home this evening to have a go. One of my best friends got engaged this weekend (in addition to my sister which means it was a hugely happy weekend!) and I thought immediately that this card layout would work well.

Here is the sketch I followed:

I tried lots of techniques to give it that special engagement-card luxury. I embossed the card in the middle with one of my favorite folders with leaves and birds and used my dotted scallop punch (<3 Martha Stewart) for the side. I went round the edge with an Almond colored Pro Marker, a practice of inking the sides in a slightly darker shade that I'm kind of obsessed with at the moment.

I used a scallop punch for the sparkly card and then added a paper flower with the button for the feature on the right. I wanted to add the sparkly paper for the bling factor but wanted to keep it rustic and chic so I used the button on the flower.

Turquoise, brown, cream and silver may seem random but the combo spoke to me. I love the background paper with the wheat pattern and I am hoping it'll speak to my friends' style.

The button coordinates with the brown ribbon, the grey flower coordinates with the silver greeting and cream is the non-sparkly version of my Hippie Chic stack of papers.  It came together like a dream.

Julesie - if you are reading this (likely my only non-relative fan!) - it's in the post from Saturday when I land in the US! Love you! xox

Project 53: Card sets

Another playdate with Claire, another armful of bounty to share with the world.

I’m flying out to see my parents and sister in New Orleans for Thanksgiving and we will be seeing some family friends that I haven’t seen for years. My mom encouraged me (coerced feels more appropriate though) to bring some sets of cards for the family friends. So I roped Claire into the fray and we made loads of sets of cards to give away.

I’ll start with my favourite of the session: these embossed, inked and tied heart DL cards on the headline. I did them in reverse of each other, making a little set of four. This card was a major faff, all the techniques going into the stamping and inking and what not. I’m pleased it’s going to a good home.

The next one is one that Claire did – the zebra and yellow combo is super sweet. I said at the time I never think of yellow and black but it’s a stellar combination.

Then we both did a similar card using tags in pink and green. As CG mentions on her blog, we followed completely different inspirations from Pinterest and yet we ended up making very similar things. How funny. I think one of these sets should go to my sister as she’s all about pink and green. (mine are the top, CG's are the bottom, for reference) 

Next we have the quilted pattern I made using Claire’s scallop square punch. These papers really spoke to me and they’re blue and brown which is a combo I can’t get enough of. My mom will probably like these…

Then we have Claire’s black and pink winner. We played a lot with that raffia-style thread. It’s super thin and easy to work with.

Then we made some engagement cards but I won’t post those as I’m going to be hand delivering them this weekend! The best thing about playdate sessions is that you see someone using the kit you have in a different way, or trying a technique with a common tool that you'd never considered. It's much better to craft with a friend than to craft in isolation. 

All in all a super productive Sunday session. I had to dash off for a work dinner but otherwise I think we could have stayed all night making these. Well until Claire’s husband kicked me out for talking nonsense and being a liability for drinking/crafting at the same time. It’s happened….a few times. 

Project 52: Trying new tricks with butterflies and gingham

Every weekend that I can remember having craft time available for the past few months has been dedicated to Christmas craft. This means my stores of non-Christmas cards are seriously down. Claire and I have some more craft fairs this year so I wanted to get the stock back up to scratch so I made some sets of cards that people could buy of the same layout in different colors. 

The headline card is a variation of a butterfly card that Claire alerted me to on Pinterest. I have this great little butterfly punch that my mom gave me and so I did a few versions using pastels, glitter and darker butterflies. Love them. 

Next is a variation of another post from Claire, this one from her blog. The technique to ink the patterned paper is really nice, it gives it a lived-in look that I like. I used the same ink for the “Thinking of You” stamp. I have added some glitter to the flowers since this photo was taken. Claire will like that I am all about the glittler glue now :)

Next I did a basic butterfly birthday card using some sweet gingham papers. I love gingham. Maybe all of my cards will be gingham from now on. 

And then using my gingham paper scraps I made some basic baby cards. Gingham in blue and pink does just look so baby-ish, doesn’t it? And buttons. Who doesn’t love a button on a card? Not one of my followers I should hope! 

All in I made about 30 today, admittedly simple layouts but I’m pleased that I have something to sell. I made another 3 sets of a secret layout that I am giving away as gifts to readers of this blog so I won’t post them here.  Very productive day. 

PS 52 projects and it's only October! Happy days - this is easily one of my best new years' resolutions and I have actually stuck with it. Here's to the next two months full of projects!

Project 51: Halloween treats

Happy Halloween everyone! 

I’m dead tired (Halloween pun intended) after making all these treats. That’s right two weeknights in a row, two massive craft projects undertaken. 

So I’ll keep the posts short so I can go sit on the couch and watch Suburgatory.

First – the headline craft is my batch of marbled cookies. My dad sent me the recipe this weekend and I thought it would be perfect to sample. I’m really nervous with cut-out cookies because I’ve had so many bad experiences with sticky dough and the inability to roll it repeatedly. But this worked well!

I wish I could tell you where it came from but it was scanned in from a magazine or a newspaper I think. And anyway it was for Christmas cookies because most people don’t think of Halloween as a cookie-oriented holiday. It so is.

The icing  is just powdered sugar and water with food dye. Of course I didn’t make enough and so some of my bats are orange instead of black. Never mind. The marbling was easy. Just a stripe of the opposite color and then I dragged a toothpick through to make the stripy effect.

Second craft is what you would expect if you knew me: an owl-carved pumpkin. I bought a small pumpkin this year and kept the design super simple. I usually go for really complicated designs that don’t always work. Not this year. Sometimes you gotta go for the simple option.

I tried carving the circle on an angle and that gave it the halo effect behind the owl. Really like that!

And now for some Suburgatory. Happy Halloween! :) 

Project 50: New House Cards

Another week has flown by. I was hoping to write a post on the craft fair but a) I was extraordinarily busy this week with work shenanigans and b) I read Claire’s post and thought she’s done a much better job of it. If you click on the link you'll see me at our stand looking pretty good!

This week I needed to make a new home card and decided to do a batch while I was at it.

I struggle with house warming cards because I think they always have really twee houses and flowers and things. So I decided to go back to basics and try some of my original techniques and layouts and see where that got me.

Over the summer I bought these beautiful papers and with Christmas and wedding craft, I haven’t used them. I started with a dark blue base and embossed a wood grain pattern on it. LOVE. I was playing with the structural concept of a house, thus the wood grain…ok. This was originally where the thought came from but to be honest, it’s cool looking and for the sake of this blog, that’s what matters. 

I then layered this with a green knotted ribbon and a patterned paper to pull together the two colors. Finished with a sentiment on the unembossed scraps of blue paper, rounded corners, and presto we’re done.

Just to try a variation that was a bit less masculine (I thought the blue and green rocked but know cards are fundamentally more girly than boy-ish) I replaced the papers with a purple and floral number. Cute, but less striking than the original.

And then to make use of my random scraps that were lying around I tried a new lattice punch that Claire got me from the US (told her that Marshall’s is full of craft bounty if you have a keen eye) and layered that above and below the flowery paper. Candies down the side to finish it off. I have to practice with the punch a bit more I think. 

I think the first is the best one but not too bad for a frenzied hour of crafting!

Project 49: Halloween cards

This week has been just crazy. And it’s Tuesday.

First challenge of the week was when Claire and I decided that the black-based Snow People cards needed to come with a gel pen as a free gift. It’s a nice touch and it makes lives easier as you can’t just write on a black card with a black pen. It would have been more helpful if we had come to this generous conclusion a month ago so we could have sourced cheap pens. But never mind, Wilkinsons to the rescue.

Next I was on serious bagging duty for the dozens of cards I made this weekend. About 70. Boo. 70 plastic bags to open, stuff and seal. Boo.

So with all this Boo-ing I managed to fit in 13 butterfly cards (so I don’t just have Christmas cards at the fair this weekend) and thought some Halloween cards were due.

Claire bought me this sweet pumpkin punch and I thought the best way to feature it was on (yet another) black card base.

I layered the orange punch outline with a black and white spotted ribbon, and hand-wrote the “boo!” greeting (largely because I’m too cheap to buy a one-use stamp) on a plain white circle. I added the black candies as they are a bit ghostly on the black card and I thought they dressed it up a bit.

If these bad-boys don’t sell then look for one in your mailbox because they are not going to waste.

If I don’t post again before Saturday then wish me luck – first craft fair in Rye this weekend!