By Card Making & Scrapbooking Contributor
Peg Rounds
Q: What color of ink should I use for the sentiments on my cards?
A: You can use any color that you would like. Try to choose something that will enhance or pull a color from the papers that you have used to create the card. Often a black ink is nice to use as it makes the sentiment stand out from the variety of colors in the card.
Q: My new metal dies are coming hooked together with small metal pieces in between. How do I get them apart?
A: A pair of wire cutters can be easily used to snip those little pieces in between the dies. Once they have released you can use the cutters to snip off the remaining small metal pieces that are attached.
Q: What is an Artist Trading Card and what can I use to make one?
A: Artist Trading Cards, also referred to as ATC’s, are cards that are traded by crafters to share their creativity. There are groups that you can be a part of or just share them at crops and other events. It’s a lot of fun to make and share them. They are like baseball cards and are traded and never sold. ATC’s are 2 1/2 “wide X 3 1/2 “tall and are never smaller or bigger than this size. Use cardstock to make the base. You can use markers, stamps and ink, stickers, paint and more. Sketch your design on or use whatever you want to embellish them. Just make sure that if they will be mailed they are flat to be put into an envelope and keep in mind that ATC’s are collected so many people put them in protective binders (like baseball cards are in plastic sleeves) so they need to be flat to be put in those. On the back they contain: Your name, some may contain your address or email but only if you want it on, theme of card, date made, series #-based on same theme but with different designs for each ATC, edition number or number of card to how many made. For example: 1/8 or 1 of 3.
Q: I have a lot of loose papers from some of my patterned paper How can I store that neatly?
A: You can use the same sleeves that you put your layouts in to keep the papers and embellishments in and then place them in an album, too. You can fit several collections into one album and place them on the shelf in your craft room for easy and decorative storage.
Q: I want to add an extra note to my layout, but I don’t want to staple it. Is there anything else I can use to hold it?
A: There are many styles of decorative clips and clothespins that are fun to use to attach notes and even embellishments to a layout or card.
