Thoughtful Thursday . . .

Hi, all my inky friends and family!!!

How is everyone doing today . . .or this week?  Honestly, it seems like I am burning the end of both candles, as they say.  But not to worry, I am still able to get my crafting in . . . NOTHING gets in the way of my getting INKY!!!  lol

As I working on a card earlier this week, I was also pondering what I would do for this week's "Thoughtful Thursday" post . . . you know, so sort of "tip".  Well, I as I was cutting my specialty paper, I realized that would be a good post.  I mean, how many of you have "special" paper that you just don't want to use because you only have so much or a special paper that you are trying to save or stretch as much as possible?  I know, I do . . . in fact, a couple months ago, I received some wonderful paper from The Paper Temptress to do a project and it was so wonderful, I wanted to stretch it as much as possible. Those who follow me on UpintheNightwithKat.blogspot.com, know I do use a lot of layering in may cards . . . but I don't actually use as much paper as you might think.

When making my cards, I always just make the card front that I can add to a card base at a later date.  For two reasons - (1) it saves space when storing my cards and (2) it helps when I am tring to stretch my "special" paper.  When I mat or start layering, I cut the middle out of the paper (if I am able) in order to save paper to use for another project.  And then if I feel it is going to "sag" in the middle, I use Helmar's Scrap Dot 3D adhesive to help . . . it is like a gel, so I add it to the very back and then when I place my paper "stack" to my card and it evens everything out.  Here's some pics to show you how I do this:

First, make marks on the front or back side of your paper . . . to come up with how much to leave, I take the amount I want left on each side and add 1/2" and then mark each corner like this:

Then I take my paper trimmer and line up a dot with the little "pointer" on my blade and make a cut to the next dot.  Like this:

Then repeat on each of the other three sides.  To help, I sometimes make a line above the first cut to help me line up.  Like this:

Once I am all done, I have the following:

Now I have a "mat" to go for my card, plus some paper to use for another project.  Here's a card I did (and showed you a month or so ago) using this technique but I using both red and black mica/metallic paper from The Paper Temptress along with "Sew Sweet Cupcake" stamp set from Get Inky!:

On another note, remember there is a challenge still going on over at Blue Moon Creation Crafting Station (aka Get Inky!) that you can try this and enter a project.

Till next time . . . let's GET INKY!!!!

Kathy