Welcome to Valley Oak Paper
I design handmade greeting cards.
Washi Flower Power
When you’re using washi, you need smooth white cardstock that’s big enough for one repeat of the pattern. Most of Pinkfresh’s washi tape patterns are about the size of a slimline card, so cutting a letter size piece of cardstock lengthwise works great.
Arctic Treat Box
For the box, I’m using a Sizzix die set called Seasonal House Gift Box. It creates a super cute mini milk carton.
Stitched Mother’s Day
For this card, I used the Spellbinders Stitching Die of the Month for April 2024. It’s called Stitched Wall Hanging and includes an oval embroidery hoop, as well as two stitched flowers and a stitched leaf.
Wise Vintage Owl
To highlight the vintage floral pattern, I used my Tim Holtz Medium Brayer to add some Lost Shadow Distress Oxide on the raised areas.
Swatching Glimmer Hot Foils
The Satin Gold Glimmer Foil is from the Satin Metallics Variety Pack. Then we have Polished Brass (Essential Metallics) and just plain Gold (Holiday). The plain gold came with my Glimmer machine.
Color Catalog & Towering Blooms
Everything had the same intensity, so nothing was emphasized. Adding a white off-set layer to the bottom of most die cuts helped a lot.
Shaped Shaker Card
Today’s card is a shaped shaker card, so I’m starting with the card base.
Flutter Into Spring
Once I had laid out the scene on the Glimmer surface, it was easy to foil more, so I created one card with rainbow foil, and one with gold foil.
Single-layer gnome card
The adorable little gnome with her poinsettia is from Trinity Stamps’ From Our Gnome To Yours stamp and die set. Because it had to be a single-layer card, it took a couple of tries to get right.
Using up leftover foil
When the decorative elements “look” at the sentiment, it signals that the sentiment is important. That’s why the direction critters face is an important consideration when designing a card. Their gaze directs the viewers gaze, so use it to your advantage.
You Make My Heart Smile
For this card I used the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil Kit of the Month for December 2023. Getting a new toy to play with every month is just so much fun!
Orchid Postage Collage
This card was inspired by the Waffle Flower December Sneak Peak Club that included the Mini Slimline Postage Collage dies and stencil.
Monochrome Stocking Full of Joy
This die set is great to use with scraps, because there are lots of small dies that combine to create characters and greenery.
Lovely Layers Quail
This is also the very first video on my brand new YouTube channel, @ValleyOakPaper. I’d love it if you watched and subscribed. To begin with I’ll be releasing weekly cardmaking videos there.
Crafty business update
Silicon Valley in-person shopping
Unique Boutique is open 10.30 to 2.30 Monday through Friday at the Sunnyvale Senior Center
De Anza Flea Market: October 7th, next and probably final day.
Unique Boutique Craft Fair: November 3rd - 4th, Sunnyvale Senior Center
Pumpkin and plaid card
The theme was supposed to be making your own plaid, but as you’ll see I cheated.
Bring on the heat embossing tutorial
I knew I wanted hot colors for the landscape itself, but I die cut the landscape from white. Then I used Distress Oxide Inks to color them.
Whale thank-you cards
I cut out the parts of the whale from inexpensive watercolor paper and colored them with Distress Watercolor pencils following photos of humpback whales. The upper part and tail are colored with Black Soot. For the shadows under the whale I used Hickory Smoke.
Whale in a bottle card tutorial
The bottle die is 5.5” tall. That means that you can use it to create a shaped A2 card. Unfortunately that also means that it’s a little too big to fit comfortably on an A2 card. So that’s why I chose to make this a 5 by 7 card instead.
Stacked mini album
This mini album is very easy to make and has room for lots of embellishments. It will available for purchase at my booth at the De Anza Flea Market on Saturday, July 1st, 2023. If it doesn’t sell there, I’ll list it in my Etsy shop.