Welcome to Valley Oak Paper
I design handmade greeting cards.
Pinkfresh Giveaway
This giveaway celebrates that I’ve reached 500 followers on Instagram. Super happy about that!
Post-Tax Season Business Update
This was my first tax season as a small business owner. Unfortunately I came to the conclusion that I need to get a paying job. So I’ve spent a lot of time updating my resume and portfolio site. My timing isn’t great, so it may be a while before I find something. The San Jose Mercury seems to have articles about more Silicon Valley layoffs a couple of times per week.
Frosty florals
The main feature of this card is created with the Honey Bee Lovely Layers Amaryllis Die Set. It creates a lush amaryllis plant with a choice of two planters.
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.
Sales tax time
I made a little more than $1,000 from selling my cards last year. That’s actually more than I thought. It’s still not enough to pay even one monthly mortgage. 😭
Mistletoe card tutorial
That’s all for this card - now you can sit back and admire the sparkle! ✨
Thinking ahead to 2024
I need to stop trying to sell my cards. It’s a distraction and the ROI is terrible.
Craft Fair Crunch Time
My next craft fair is at Fairwood Explorer Elementary School here in Sunnyvale on Saturday.
Business planning
I’ve started my giveaways. Here’s the first announcement post. You have until Sunday to comment to win.
A change will do you good
Stay tuned to find out what I’m going to do with the destash items. It may involve a giveaway or two…
Oak wreath tutorial
The next day I created the texture with the Pinkfresh Studio’s Stitches Cover Plate. This had the added bonus of flattening the cardstock after its bath.
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.
Pop-up tree tutorial
The theme for the Instagram hop this Sunday was Butterfly or Bee and Symmetry. I took the chance to use the recent Flowering tree pop-up die set from Spellbinders. It creates a fantastic four-tiered card that folds flat into a regular A2 format. It’s a real stunner and not too hard to pull off.
Pink Mother’s Day card tutorial
This is where things went wrong. Out of sheer habit, I doubled up the die cuts. That meant that I couldn’t create an eclipse card. 🤦🏼♀️
Find out how I recovered from my mistake.
Duckling cards tutorial
I started by laying out the dies on inexpensive watercolor paper and marking out how much space each of them would need. Then I colored the marked areas with Distress Crayons.
Steady as she goes
The next reveal is on Sunday. The theme is “Single layer spring.” It was a bit of a challenge for me because I like my layers.
Floral birthday card tutorial
Tips for coloring flowers: Look for commonalities in the images. If you paint what’s typical, people will recognize the flower and your coloring will seem realistic to them.
For exposure
I know this headline is going to get some people’s hackles up, but hear me out. In my situation doing things for exposure actually makes sense. My fledgling business needs all the exposure it can get. Everything is a marketing opportunity for me right now.