So my dear and gorgeous friend has just opened their own shop! Queer and witch owned, focusing (for now) on handmade greeting cards (also witch festival themed!) and planner stickers! She will have a launch around each major holiday/season change. Keep an eye on them, there will be queer themes, all witchy holidays, as well as many, many others for many cultures.
Magic: the Gathering is known for it’s amazing artworks. Did you know that they now have art cards? Did you know these are amazing for making your own oracle deck? Did you know these are cheap????
I mean look at this? Discover the Impossible by Ryan Pancoast. When I saw this card I immediately had several meanings: dreams, imagination, other world, and yeah; discover the impossible.
Introduction to Prophesy by Micah Epstein. Time, divination, visions, discovery of your power.
Crackle with Power by Micah Epstein again! Know your own power, stand your ground, let them see what they are dealing with
I could go on and on but I won’t. So the good: many different styles of art, including watercolour, digital, stained glass, traditional japanese, manga, and black and white lineart. Cheap: I paid €0,50 per card. Fully customizable. With new sets coming out there will be new cards, so you can keep adding things as you like. Beautiful and evocative art. You have signed and unsigned versions, so you can choose. (the website shows the signed versions with the signature in yellow, on the unsigned version there is no signature at all.)
So the… not bad per se, but things to keep in mind: they have no backs. The backs are white and include the M:tG logo, the title of the artwork and the artist. You can always back the cards yourself if you wish to. The cardstock of earlier cards seems lesser. A bit more thin and flimsy, I don’t care, but some might. So far it’s the Zendikar and Kaldheim. The cards come in horizontal and vertical, making readings look a bit more messy. I found that I do not care, the cards are amazing
During the last lockdown my partner and I spent a lot of time playing Stardew Valley together. At some point he challenged me into making a Stardew Valley themed card. I, of course, could not say no to this challenge
I decided on making a harvest display as used in the Harvest Festival in the game. You get a grid of nine products to display, and display your best – and most expensive – wares. There is also a quality system in the game running from copper to iridium (purple). The stars on the items designate the quality. I filled the display with items we farmed and crafted, some specific to the game, and added the name of our farm to the front.
I used an exploding box card from Lawn Fawn as the base, and cut off the side flaps. The items were stamped using several sets from Clearly Besotted.
My partner loved the surprise card and I had a lot of fun making this fun display!
I also added a Card Gallery to the top of the page, where I display all cards that I’ve made over the years, including ones that didn’t get their own post. Please check it out!
This year I picked up my habit of bullet journaling again! I don’t use it as a planner, but more as a daily-, weekly-, and monthly tracker for a bunch of things. My health, my symptoms, line a day diary, daily good things, books I plan to read this year, what witchy things I do during the month, etc. etc. I’m keeping it a bit lighter this time, not putting too much pressure on myself to keep it going. So here is the first page I want to share with you! A page to keep track of which handmade cards I sent out during the year. The adorable little mailbox I drew using LawnFawn’s You’ve Got Mail as a base. I think it turned out super cute and I can’t wait to see it fill up more and more during the year.
To my BuJo’ers out there, what is your favourite tracker?
Last monday was Imbolc, the pagan holiday which celebrates the start of spring. A symbol for Imbolc are snowdrops, which are also my favourite flowers! So, because I finally wanted an excuse to use this stamp, and I wanted some freedom in playing around, I made this Imbolc card. A soft lilac cardstock base with layers of white plain card stock, green mulberry paper, and plain card stock again. I used distress oxides to create the background and stamped my snowdrop over it. With white pencil I coloured the “drop” part of the snowdrop. I cut out the letters and added a layer of nuvo aqua shimmer to both the letters and my snowdrop.
I love how soft this card turned out. This is the first time I made a greeting card for a pagan holiday, but I quite enjoyed it, so it might just have to become a new tradition!
For Christmas my mother gave me these adorable stamps! I love them so much. So when her birthday came around, I wanted to do something with her stamps, of course. I really love the stitched hearts in the background, it was my first time working with them. The soft and pastel pink is a bit different than my normal style, but it was fun to play around with. And, more importantly, my mom loved it!
I loved the colour combo’s so much that I stamped the images on label paper, coloured them, and then used the matching dies to cut them out. So now I have adorable pastel stickers for my bullet journal!
I had so much fun making the exploding box fall card, that I decided to experiment and take it to the next level. I made another exploding box, this time coffee themed.
My friend Judith always makes the most elaborate and beautiful cards for me (like this insanely awesome unicorn rainbow cake card she made for my birthday). I’d not made a single card for about three years, so I figured it was time to make something for her… just because. She is a total coffee addict and collects all things coffee, so there was only one theme I could pick, really. I loved experimenting with the “floating” coffeebeans and cups, it was a lot of fun to make. I’m happy to tell you that she loved it!
November was ever creeping closer, which meant that the birthday of my friend Chantal was nearly here. She is the one person I will ALWAYS make a card for and I always go all out. Even if I haven’t crafted all year, she will get something handmade. So this year I went a little crazy (again) by creating a bunch of small cards and binding them together like a little booklet.
First, the cover! A frame diecut, cut in half and glued together for sturdyness. With a cute “happy birthday” that I stamped and embossed.
The first pages! I love the stamp and I actually use more of those quotes for her on other cards. It’s a birthday, so of course it needed a cupcake, but in very VERY bright colours.
She has two cats, so of course they couldn’t be left out. I stamped them and coloured them in the colours of her cats. And, like me, she is a writer and a fountain pen fanatic, so these dies are perfect! The frame is the same as the cover, now used whole.
Pretty galaxy paper, which I know she loves. The moonphases are stamped and embossed with glow in the dark embossing powder! It was the first time using it, so I did not know it would dry transparent… oops. Luckily I could lightly colour over it with white pencil. And lastly, a lunar moth with a moon!
On the back I put a piece of purple coloured paper and wrote the birthday message on there. I loved making this, it was a lot of fun to think of “pairs” of cards that would both work together and be meaningful. Now of course the question already starts to brew: what to do for next year?
A happy halloween and/or Samha’in to everyone who celebrates it! I quickly wanted to share with you all the card I made for my friend. It was a great excuse to finally use those halloween papers and witchy hat stamps.
And a sneaky peak into the inside of the card!
A ghost heart! It was a lot of fun to make and I loved how the colours came out.
I hope everyone has a wonderful day, and remember: stay spooky!
In my post about the Autumn Equinox I showed the lovely card that my friend Chantal made me to celebrate the start of Fall (both our favourite season!) Of course she inspired me, and I just had to make one for her as well. A week or so late, but luckily Fall can be celebrated for a while yet!
I made this lovely box for her. It folds up into a square card that fits into an envelope, and when you take it out it bounces back into it’s box form. It was my first time using it and I am absolutely in love! The possibilities are really endless.
For her it is also the start of a big home renovation, with a new living room and kitchen. It’s a stressful few weeks, so I wanted to add something both as a bit of a pick-me-up, and as something for the new kitchen. They collect fridge magnets, and are planning to install a metal plate in the kitchen to display their lovely collection. So why not make a magnet?
Inspired by this lovely plaque by Caralee Wells. She unfortunately doesn’t ship to the Netherlands, so I had to make something myself. My friend loves coffee, so I wanted to add a bit of patterned paper, as well as using distress oxide to age my paper from white to brown. Of course I am a witch, so I actually worked my blessing into the magnet, so that she always may have enough spoons!
She loved it, for which I am grateful. Also, it was the first time in a long time that I made cards again, which was just a lot of fun and inspiring.
marjolijnmakes.com 