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My dear grandmother writes many letters and postcards. Every day she is writing to some friend or relative. I thought as part of her Christmas gift, I would make her some stationery. But....as I sit here, the task seems overwhelming. To individually stamp each and every piece of paper?!...
Are there any samples of handmade stationery on this site? I did look, but did not have much success finding any. Do I stamp in color, or black and white outline type stamps? I really don't have time to hand color those type in, but she likes to color I think. I could give her a box of colored pencils to go with it. Probably the simpler, the better, but right now it seems like way too much work this close to Christmas.
Also....she likes to send postcards. What would be a good idea to put on the front of a postcard? Do any of you make them?
Believe me, any and ALL suggestions would be highly appreciated. I'm feeling the last minute pinch. We have to leave on Saturday for a 600 mile trip, and things are really piling up (including the snow)! Procrastination kills me every time.
I would go simple with some flowers stamped in colored ink on one corner of the paper, then some matching flowers on the envelopes. That should be pretty quick and still look nice.
The idea of having her color in the images is fun too, especially if she likes to color.
Sandy......Depending on the age/ability of your Grandmother, the idea of your stamping a simple design and letting her color it in sounds Super to me. That way she would feel she had a part in creating the stationary. Yes, I would hand stamp each page of the stationary. That's the whole point of making the stationary. A box of stationary wouldn't be all that many pages anyway....I would think no more than 25 if she is a big letter writer. Also give her some plain pages to use as a second page to her letter. Purchase some real nice paper from a good stationary store. I would suggest a silk, linen or laid paper and also the matching envelopes. Stamp a design on them also. I think that would make a Super gift. Add a nice pen and she's all set.
Lastly.....Stamp whatever design you choose in a color, so that if she didn't want to color it in, it still would look nice anyway.
It may take too much time at this late date, but I just ran across a piece I made a long time ago. It was fairly heavy paper. I used a lace-like corner punch and punched out all 4 corners - elegant look. You can get some boxes of paper (maybe Office Max, etc) that has a bit of a pattern to it - with a monogram that would look great. Or maybe just punch one corner - lower right one? Good luch.
Instead of worrying about stamping images and coloring them, you could use some of the gorgeous flourish stamps out there to add a simple border to the top or bottom. I'm with everyone else who said use a colored stamp pad--maybe in your grandma's favorite color? I like the monogram idea, too, as well as the corner punches.
Whatever you do, your grandma is going to like it because it's handmade and comes from you! Good luck and Merry Christmas!
If you have a cuttlebug you can use one of the small embossing folders and emboss an image on the top. You can use your computer to generate her name/initials on the top or bottom of each sheet.
Thank you all!!! These are excellent suggestions, and some I never even thought of. I get myself all in a tizzy, and the obvious things don't even occur to me.
Feel free to keep the ideas coming. I am having surgery in January, and I may as well use my recovery time (which will be long) to prepare for NEXT Christmas!
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I don't have a picture to share, not yet anyway - but I just made a few sets for my DD's teachers...Do you have any swirly jombo wheels, or regular wheels?? One of the sets I did, I used SU!'s So Swirly wheel along the bottom of the page, and put a Monogram at the top. (wheeled matching envelopes)
Another set, I just used a Martha Stewart Border punch along the bottom, again with the monogram up top...I have a few more sets to do, but it goes fairly quickly when you keep it simple.
I like the idea of a floral image or something maybe on the lower left of the page?
Good luck, would love to see what you come up with!!
Check out Nichole's blog - http://nicholeheady.typepad.com/capt...2007/11/1.html
for some ideas. She's one of the owners of papertreyink.com and they sell stationery kits. Even if you don't buy the kit, I love her idea and it works fast (I've tried it!).
One more idea is to stamp a large flower or other image with Versamark and use the popping pastels technique to add color. This coloring goes quickly and would be easy for her to do too.
HELP Making Stationery!
You guys are the BEST!
