cards by the masses

This was a card I made last week for my card class. I decided to use the same design but just minaturize it to make our Valentine cards.

Last week in my last minute attempt to make about a million Valentine's (it wasn't really that many it just felt like it) for my kids to take to school I decided to take step by step pictures to show you what I do when I make cards by the masses. This was actually a smaller task, when I was only making 10 for my youngest boy to take to preschool. The next night was the 4 hour marathon card making session.

So this is what I do...cut all the cardstock for the cards & layers first. Then I tied all the ribbons on the cards. When I'm making my own cards I don't cut the ribbon into strips, I tie them around the card & then cut~this helps to save a lot of ribbon. Most of the time I glue the layers on first before I tie the ribbons on, I'm not sure why I did it the opposite this time. The way that I have the ribbons tied here will allow me to adjust them after I put the layer of cardstock on, so it doesn't really matter this time.
**Helpful Hint: dedicate a pair of scissors just for ribbon/fabric & another one just for paper! You would be amazed at the difference in how long they stay sharp if you do this. Cutting with different materials can dull the blades rather quickly and by only cutting with one material it helps to keep them sharp. I tied ribbon on the handles of my "ribbon" scissors~this is a reminder to all those that use them that they are for ribbon/fabric only.

This saves a lot of time & effort so you don't have to keep going back and forth with measurements. Once all the cardstock is cut out I put adhesive on the back of all of one layer at a time. This time I just happen to only have one layer of cardstock.

Glue all the layers down!
Punch all the hearts out! I didn't take a picture of this, but after I punched the hearts out I put dimensionals on the back of all the larger hearts. Then I went through & glued all the large hearts on first. Then after went through & glued all the small hearts on (I just used regular Tombow tape runner for those).

Then I went through & stamped the saying on all the cards.

This is my mass amount of 81 cards that I made for my older kids to take. My youngest one had the 10 that you saw above (actually there was only 9, because I realized after I was done that there was a new girl in his class that I had forgotten about). For these below I made them only card fronts (not a full card) and I didn't add the ribbon! I think they still turned out cute!