Paper Woods

This week’s Frugal Friday tip could also be considered a “neat link,” but it is a way to get free stuff, so I’m categorizing it as frugal!

Have you ever seen those books that are chock full of really cool images that you can cut out, photocopy, or use as clip art (most of them also come with a CD with all the images in electronic format)?  Well, chances are that 90% of those books you see are from a company called Dover Publications.  Dover has books covering every topic you could imagine, from blacksmithing project instructions to activity books for kids.  However, their specialty is in providing copyright- and royalty-free images for artists to use as they please.  Their images are gorgeous, and you can manipulate them however you want! 

Well, I recently discovered that Dover offers free sample images from their books delivered to your email - every week!   All you have to do is enter your email address on the Dover Sampler web page and you’ll soon be receiving dozens of free images every week!  This week I downloaded some beautiful Chinese designs, historic photos of New York City from the 1940s, and even quotes from Mark Twain.

Here’s a quick card I made using one of the images I downloaded from the Dover Sampler.  I simply printed the image onto cream cardstock and glued it onto my card front - easy!

Happy Crafting!

Check out this sweet “blog candy” (aka. fabulous free craft finery!) I won from Nicole over at The Inkblog!

Beautiful eggplant colored flowers, spiral clips, photo turns, grosgrain and gingham ribbon, and a gorgeous bejeweled hat pin.  Nicole is such a generous sweetie.  I can’t wait to craft with my new “candy!”

Nicole gives away freebies every Friday, along with lots of other great articles throughout the week.  So hop on over to The Inkblog and check it out.  You won’t be disappointed!

Happy Crafting!

Check out this new blog called Caardvarks! They will be hosting bi-monthly challenges for card makers, with really sweet prizes. As a cardmaker I am always looking for things to inspire me to make new creations, and challenges do just that. This site looks like it’s going to be really fun and funky. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Their first challenge is to use photos on a card. So here’s my creation:

The photo is a picture I took while hiking in Yosemite National Park of one of my sisters-in-law and her boyfriend. I just love how the two of them are looking off into the distance together, as if imagining their future, so I thought it would make a great graduation card. The quote on the top is from Henry David Thoreau.

Go check out the Caardvarks blog, and get crafting! (Submissions for this first challenge are due March 17th)

I’m still working on writing up the sequel to my post about die-cutters, but for now I wanted to pass along this really cool site I saw on the Craft: blog.  It’s called Kuler, and it’s a nifty color palette tool with a community aspect. 

If you’re like me, you sometimes have trouble trusting your instincts on putting certain colors together in your creations.  I’m always second- and triple-guessing myself!  So Kuler, made by Adobe Labs, allows you to see an infinite combination of colors in a very neat interactive site.  But it’s more than that!  It also allows you to see color combinations that other users have come up with!  So if you get stuck trying to come up with your own color palette, just go visit Kuler and see what others have used!  You can see the most popular or highest rated palettes, and if you create a free account you can save your own combinations for other people to use too.  A very handy tool indeed!