Card Tutorial and a little bit about Card Kit Subscriptions

Hello Everyone!

Yes, us chicks are still around. We blame life for our disappearing act from the blogging world. Things have been busy crazy for us as it has for you I am sure. But we have been keeping our Instagram account updated and post things often. Feel free to check us out there (@threechickswithgluesticks). In fact, one our followers had a question about a card we posted. What a perfect time to do a video!! So we thank all our followers there, here and well everywhere. On to the project today....we used this adorable stamp from CC Designs along with some inks from Stampin Up, distress tool and stencil from Simon Says Stamps. See how clean the distressing is?  Watch our video to see how we did that clean and straight stencil look. Here is the card we made today.

Click RIGHT HERE to watch our YT video

Speaking of busy..........

Do you ever feel like things get crazy and all you wanna do is craft but your creativity is just not there? Well one of our favorite online stores SimonSaysStamp.com has the most awesome Card Kits (CK) ever! Their CK are perfect for beginners as well. These CK come with soo many things: paper, stamps, embellishments and oh, so much more. In fact, the distress tool used in today's video is from this months CK. Check it out:

Ugh, isn't this just cute?! As you can see this months CK is all about boys. Every month is a different theme. And you get ALL of this for only $19.95 (plus shipping). Oh, let's not forget the sweet lollipop included in every CK!  Can you see why we are so excited about these CK. Hope you can check them out.

Another favorite online store that we love has monthly Card Kits is Stampin Up. They have high quality products and their CK are different in that they come with ink pad and clear block. These kits are especially nice for beginners as it comes with what you need to make a card. Here is what their "trial" CK looks like:

This trial Card Kit is $14.95 and has just a few products to give you a taste of their products. If you like this, then you can order their CK and get more amazing things. Their monthly CK are also $19.95 (plus shipping). You can see more details on their website or you can even email us because one us chicks sells them. ;) 

We hope you can this useful.  Of course, these CK can be used for anything and everything, not just cards. We love Card Kits and well honestly, we love having things ready for us to make quick cards.

We hope you all have a great week and don't forget to check us out on Instagram and YouTube.

Thank you, 

3 Chicks

Cute As A Button!

Hello! How is everyone?! 

We've got some exciting things to talk about! First of all we're so excited to announce that we've had over 1,000 visits to our blog! Thank you so much! This has been such a fun experience for the three of us. We love that we can share what we love and we hope that we spark some creativity in our viewers  Thank you again so much for supporting us!

Secondly, in honor of our hitting 1,000 views, we're gearing up for our first giveaway! Depending on how much of a response we get, we're hoping this will be a semi-regular thing. We'll be posting more information on the giveaway very soon!

Finally, we've settled on our new theme for October: Buttons!

Buttons are getting very popular in the crafting world for so many reasons. They are so cute and so versatile in how they can be used. All three of  us decided to make a new card using buttons to show how many different ways that buttons can be used!

Marisol took an adorably animal approach to this challenge! The zebra paper and stamp make this card pop! She has a fantastic ability with blending! This is a great example that you don't have to use the same paper pattern throughout the entire card. The black ribbon accented by her green button gives a nice break in the card to change things up! The color scheme really is fun and creatively used here!

Hannah made this beautiful card! She used her well loved cloud punch in a variety of paper to create these dimensional rain clouds. The use of black was so smart! The streams of rain were created using a pen and some glitter! And the best part, the button rain drops! Her umbrella sentiment just gave the card the sweetest touch.

This is Joyce's take on the button challenge. In this card she used a pretty lace punch and a coordinating paper patter to give the inside and back a unique finish. Lastly, she strung some buttons on a string around the front of the card with some baker's twine. 

We all really enjoyed this challenge and we're going to be posting more cards we make throughout the month on our Instagram page so follow us there to see what else we come up with!

And don't forget to keep an eye out for our giveaway coming up VERY SOON! Thank you again to everyone for visiting our page! Let's make it 2,000 views very soon! 

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

What's up with Washi Tape

                                What's up with Washi Tape?

Washi Tape. Its all over Pinterest and taking over our favorite craft isles. If your like me I couldn't pass up the adorable prints. So I took some home with me and did my research ;) Just a little background info Washi is a style of Japanese paper tape. The manufacturing has spread throughout the world! Washi tape is reusable, biodegradable, and tree free (usually made of rice paper) In a few short minutes I came up with 4 cards and all together it took me under 10 minutes! Take a look at my results 

 I used a Border stamp for the top and bottom of the card and added my Washi Tape and gems to the middle

The focus of this card is the shine street lamp stamp and i added 3 strips of tape to the right for embellishment

Its a little hard to see from the lighting but the stamp in the middle is the Eiffel tower with a chevron background. This time I added the tape haphazardly. I love how it turned out!

I found this cute bike stamp at the bottom of my craft bin and thought it looked adorable with the matching tape

Washi Tape....You can tear it, cut it, stick it,reposition it,and write on it... The possibilities are endless!!!! I am now a Washiholic :) So the next time your in Michael's and the cutest printed tape is calling your name and telling you to take it home, It might be worth it! 

3 chicks,

Hannah, Marisol, And Joyce 

From the Scrap Pile to High Style: Starburst!

Hello everyone!

We're very excited about this post, so we're going to get right to it! In our last post we talked about using scraps the whole month of August and it's been such a fun challenge! We hope you're keeping up with our Instagram page to see all that we've been doing.

We have a new video tutorial on how to turn your scraps into a beautiful sunburst card. So click the link below and head on over there to see how to make your own versions of this great technique!

Click Here to see our new video!

Thank you for coming by and we hope you'll stop again soon!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

Things We Love!

Hello Craft Lovers!

How is everyone doing?! We hope the answer is great! We're doing pretty great ourselves. Summer has been such a busy time for all of the Chicks that we've barely spent anytime on our computers or even in our craft rooms! *Gasp!* We have been creating a little here or a little there so if you're feeling the withdrawal from our blog or our YouTube channel, make sure to subscribe to our Instagram page. We keep that updated much more often! We do have some pretty fun things planned, so we're hoping to be doing more tutorials and blog posts in the coming months. 

One of the fun things, is this new segment we call "Things We Love." Here we'll showcase our favorite crafting tools, papers we swoon for and all the other things that made us open our wallets so we could take them home! We hope these posts will inspire you to get crafting!

Not too long ago, Hannah and I (Joyce) we're out killing some time at our local craft stores with my nephew, Jayden. He's only two and a half but he's a crafting deal spotter already! While we were at Michael's, Hannah spotted these great little ink pads by ColorBox Mix'd Media Inx on clearance for less than $2 each! We just had to have them!

I took home the (in order from left to right) Pewter, Patina, and School House. I just love them! I wish I would have taken home one in every color because they are such nice inks! The pads are nicely saturated and the colors are very vivid! (I'll show a stamp off sampling in just a moment.) Another thing I love about these stamps is that they are easily stackable which is awesome for saving space and keeping my favorite inks together!

The next place we went to was Hobby Lobby and we just love their clearance section! I think I can safely say that all three of the Chicks much prefer the cling stamps to the rubber block mounted stamps. The cling stamps are easier to clean, stay crisp longer and store away with much less space taken. But they are not really something you find in the clearance section too often. So in these instances, I love rubber block mounted stamps! I found these little gems on our last trip there:

The sentiments read (again, from left to right): Good friends don't spill the beans, a sail boat picture, The heart that loves is always young - Greek Proverb. I think they are all adorable  Where I might not have taken the plunge for the original $8 and up stickers, I'm more than happy to take them home at the very discounted prices. 

So with these new ink pads and these new stamps I did a little stamp off test for everyone to see why I LOVE the new inks! For those who may not recognize the term "Stamp Off" it refers to the action of saturating a stamp with ink one time, then making multiple stampings before re-saturating the stamp again with more ink.

You can see that inks held up really well the second time and even the third time with the School House red and the Patina blue colors! The Pewter grey color did very well, and I think if the stamp had not had such a flat surface for LOVES that it might have looked just as crisp. Also, a darker color paper would probably have done more justice to the Pewter, but I was still very happy with the result. 

I did make a card using the Patina blue color ink. My nephew wanted to send a card to a family friend of ours who gave him a bunch of hand-me-down clothes that he loved. (He didn't know he wanted to send a card, but we knew he did.) Even on bright green paper, the blue still was the focus and I just love the results! What do you think?

The glittery strip was a scrap from some previous card albums I had made. It just adds a little something! I love the sentiment and the tiny turtle, I think both make it a great card from a kid. 

So that's it for this edition of Things We Love, we hope you enjoyed it! Keep on the lookout for more installments of this segment! Also, for the month of August we'll be making cards and other things using our scraps! We know you've got them and we're going to show you how to use them! Look for the headline post: From the Scrap Pile to High Style!

Take care and enjoy your summer!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

Tutorial Review: Gift Card Holder

Hello!

We do so much research for our projects to get inspired to do new things. That research comes from Google searches, Pintrest, and YouTube just to name a few. It's not uncommon to start with a tutorial as it is and tweak as you go. Today we're going to be looking at a tutorial I found a while back and just finally tried out for some graduation cards this year. 

Her name is Gina K and her YouTube account is StampTV. She's very talented and clearly she has been doing this a long time. Her style is very much like mine, I only wish I had all of her toys. Some day!

Today we'll be talking about her two-part tutorial for gift cards. It was very well done, of course, but there were a few things I tweaked along the way. First of all, I wanted to do mine in a more masculine look because I had a couple of guys graduating high school and I didn't want to give the traditional card to them.

She ran through the measurements pretty quick so I had to go back a couple of times to get all of them written down. I do like the sizes because you can get 2 gift card holders from one 8 1/2" x 11" cardstock. You can't beat saving paper! Here's they are:

Base Cardstock: 4 1/4" x 10"

• Score at: 3", 4", 5", 8"

Patterned Paper:

(Inside)

• 2 - 2 3/4" x 4"
• 1 - 3 3/4" x 4"
• 2 - 3/4" x 4"

(Outside)

• 2 - 2 3/4" x 4"
• 1 - 1 3/4" x 4"  (Top flap)

So here's what I'm using:

I used basic brown cardstock with my BoBunny Trail Mix collection 6" x 6" cardstock. I thought it turned out perfectly! Everyone who saw the finished product immediately knew it was for a guy and loved the patterns! I'll definitely be saving what I have left for more guy cards. So next I cut out all of my papers and scored my bases to match what she said:

Next she suggests using a corner rounder on all of the base corners and on the top and bottom patterned papers for both sides. I totally agree with this because I love the effect rounded corners give. Then everything gets glued on.

Outside patterns

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but on the outside patterns picture you can see there is some shiny red tape (super permanent double sided tape) on the outside edges on the blank areas. They were left intentionally blank because you won't be able to see the inside of the pocket for the card. So here we wanted to be sure not to put the adhesive too far in because then the card wouldn't fit. The only addition (not pictured here) that I ended up making was that I added a line of red tape along the outside edge because when I put the sides together and later added my card, I found that it could easily slip out. So this way it can be completely tucked inside the card and I felt much better about them possibly carrying around the gift card in the holder.

Inside patterns

Next she had everyone turn the card so that newly formed pocket stuck away from the card in order to make the slit for the card to tuck into. She had everyone cut 1/4" off of the pocket which looked ok, but you lose the layered effect on that area. I decided to just take an Xacto knife and my metal ruler and cut a slice on the score line the width of my card. it was invisible once folded and I got to keep my layered look.

Where she decided to move onto closing the card, I felt like it needed an area where I could write something. So I used the Spellbinders Label 17 and punched out a couple of light brown cardstock pieces for my sentiments  I "aged" them with some Tom Holtz Archival ink in Tea and Tuxedo Black. This is a hand done process so no two are ever the same, which I really like.

    

Now I was ready to move on to the outside. She stamped a rounded sentiment and punched it out with a round punch and layered it onto a ribbon horizontally with the flap side in front. I thought that looked nice, but I made a couple of changes for myself. I had a really cute "You Did It" stamp I wanted to use and I used it with the Label 17 collection on white and light brown. I used a very bright shiny wide green ribbon as my focal color splash. Since my sentiment was more vertical, I decided to wrap my card vertically and I placed the stamped sentiment on the "back" because I wanted it to be the focus. I really like the finished product!

 

All in all it was a great tutorial! This is definitely a pattern I will use for years to come! It is such an easy and quick card holder. I love all of the options you could do with the card. I also love how many different occasions you could use this for: Weddings, Anniversaries, Graduations, Just Because, the list goes on! And while I didn't make any great big changes, I made enough that it looks and feels like mine.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial review/breakdown of a some grad cards I made! Thank you for checking out our blog and we hope to hear from you soon. Don't forget to check out our YouTube channel and our Instagram page!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

All That Glitters: Graduation Gift Card

Hello Again!

We hope everyone is having good weather! They say it's June here in Indiana but it feels more like September when this is being written. There is a saying in Northern Indiana: If you don't like the weather, just stick around and it'll change. This is saying is no joke around here, especially during the "warmer" months. Just the other day we were at high 80s by 10am all the way into the night. The next day we didn't even hit 70s until late afternoon! Such a crazy "summer" we're having! 

Good thing that the weather in our craft rooms is always lovely! Today we'll be working on this adorable gift card holder:

This is an unbelievably easy card to make, which makes it really fun to add things like sparkle paper to add an extra flare to it! So lets get started!

What I used:

• Glitter Paper (Glacier Springs Collection) by Colorbök
• This is Huge Set stamp by Art Impressions
• Spellbinders Shapeabilities (Labels 17 Collection)
• Scoreboard, Scissors, Adhesive, Cuttlebug (AKA Piglet in 3Chicks), Tim Holtz Archival Black ink

The arrows show what pieces I used from each collection.
I love all 3 sets and I'll be using them all eventually. :)

The first thing I should mention is that only one side of this paper is glittery. I'm sure it was meant solely for scrapbooks but I like to be rebellious and do things my own way. This card would probably look just as great with a black outside and white inside (the white is a really soft to the touch, yet has a crisp white color so that is very nice) but I wanted a totally blacked out card. I just want the glitter to be the focus of the card and I felt like the white was so bright it would be lost as soon as the card was opened.

If you don't want to do this double up technique, then all you'll need to have is a 6" x 4 3/4" paper, scored at the 3" mark and you're ready to move on. If you do like the doubled up paper (this really does make the card stronger even if you're not interested in the blackout technique) then keep reading!

I cut a sheet of the 12" x 12" black glitter paper into a 4 3/4" x 12" strip. I then scored the paper at 3", 6" and 9". I did a double score (meaning I flipped the paper to the other side and scored again) to really soften the 3" line for easier folding. When I do this card again, I'll probably end up double scoring all of the lines. 

The next thing is adding glue to all four squares. I didn't add any glue to the score lines because I wanted to be able to have some give there. Keeping the page laying in front of me as it is photographed above, I folded the paper completely in half to take the paper from 12" to 6" long. I really worked on making the paper smooth, getting all the glue evenly distributed. Then I folded the card in half again so that it became it's final size of 3" x 4 3/4". Then I tucked it firmly between some heavy books to dry overnight. (Glue and I don't always get along and I wanted no chance of warping or wavy pages.) Ta da:

Just a tip: If you're doing a card like this where it's possible for stray white edges to pop up, don't panic! Just grab a black sharpie and color those edges black (or whatever color you're working with in the majority) and it will all blend so no one can tell! :)

We next move on to the "pop up" part of the card that holds the gift card. For that we use more black glitter paper cut to 5 1/2" x 4 1/2". With the 5 1/2" laying in front of you, score at 3/4", 1 1/4", 2 1/4", 3 1/4", 4 1/4" and 4 3/4".

For the sake of the camera I left the inside white , but on the finished
product you'll notice the inside is also black. I repeated these steps
on a flat black paper and glued it to the inside.

Before I glued the outside tabs together I really give these scores some good folding and creasing because it has to be able to go from fully popped open to fully flat in an easy motion. After I felt like it moved good, I started folding at the score lines inward toward the center creating a square that had an extra "side" on the inside. After some experimenting I found that glue worked the best because the glitter would coat any tape and then pop open after some test folding. I again wanted this part to sit overnight for strength before I fully assembled this card. I would recommend using something to keep the tabs together while they dry. I used some bobby pins since there are so many lying around my house. They worked very well! Whatever adhesive you use, make sure not to go too far in or your card won't fit. 

In the picture you can see the white from the glue,
it dried clear so you couldn't even see it. I love the
Martha Stewart craft glue for that very reason!

Next I punched out all of my layers using the white and black glitter paper and my "Piglet". I also stamped my image onto flat white paper so it could dry while I was doing this step. I layered white glitter, then black glitter, then flat white. I love the effect it gave! (Shown at the end.)

I also punched out a flat white paper for my sentiment on the inside. I wanted enough room to actually write something other than just "congratulations" but I was very limited on space because of my pop up. So after some thinking I decided that I would just line up and cut off the top and bottoms. It still looks great and now it fits like a glove! Which is a great reminder that I don't have to use things as packaged.

So now it's time for the fun part...putting all these pieces together to show you my finished product! A really beautiful pop-up gift card holder! I'll definitely be using this basic idea for many years to come! Let us know if you end up using it as well!

Thanks so much for checking out our blog! We hope you really are enjoying our posts half as much as we are enjoying making them for you! Give us a shout if you have any questions or requests!

The Three Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

New YouTube Tutorial: Tissue Paper Pom-Poms

Hello!

If you follow our Instagram, then you already know what we're about to post here ... we uploaded a new tutorial. This is one we love because it's so easy! All you'll need is some tissue paper in your favorite color(s), ribbon or string, and scissors. That's it! So grab your supplies and head over to our YouTube Channel to see why these decorations are so popular! Let's get started...

Click here to see our video!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce

10 Items or Less: Paper Punches!

Hello Again!

Today's focus will be on using a couple of paper punches. We love the effect that a border or corner punch can give a card. It adds a little fun to each card you use! We'll also be using up some more of our scraps, so get those out too! Let's get started!

What you'll need for these cards:

Card 1:  Let's Float Away

• White cardstock (other half of Card 1's cardstock)
• Blue-Grey cardstock scraps
• Cerulean Blue cardstock scraps
• Let's Float Away sticker
• Lace Border Punch
• Corner Punch

Card 2: The Only Way is Up

What you'll need for this card:

• White cardstock cut to 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" (Save the other half for Card 2)
• Yellow cardstock scrap
• Sky Blue cardstock scrap
• Navy cardstock
• The Only Way is Up sticker
• Sky Blue ribbon
• Lace Border Punch
• Corner Punch

~ ~ ~

Card : Let's Float Away

These are the cutting dimensions for the outside of the card:

• 3 squares of Cerulean Blue cardstock cut to 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
• 3 squares of Blue-Grey cardstock cut to 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
• 1 strip of Cerulean Blue cardstock cut to 1" x 5 1/2"

 Step 1: After you get your squares cut, you're going to use the corner punch to punch two diagonal corners. Make sure which ever two corners you choose on your first square are repeated exactly the same on all other squares. It will make a totally different look if you flip-flop.  ** The Let's Float Away sticker was square so I also gave the same punch effect on it. **

Step 2: Fold the card in half. Then use the lace border punch on opening side of the card as indicated in the above diagram.

Step 3: Apply the squares, alternating between the Blue-Grey and Cerulean Blue cardstocks. I put my focal sticker at the top right corner, but it will really look good in any of the squares.

 Step 4: Let's add some charm to the inside! Take your strip of Cerulean Blue cardstock cut to 1" x 5 1/2" and use the lace border punch on one side. Then take the straight edge side and line it up with the outside of the card. This way when the card is closed all you see is a pretty blue strip but when it's open you get a lace surprise!

All done!

Card 2: The Only Way is Up

These are the cutting dimensions for the outside of the card:

• Yellow cardstock cut to 5" x 3 3/4"
• 3 squares of Blue-Grey cardstock cut to 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
• 1 strip of Cerulean Blue cardstock cut to 1" x 5 1/2"

Step 1: Take your other half of White cardstock and fold it in half. Use the corner punches to  round off the outer corners of the card where it opens.

Step 2: Take your Yellow cardstock and use the lace border punch on one of the 5" sides and the corner round punch on the opposite two corners.  Layer the Yellow on the White.

Step 3:  Only punch one side of the 4 1/2" Sky Blue cardstock leaving 2 pointed corners on the opposite side. Layer the Sky Blue on the Yellow, matching the rounded corner side with the other rounded corners and the pointed edges with the lace side.

Step 4: Now we're going to add a border to the Only Way Is Up sticker by laying it on the Navy cardstock and cutting around it to leave a little edge. 

Step 5: Take the Sky Blue ribbon and slip it through the opening on the newly backed sticker. It looks very cute if the edges get clipped to look like it has an inverted triangle or "flag" effect.  Apply adhesive and lay across the entire card.

And you just got through 2 more cards that take so little time or product! We hope you are enjoying these and come back for more! Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments. See you soon!

The 3 Chicks,

Hannah, Marisol & Joyce