Category: Card Making

DT Spotlight: Natalie Graham

I sure hope you’re all having an excellent weekend! Today is our last DT spotlight. Today I’d like you all to meet the super talented and crafty Natalie Graham. Natalie is one of my best friends and a ton fun to be around! She’s always overflowing with fun projects and ideas.  Make sure to look at the darling projects she created at the bottom of the post.

Hello. My name is Natalie Graham and I live in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. I am a Utah girl living here in Canada with my husband and kids for a couple of years.  I have  been married to my husband Ben for 14 years and have four wonderful kids, Hayden, 12, Ethan, 9, Abby, 6 and Aubrey, almost 3.  I use to teach preschool for the school district and for Head Start before I had my first baby, then I decided it was better for me to use my teaching skills for my family and have been home with them ever since. I just started my first “craft blog” where you can find my work at mygrahamcrackers.blogspot.com

Q: How long have you been paper crafting?
I started “playing with paper” after my first son was born, so I guess I can say my habit for hoarding scrapbook supplies has been about 12 years.

Q: What made you start paper crafting?
I love doing all things creative, I see something cute, and I immediately want to make analyze it and figure out how to make one myself.   I also have few memories or memorabilia from my own childhood and want to make sure I document my children’s life well so they have something to look back on and remember what a fun family we are!

Q: What is your favorite type of paper crafting project to make?
There is something truly satisfying about a finished scrapbook page. Scrapbook pages will never get tossed like a card or get smooshed in a decoration box.

Q: What is your ‘must have’ paper crafting tool?
Hands down… Diet Coke!

Q: What inspires you most?
Other people’s work.  It makes me get all giddy with the idea of I can do it too!

Q: What are some of your favorite colors to work with?
I’m a girly girl at heart. I would put pink on everything if I could.  Somehow my boys don’t agree.

Q: What is your favorite type of embellishment?
See above…. A girly girl love flowers…. Pink ones are even better!

Q: What other crafty things do you enjoy?
Maybe I should say the things I don’t do…. That would be shorter…I am a sewer, photographer, quilter, jewelry maker…I also like to crochet, digital scrapbook and stalk others blogs for other DIY projects. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have a “project” going.

Q: What are some of your other hobbies and passions?
I love to read, cook, bake and hang out with my kiddos!

I am super excited to have the chance to work with Lori and these talented gals on the team. My head is spinning with all the up coming project ideas! 

Look at the darling winter card Natalie created out of my Wintertime collection for Echo Park. And, the “thank you” gift card holder is adorable! To create the holder Natalie used the Scalloped Gift Card Holder file that is available HERE.

Card Making

I have always received a great deal of joy from creating beautiful things…. out of nothing. So, for me, the limitless possibilities of fun shapes I can engineer and cut with my digital cutting machine is super exciting!! Seriously…to be able to load a sheet of paper into my Silhouette and then have it magically cut the sheet perfectly so that it folds up into a beautiful card (or box or whatever) is nothing short of a miracle! The end result is an awesome project handmade by me that brings a smile to someone’s face. And, to me that’s absolutely amazing!

I’ve designed quite a collection of cards over the past couple of years that are available at the Silhouette Online Store. I thought I’d take the opportunity today to post several of them all in one place so you can see them, use them for assembly reference, and hopefully get some good ideas! Even if you don’t have a cutting machine, hopefully you can glean some ideas from this post.

Card making is something I really love to do. I’ve designed several card kits and card projects over the years. One of the first card projects I worked on as a graphic designer was “The Ultimate Card Kit” by Lisa Bearnson. Right then and there I was seriously hooked on engineering cards. Cards are easy to assemble and go together very quickly. Homemade cards certainly don’t need to be a sheet of cardstock folded in half. Try making a card out of a circle, scalloped shape, or a bracket shape. You can create them out of just a few supplies that you most likely already have on hand. Use ribbon, stamps, brads, buttons, and flowers to embellish your cards. And, the best part… when you give your card away you are making the world a more beautiful and cheerful place. So, go give it a whirl and make someone happy today!