Mass Production Help

Happy Thursday everyone!! Yesterday I worked 6 hours outside....weeding, tilling, planting. It felt SO good to be out in the wonderful sunshine!! I'm all done until I can get to town for some mulch, so I'm working on projects!

To my surprise when reading your responses, I realize that many of you only produce one card at a time. And if you do mass produce (or make more than one card at a time), you typically finish one card then start over with the next card. Oh my honies, it could be so much more easy peasy than that! Let me help you. :) I'm going to walk you through my mass production process, step by step...photo by photo. Cardstock, ribbon and floral stamps are from Papertrey Ink.

1. I always start with my main image because whether it be a card or a scrapbook page, the focus needs to stay on the main stamped image and/or the photo. If I'm using a card sketch, I keep that nearby so I can have the layout handy. For these cards, I came up with the idea as I went along. After I choose a basic layout idea, I choose my stamp sets(these use Garden of Life from Papertrey Ink) and colors for my projects. After I get one image piece stamped out, I cut cardstock and stamp all of the other image pieces at the same time. For this mass production session, I'm making 5 of the same card. For these three flowers, I stamped the base pink flower circle first, then the darker pink swirlies, then the stems, then the leaves. Keeping that one image in your hand, then stamping all five pieces of cardstock really saves time.....when you're done, you clean the stamp and move on to the next image. 2. Then I cut mats and adhere them with the main image. Figure the measurements of the first mat, then cut the rest to match. By the way, I use Hermafix repositionable adhesive dots for most of my projects. Love it cuz if you mess up, you can undo the layers.
3. Next, I tied some ribbon around the stamped image pieces and added sentiments. YES, I used about a 12" piece for EACH of the five pieces. Remember that little talk we had about hoarding???? Use it, they make more! See those scissors? Those are my Ginghers and they are THE BEST scissors for cutting ribbon and fabric. They are mega sharp so be careful and keep away from children and all friends named Carmen. (My friend Carmen SLICED herself pretty good one day while crafting at my house..from now on, I keep the Ginghers away from my kids and stamping friends!) You NEED a dedicated pair of scissors for cutting ribbon...nothing else, just ribbon. I also threatened my children with BIG TROUBLE if I caught them using my Ginghers to cut wire, etc.
4. Most of the time I cut my cardstock base the very first thing....but for some reason, I worked a little backwards on this set of cards. When I'm working in mass production mode, I pull out my Tonic paper cutter. It will slice through several layers of cardstock with one cut. There's also no blade to dull...I like very sharp blades on my Fiskars paper trimmer so I try to save the big cuts for my Tonic cutter. Another little tip...if you score your cardstock first and then make the cut.....you will only have to score one time, then cut the cardstock in half to make two card bases. 5. After I scored my cardstock, I stamped all five base cards with the CHF polka dot backgrounder from Ellen's store(I'm not finding the direct link to this particular backgrounder so it might be out of stock at the moment). I love to use the backgrounder stamps when mass producing. I lay the backgrounder stamp image side up on my table and ink it. Then I lay my base card on top, then a layer of scrap paper, then I gently use my hand to *burnish* the ink onto my card base front. This ensures a better transfer of ink. Then I reink and do the rest of the card bases. I also selected a strip of PT patterned paper to add to my card base. Here is where you can hoard a little bit by using small strips of patterned paper instead of covering the entire card base.
6. Then came the fun part......assembling all of the cards. As you can see, I used a few different sentiments on my cards. By simply changing up the sentiments, you can create a variety of cards but still use the same overall design. Another little tip...for most of my cards, I used black ink to stamp the sentiments. I think it makes the sentiment stand out and it just looks professional.

Here's some more thank you cards I made the exact same way as I explained above. Aren't the pastel little strawberries just darling. They're from the Green Thumb Papertrey set.

Okay, that's it for today! I hope you all get a chance to get some mass production stamping done. Make that birthday list and get all of the cards done in one stamping session. Or make your Father's Day card list and make those up in advance. You will such a sense of accomplishment!

I'm off to view my pretty flowers I planted to see if the cats have layed on them yet!! Or perhaps the deer had a picnic last night!! I hope not! Enjoy today's post and I'll be back to later to see if I inspired you. And be sure to send me your links to projects you make......I always try to visit the links and leave comments! Thanks for visiting today.