I would gather ideas first. And check what paper items you may already have in the house. any decorative paper or even scrap of material. Practice using a plain paper cut to card size and start layering some of the snippets on it to form an attractive background. Then find a cute pictre of an animal or flower and carefully cut it out and glue it to the front. If you have a nice handwriting write a saying on the front. see how it looks. Then when you go to the store get a little pack of plain notecards with envelopes usually found in the card making area. look at the rubber stamps and pick out a general one that you could use on a lot of different cards and then get a black rubber stamp pad. Take those home and try the sme practice method with those. Then you can expand your supplies Hope this helps.

Stephenei: What got me hooked was a section on home made cards in a Feb issue of either MM or CK magazine. And I REALLY got hooked! Card making has replaced (for the time being) scraping. As for ideas, I got some from the aforementioned magazine, some from looking at cards in card shops, and some from my own imagination. ItÂs amazing what creative creatures we can be when doing something we enjoy! One idea for an Easter card came from a quote I found onlineÂÂGive hugs, if you carrot at all! My sonÂs best friend calls me ÂAunt Carront, so I made a little card out of lime green card stock. I made three little carrots out of orange and brown card stock and cut thin strips of dark green card stock for grass. I attached the grass and the carrots to the front of the card with pop dots (for the 3D effect) and outlined the edges of the front of the card with thin strips of orange card stock. I made one large carrot for the inside to hold the latter part of the quote. It turned out to be a cute card and the idea came after seeing the quote. Other ideas come from looking through my materials and Âplaying with them,Âi.e., seeing what goes together. IÂve never scanned anything for use on the computer, but if you like, IÂd be happy to try and scan and post-to-you some of the cards I made to help you get started with ideas. I know what itÂs like to feel like...where do the ideas come from?! And once you get started, believe me, thereÂs no stopping!!!!!!! Also, some others have posted about tea-bag/paper folding which I have tried yet. As Sally said, when your scraping and stamping, the ideas just seem to flow. p.s. there are also books on card making and paper projects. My husband gave me one for a present and one was referenced in the magazine that I have been looking for but have yet to find. Hope this helps. karen

NO I am in no way on facebook or twitter and I use it all the time to browse and get recipes, if you click on the link I provided you can see them one item at a time rather than a full page full, I like it better that way. Or if you know what you want to search for like a recipe for mac and cheese just do that in the search box. One thing I was going to mention that I have really started using a LOT and love is Springpad, I have it on my tablets and phone and my computer, it is kinda sorta like how you pin things on pinterest but you choose to save them totally private to your own notebooks that you create or you can choose certain friends to share with. Totally controllable by you. I created several notebooks one for recipes, books, projects etc then when I happen upon a page that has something I want to save I just click on the spring it button on my browser bar on my pc and it opens up springpad for me to pick which notebook to put it in and notes to add to it.; I can do the same from my tablets and phone, and they are all synced so no matter which one I do it on it will be there on all of them which is really neat. So if I added a recipe to my springpad and am at the grocery store I just open my springpad app and there is the recipe for me to buy the ingredients. It is a little like Evernote but I like it much better, evernote has had some issues with privacy lately. Many people that use evernote use springpad also. For android it is in the play store just search for springpad, for apple users it is in the store for you as well. If you use firefox there is an add on, I think they have one for other browsers as well. Get the Springpad Clipper you can just drag that clipper icon to your bookmarks bar on firefox , it gives instructions on other browsers there. I log into mine using my google log in so I did not have to remember another log in. You can do it through facebook and twitter, gmail and yahoo too I think. By default everything added to your springpad is PRIVATE!! Here is the link to an article that describes it. Springpad

Kate, Thanks for starting this. Your table runners are great. So many wonderful projects. Marcia, I really like your attic windows and they inspire me to do something similar with some panels I didn't know what to do with. Msmeow, I have those exact place mats I made, according to the date, in 1991. Don't even remember where the pattern came from; probably a magazine. I also did them on red and have used them every christmas since I made them. I have been contemplating how to clean them before I put them away this year. I usually just spot clean them but feel it is time to really clean them. Ha. I love them. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have. TFS everyone. Love to see what everyone is doing. Sally