Mass Producing vs. Individual Card Making

Yes, that is the question. Whether 'tis better to make a single, one-of-a-kind card, or a dozen that look identical but can be given or sold at any time. I know, I'm stretching the Hamlet argument a bit, but it really is a question I struggle with.

I do like having a stash of cards to go to when I'm running out the door on the way to a function (which happens far too often!), but there's something to be said for one-of-a-kind cards. Furthermore, I'm usually so stumped on where to start that I have no vision on how it will look finished let alone remembering to make 10 sets of everything I'm doing.

The closest I come to mass-producing cards is mass-producing images. I hate cleaning stamps. HATE IT. They're never clean enough when I'm done, and even when I use Ultra Clean and my scrubber pad, it's still frustrating. I worry a ton about what kind of damage I'm doing to my stamps by scrubbing the bejeebers out of them too. So, I figure while the stamp's inked up, I might as well stamp a few more. Then, there they sit, in the stamped images pile, staring back at me like little puppies waiting to be played with. Sometimes, I remember them well enough to dig back through and include them on current projects (like my last post), but more likely they just sit there. Sad. Waiting.

Anyway, enough ranting from me. The reason this whole issue even came up was a post on Michelle Wooderson's blog. I have so much respect for this woman. She's amazing. She makes beautiful cards, keeps a stash and even sells some at her kids' sporting events. How cool is that! Not to mention her coloring. She's super-good at coloring and shading with Copics (not that any of that has rubbed off on me by reading her blog faithfully, but still, it's nice to see!). She is obviously very pro-mass production, and she wrote about it last week on her blog. So, I figured I should take a tip from her and try it. I CASE'd her last card, and now I'm debating mass production. First though, here's the card:














In all fairness, it WAS a super-easy card to make. I cheated and used patterned paper (this one's by Autumn Leaves), but essentially the same layout. Now, the question is, should I duplicate it? I can always use more thank you notes, but I guess I'd always hoped that I'd be able to make a special, custom card to thank people for the precise gift they'd given me.

Aw, who am I kidding? Mass production on!