Wednesday 24 July 2013

Snippets of Words: Questions, questions, questions.

Hi, hi.

In my previous posts I've been heavily promoting / twisting your arm / forcing you ... to consider how the most random 'found' phrases make brilliant sentiments for your card making. And that's true. They are brilliant. Would I lie to you?

However ...

... if that's not really your thing, how about finding a snippet which poses a question instead? Like this:


The great thing about asking a direct question on the front of a card - or indeed on any paper craft projects - is that it gives you an automatic link with the person reading it.

We just can't help answering it ... even if it's just in our heads. So, if you like the idea of snipping out some ready-made questions then here are a few tips ...

Where to find a good source of interesting questions to add to your projects:

Old school books and textbooks:
  • just think back to when you were in school and were given a book to work through when the teacher wanted to keep everyone quiet for an hour!
  • School books, comprehension books, textbooks, Q+A books ... they're all filled with questions for you to browse through and find something suitable for your project
  • An old 'Library Assignments' book from the 60s has become a firm favourite of mine and has featured in many, many projects over the last few years.
  • You can often find this kind of book in the childrens' book section of old book shops or ... you could always commission a custom pack of question pages from my shop and 'll do my best to find a mix for you from my collection.
Another bountiful source of questions is ...

Foreign language phrase books:
  • because phrase books are set up to help you make sense of things in a new country ... they're full of questions!
Granted ... the usefulness of the questions you can find in these can vary ... I mean ... you can go from the ever-practical 'Where is the beach?' to the, well, less immediately useful such as these I've found in my collection:
  • 'Have you fruit salts?'
  • 'Ought I to dress?'
  • 'Would you close the porthole?'
  • 'Is your cycle in order?'
Much fun can be had by deliberately snipping phrases out of their original context, wouldn't the following [genuinely taken from my old phrase book hoard] make great existential questions on a project?
  • 'What are you doing here?'
  • 'Who are you waiting for?'
  • 'Will you come with me?'
  • 'Must I change?'
If you've been inspired to go question-hunting then you can find old phrase books in the usual book shops / charity shops / car boot sales etc OR there are pages from phrase books in my Foreign Language text packs:
Please note: they also contain a mix of pages from dictionaries too - so they're not all phrasebook / question type pages.

But if you'd like a purely phrase book pack ...again,  I can put together a custom order for you. Just get in touch.

And, before we go, here's a quick look inside the card itself:
Paper scraps, sticker sheet surrounds, patterned tape .. all the usual suspects here:
If you want to catch-up on the other posts in this series, there's the Snippets of Words Pinterest board where I'm keeping all my posts, plus inspiration form other people too.

I'll share another snippet card next Monday ... maybe you'll have some snippety projects of your own to share by then? If you fancy it - just let me know - and I'll drop by for a look. Or link me up via my Facebook page.

But I'll be back before then with something else to try to drag a grin from you! [You know me: will perform for smiles].

Julie :-)

9 comments:

  1. Lovely! And in my favourite yellow too ... I do like the thought of asking questions. Nothing like receiving a thought provoking card. As you say, you never know just how that will plop into somone's life or where it will take them. Inspiring!

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  2. Great card and excellent advice Julie !!

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  3. What a great post, full of lovely things and inspiration for an ICAD for me...thanks Julie.

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  4. Loved the card and then loved it even more when I saw that it was a trifold!!!! Superb!

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  5. Okay. Now I so want to do this! Maybe for glue it tuesday next week. . .
    Rinda

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  6. You just can't go wrong with a simple one like 'how are you?'

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  7. There are so many interesting bits and pieces to this card, lovely!

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