Are you looking for the perfect printable card to top off that perfect gift? I have a fabulous FREE PRINTABLE card for you. Just in time for holiday gift wrapping, I have collaborated with Cathe Holden of Inspired Barn to give YOU a gift! Please print out these adorable folk art-inspired printable cards and use them for all your holiday occasions (and beyond). And don’t forget to download the coordinating printable for the 2018 Printable Tea Towel Calendar!

About this collaboration:

In 2010, talented graphic designer Cathe Holden and I teamed up to create a printable tea towel calendar. She designed the printables, and I made the calendar and wrote the instructions, and then we provided the free printables to you! This year, we have a new design available — our all-new 2018 printable tea towel calendar, as well as this sweet card, that you can download, print, and make yourself for a special handmade touch.

Download the Printable Card Templates:

Download the files below to print out your own cards. Each printable will make two cards (just cut the printed sheet in half, then fold the cards to make them complete). They will fit in an A2 envelope.

To download, just click on the image to be taken to the file on Google Drive, where you can download it.

Red and Blue Printable Card Template

Blue Printable Card Template

Green & Blue Printable Card Template

Card-Making Tips:

You really can just print this, cut it, fold it and go, but if you are looking to make your printed cards look nicer, I recommend a few products to get a top-of-the-line look. I used these products to make the cards you see in the photos in this post, and they are some of my favorite products that I can’t do without (disclosure: these are Amazon affiliate links):

1. HP Inkjet Brochure Paper

If you are using an inkjet printer, I hands-down recommend this HP brochure paper for gorgeous printing. It is smooth, heavy paper that can be printed on both sides, and it makes the ink shine. It’s great for paper projects like this one, or for printing anything that you want to make look extra pretty.

I should also disclose that I work with HP, and have received this product for free, but they did not ask me to promote it here. I just really love it and I highly recommend it.

2. Trimming and Scoring Board

If you make cards or paper crafts often, you should treat yourself to a Trimming and Scoring Board – it is a paper trimmer with a built-in board that has grooves in it so you can gently add a crease wherever you want to fold the paper. It also comes with a bone folder (which you use to make the score in the paper) that you can also use to make a clean, crisp fold.  The paper trimmer is so handy for creating perfectly measured and cut lines — no more wiggly scissor lines!

Thank you for joining me at Dollar Store Crafts! I truly value everyone who is part of my community, and I would love to hear your feedback about this project or the site.

The post Free Printable Card: Folk Art Gift Notecards appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

The porg invasion took way long before The Last Jedi even hit theaters, and has by now all but taken over our hearts and homes. But it isn’t just their unique (and adorable) look that has made us all fall so hard for the fuzzy little residents of Ahch-To; it’s also their distinct (also adorable) sound.

As it turns out, the porgs were one of the first things the sound department was asked to work on for the newest Star Wars movie. As co-sound supervisor Ren Klyce told Nerdist, all they had at the start was the script. “You read about this creature, but you don’t even know what it looks like,” he said. “We finally got to see some actual puppets and touch them and that was really great.”

When Klyce and co-sound supervisor Matthew Wood saw footage of porgs in action, they talked with Rian Johnson about what he wanted the creatures to sound like. Klyce explained, “He described what he wanted to feel emotionally from them; he wanted them to not be irritating or annoying. He wanted them to be sweet and soulful, and it just came down to starting to experiment with different sounds.”

Klyce said, “Obviously because it looks like a bird, the first thing you go for is, ‘Let’s try birds!'”

But no single variation of bird sound quite worked, so Klyce and Wood’s team collected numerous samples, starting close to home. “Where we work at Skywalker Ranch, George Lucas has a farm,” Klyce said. “He has a chicken coop, and he’s got goats, and he’s got all sorts of animals and horses—it’s an incredible place.”

He continued, “So, we went down to the chicken area with a microphone and recorded these chickens and got this crazy random file. It was a few minutes long. They were kind of running around and scratching and making banging noises and stuff. You have to be patient and listen, and you can start to hear these little nuances. Then it was about taking that sound, slowing it down, cutting out the bits and pieces you don’t like and kind of leaving all these little tiny jewels.”

They pitched and manipulated the chicken sounds to create some of the porgs’ audio range, but that wasn’t all. You know how people rent doves to be released at weddings? Klyce hired a “dove guy” so they could record his birds. He said, “They make this really beautiful sound: a ‘coo.’ And, again taking that sound and pitching it way down made it sound warmer and then taking it once it was pitched down, repeating it, and then running it through sort of an echo to make it sound like it was bouncing off the cliffs. That was one texture.”

The chicken and dove recordings can be heard as the porgs fly around Ahch-To or cuddle in their nests on the Millennium Falcon.

Of course, the team wanted an additional sound for the creatures when they would be more alert. For that, they turned to an artificial source. “There is a bird call in there, which is this little piece of metal that you put in your mouth,” Klyce said. “Our intern Nick Docter, who’s from Piedmont, [California], which is where … they have this annual bird calling contest that was on the Johnny Carson show back in the day.”

Klyce continued, “He’s actually from this town, and there’s all this pride about, ‘We do the best bird calls.’ And, so I thought we need [porgs] to sound pained and what would it do if it said ouch? He put this thing in his mouth and went,  ‘Ow, ow,’ and makes this sort of weird little sound. So, it’s taking all these little bits and pieces and stitching them together to make the porg sound.”

Images: Lucasfilm/Disney

Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. She likes Star Wars a little. Follow her on Twitter.

Keep the porg love going with these stories!

• The Last Jedi‘s best porg moments.
• How to make porg cupcakes.
• All the best #porgnation tweets.

This new generation of Star Wars movies has made the space opera franchise something of a holiday tradition. I’ll admit, as an old school Star Wars fan, I resisted the notion of seeing the series escape its summertime roots, but after three Christmas seasons in a row surrounded by all kinds of Jedi goodness, I’ve become quite used to the idea. And so has one Star Wars cosplayer who goes by the name “Fluke Skywalker.”

Dressed as Luke in his Jedi Master form from The Last Jedi, “Fluke,” who from certain angles actually quite resembles an older Mark Hamill, has made a practice of raising money for the Ronald McDonald’s House toy drive and handing out Star Wars toys to children who are in dire medical situations and in desperate need of any kind of holiday cheer. You can check out images of this “Santa Skywalker” handing out toys below.

Fluke set up a GoFundMe page to help out these sick children, and many a Star Wars fan on Reddit and Imgur donated money to help these kids out. In the Star Wars canon, being a Jedi is all about giving one’s self over to the idea of total selflessness and helping others. Seems that’s one Jedi lesson that good old Fluke here really took to heart. We think that Master Yoda would be very proud indeed, don’t you?

For more images of Fluke Skywalker in action as Jedi Santa, be sure to check out this Imgur gallery.

Does this good samaritan Jedi make you believe in the good of humanity again like he does for us? Be sure to let us know down below in the comments.

Images: Fluke Skywalker

More from Star Wars

• How The Last Jedi failed to hold Poe accountable
• Bad Lip Reading takes on Empire Strikes Back
• Enjoy a Star Wars Christmas lights show!

LaVar Ball continues to put his stamp on basketball and the entire world of sports.

He’s already disrupted the college recruiting system, shut down Trump and given the Lakers fits in the PR department. Now word has surfaced that Ball wants to start his own basketball league for high school players who don’t want to go to college.

BREAKING: LaVar Ball says he’s starting a Big Baller basketball league for nation’s top players who don’t want to go to college, says he will pay up to $10K a month https://t.co/8FaFnHQfZV

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 20, 2017

According to ESPN, the league will be for top-ranked players who graduate from high school but don’t want to go the college route.

“Getting these players is going to be easy,” Ball told ESPN. “This is giving guys a chance to get a jump start on their career, to be seen by pro scouts, and we’re going to pay them because someone has to pay these kids.”

The so-called “Ball’s Junior Basketball Association,” which Ball says will be funded by his Big Baller Brand, looks to pay salaries ranging from $3,000 a month for the lowest-ranked player to $10,000 a month for a top ranked player. He’s looking for 10 teams and 80 players in total, with teams being placed in cities such as Brooklyn, LA, Dallas and Atlanta.

Ball’s inspiration for the League derives from comments made by NCAA President Mark Emmert when asked about Ball’s impact on college sports.

“Is this about someone being part of a university and playing basketball or any other sport with that school’s jersey on representing that institution, or is it about preparing me for my career, my professional career as a ballplayer,” Emmert responded. “If it’s the latter, you can do that inside a university and that might be a really good way to go. But if you don’t want to and you don’t think that it’s right for your family then don’t come.”

“He was right. Those kids who are one and done, they shouldn’t be there with the NCAA trying to hold them hostage, not allowing them to keep the jersey they wear while selling replicas of them in stores,” Ball said. “So our guy isn’t going to go to Florida State for a year. He’s going to come to our league.”

The League will be sponsored by Big Baller Brand, with all of the players required to wear BBB products, head to toe.

“We’ll give it to them all,” Ball said. “They’ll be wearing our uniform, our shoes, our T-shirts and our hoodies.”

Although they will adopt the rules of the NBA, the BBB league won’t be using a silhouette of of Jerry West dribbling. You already know the deal.

Logo of LaVar Ball’s league aimed at top high school players is a silhouette of Lonzo ready to dunk. pic.twitter.com/hBf9WHBdJG

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 20, 2017

“We don’t need a logo of a guy dribbling,” Ball said, an obvious reference to the NBA’s famous Jerry West silhouette. “Nobody does that anymore.”

So of course Lonzo, now going for a dunk, will be the league’s logo.

-This article originally appeared on The Shadow League

The post LaVar Ball To Launch A Basketball League For High School Grads appeared first on Black Enterprise.