Although I haven’t been blogging due to my perfectionist tendencies, I have at least finally been Creating again. I hadn’t known that I had lost my mojo because of the death of my beloved Jack (and Horation and Max) – but as soon as I welcomed Russell & Dougall into my home (& heart) my Creative Mojo just came rushing out of me.
Douglas & Russell – my little Saviours
A tsunami of Creativity.
Here’s a sampler of the cards (just the cards, mind you) that I’ve made in the past month.
Cards from Feb – Mar, 2016
I’ve been ‘YouTubing‘ myself silly the past couple of months and also doing lots of blog-surfing. There’s lots of inspiration out there, peeps.
All my created Playlists on YouTube
My latest card, finished just last night, is made from lots of leftover ‘bits’ that I’ve made over the past few weeks and came together to make a card I really love.
The particular design was inspired by a monthly sketch/layout from the “My Favourite Things” blog. I loved that although it was completely rectangular in design, it actually leant itself to a more ‘out there’ composition.
.
So heres how I did it . . . .
- I coloured a whole A4 sheet of absorbent paper (like watercolour paper) with Distress Inks (in blues & greens) smooched on my craft mat.
- Let it dry
- I placed a mask (a DIY job) over the A4 sheet a sprayed a couple of sprays of a coloured mist
- Wait for it to dry completely and then cut into thirds – DL size
- Grab a piece of Kraft paper or plain brown/un-dyed paper – I used from here
- Stamp a ‘shield’ or ‘bookplate’ shape in white ink and emboss with white powder
- Put some ‘Pumice Stone’ or other light coloured Distress Ink on your craft mat with some water spritz
- Smoosh your shield or bookplate through the Distress Ink
- Cut two strip of light coloured or transparent paper – I used white vellum. One at 25mm or 1″ & the other at 18mm or 3/4″
- Cut a ‘v’ into one end of each strip
- Cut a matching strip of ribbon – I used a gorgeous sequinned turquoise piece from my stash
- Stamp a simple image on some white paper or cardstock – I used the heart shape from this stamp set from My Favourite Things
- Use a complimentary colour to distress the edges
- Stamp, cut and colour two leaves on some shrink plastic – I used this image
- Shrink those babies down (man, I love this stuff!)
- Grab three small paper flowers, squish them into some Distress Ink pads
- Spritz some water on them to ‘dissolve’ the Distress Ink
- Use a cutting machine (like a Silhouette or Cricut) or a word die cut (I used this one) to cut a single word sentiment
- I cut it out twice out of some dark green Bazzill cardstock ands then added some glitter glue over the top (who doesn’t love a little bit of bling?
- Score & cut a DL sized card from plain white cardstock
- Using a ruler, downsize the original coloured piece (Steps 1-4) to fit onto the DL card base
- Attach the shield/bookplate shape to bottom righthand corner
- Stagger the two pieces of vellum, with the ribbon
- Cut off the overhand of the vellum & ribbon – make sure to cut from the back view of the card to get a more flush cut
- Attach the heart, shrink plastic leaves, cut word and coloured flowers into a small vignette at the bottom right hand side of the shield/bookplate
- Ta da!
Aren’t you impressed?
What’s amazing about it’s design, is that it needs only a little colour change or possibly even a few tweaks with the embellishments.
I may be posting some of those possible examples in a while.
Stay happy and remember to be Creative in some small way – every day.
