I've been wasting time! Sometimes when I go to make a card I've got no idea what papers I'm going to use, which motifs or colours. Time ticks on as I leaf through my stash of papers, stamps, embellishments and so on. I might go through pages of craft magazines looking for inspiration. All that can take half an hour or more before I actually start making a card. Then the resulting creation can be great or it can be less than great. When it's the latter I leave my craft space feeling a little deflated. Not very good at all. Today I decided on a different strategy.
Taking a leaf out of bloggers like Tiffany Bauer author of
My Crafty World, Teresa of
Scrappy Art Crafters and the sketch challenges on
Papercraft Planet I decided to get out my sketchbook and work on some design ideas before sitting down to create a card. Don't know why I never thought of doing this before. I've taken part in a couple of sketch challenges and had fun doing so. But I must admit there are are occasions when I do not find them inspiring at all. This happens most often when the challenge includes the use of a range of stamps or other crafty product being promoted as part of the challenge (usually from
Stampin Up) or uses tools I do not have. Now I do not have a great range of craft papers, stamps and so on. Knowing what I have to work with means I can create my own sketch accordingly. This is what I came up with...
Choosing first of all to use dry embossing I decided to use the bees and flowers stencil from
Papermania on a white card blank. You can see the flowers and bees roughly sketched in the picture. I also have some paper flowers so I sketched them in too. This time as I sat down to create a card the only thing left to decide was which papers and which colours would be used. The birthday card I made today took no more than an hour and I felt reasonably pleased with the result. What do you think? I think it is a strategy I will use again.
Today was also the day when I would choose a winner of
my very first giveaway using random.org. Thank you to everyone who commented and liked my card creation and so entered my giveaway. If you missed it then you missed out! The winner has been chosen and contacted. Julie Roo Marlow will be receiving the handmade birthday card featured last week before this week is over!
Thank you everyone who took part and made my first giveaway such a success. So much so I've decided to do another but you don't have to do anything for this one! This is just for current blog followers and 'likers' of my Facebook Page to say thank you. I've noted everyones name and you each have a number so I will be using random.org to choose a lucky person to receive another of my card creations. So if you are not one of my Facebook 'fans' or already following my blog you will not be in this draw I'm afraid but no doubt I'll do it again so please do 'like' my page or follow this blog to be involved in future.
Hope you all have had a great weekend. It's been a lovely sunny day here in London so I've been busy in the garden, mowing the lawn, deadheading the rose bush and planning to be a better gardener next season. I've had a small success with my sweetcorn... very small they are but at least I have sweetcorn unlike last year when all I had was leaves. It was tiny but tasty.
Thanks for reading and please say hello! I'll certainly respond to you as soon as I can.
Have a wonderful week!
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