After spending three productive days unpacking and organizing my craft room and cleaning the house, I treated myself to an entire day in my craft room!
I’ve been working on my final challenge for the Level 1 Atlenew Educator Certification Program. I was given a final project to create 2 specific types of cards using a certain number of things that I had learned from the 10 classes that I have taken. I ended up making 6 cards with the parts of at least 4 others as well. I will share those tomorrow!
Today, I want to share a fun card that I just felt inspired to make. I created a Pinterest board called “Muse”, and I spent some time yesterday pinning inspiring pictures. I started with nature pictures and then moved on to graphic art pictures. I pinned about 20 pictures and it left me feeling so INSPIRED to create something artsy and colorful.
That led to my card today!
I have been playing with two stamp sets from Altenew today: Space Travel and Happy Dreams.
My challenge is to use 3 techniques on each card. I was really struggling to create an uncluttered card that used 3 different techniques.
When I participate in challenges, sometimes it leads me to create things that I wouldn’t have created and don’t love. I felt that way about one of the cards that I made today and I probably won’t share that one.
Too many details and it doesn’t reflect me.
There are a few techniques that I have just fallen in love with and I want to do more of…those include ink blending techniques of all kinds, die cutting, stencils, and watercoloring. Plus I’ve discovered that I really love sparkle and shine of all kinds on my cards.
The Pantone Color of the Year for 2018 is Ultra Violet. Simon Says had a sale on purple glitter paper a week or two after the announcement was made. Purple and green are my favorite colors, so of course I purchased a package! I’ve been gazing upon it ever since I got it.
Until today. I had to use it. I just felt inspired to use color.
I’ve been taking some watercolor classes in addition to the Altenew classes and I’ve been astonished at the vast number of techniques and materials you can use to create beautiful watercolor art.
I started simply with the materials that I had on hand.
I had some inexpensive watercolor paper, my aqua pens, some nice round paint brushes, a spritzer bottle, my Ranger craft mat, and my dye based inks. My goal was to create a simple background that looked like the colors just ran from the middle of the paper to the edges. Quick and easy. The most time consuming part was waiting for it to dry.
Once dry, I stamped a few stars on top in permanent black ink. I stamped my sentiment and die cut it out along with a sparkly purple frame. I attached those to the watercolor front with foam tape and then added the entire card front to a black card base with more foam tape. Done! I’m happy with it. It exactly expresses how inspired I felt today.
I really love the class I took on making Boutique Cards. Honestly, there is an artsy shop in town that sells handmade cards and they have one small image stamped in the center, a one word stamped sentiment and a little coloring and the card costs $5.
Cards don’t have to be super complicated. You see all these amazing pop up interactive box cards that must take a lot of time to complete. What does the recipient do with that card? We display cards for a while and then they go in a box. (I actually have a friend who throws them away. She has zero sentimentality for things and does not have any appreciation for handmade products. She gets very plain cards from me. A white card base with a sentiment stamped across the bottom. Boom.)
I’ve discovered that I am more of a boutique card creator. I want to make a bunch of cards in a short amount of time. I want them to be amazing so that everyone ooohs and aaahs over them before they go in the box. I just don’t want to spend hours creating them. I don’t want to fuss with interactive pieces. I want to try new things, but I really like clean and simple cards. I just have not quite mastered getting 3 techniques in one card with out including a lot of details that just clutter it up. You can be the judge of how I did today when I post my challenge cards tomorrow.
I want to feel inspired by the cards that I make. I’m a dreamer. I felt inspired to create my card today and I can’t say that I’ve had a more relaxing day than I had today in quite some time! Plus, I’m leaving my desk tidy for tomorrow and my craft room is organized.
Ahhh! It was a good day.
I hope that you had a wonderful day. Thank you for stopping by! I hope you find time to be creative today. Remember to embrace the imperfections!
