I find it to be a lot of fun to start creating a card by starting with a sketch. You can find websites full of them. There are sites devoted to just creating sketches and running design challenges. You can create your own sketch using My Digital Studio software like I did here today, or you can take a card that you love from a blog or from Pinterest (let’s face it…we’ve all got a ton of cards that we liked pinned and waiting to inspire us!) Pick one of those cards and see how you can change it to make your own design and style!
For the next several days, I’m going to show you how I start with a sketch and then imagine the different cards I can make using my stamping stash along with the sketch that I’m starting with!
Here is my starting sketch. I made it pretty quickly on My Digital Studio software just to get started with. (With a few tweaks, I could actually create a card from the software that I really love and get a box full of them printed through Stampin’ Up!s printing service! Just think about that for your Christmas cards or even quick scrapbook gifts!)
Tomorrow, I’ll show you several ways that I might use a part of this sketch to create several different card elements! Stay tuned for part 2!
My sister makes beautiful cards, but she’s always telling me that all she’s doing is copying someone else’s cards. Yes…that still counts as making a card! Just because you didn’t design it, if you made it with your own two hands, it is a hand made card created by you! I’m doing this series so that you will start looking at the cards that you see and love and start seeing how you can design your own version of the card with a few little changes to make it a really WOW! card that you can call your own creation.
Start using those Pins from your Pinterest board as a sketch to create your own card. Pretty soon, you will be starting with a card sketch of your own!
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I enjoy reading your blog and seeing your cards and other projects. Today you said something that really helped me, because I feel like that, too! You said, “My sister makes beautiful cards, but she’s always telling me that all she’s doing is copying someone else’s cards. Yes…that still counts as making a card! Just because you didn’t design it, if you made it with your own two hands, it is a hand made card created by you! ”
What you said helps me, and what I thought of, as a response to your sister’s sentiment, before I even finished reading what you said, helps me, too. Maybe it will help her (and others like the two of us who also feel that way). CASEing someone else’s card is like following a recipe for baking a casserole. What if you make it exactly like the recipe dictates? Then it should be “the same” as was the casserole of the person who developed the recipe to begin with. But wait, what if you can’t stand green peppers? If you leave them out, you have changed the recipe. Will you use that recipe again? Maybe so, but you still won’t use the green peppers. What if you used Monteray Jack cheese instead of cheddar cheese? Then your casserole will taste a little different from the “original.” It will be your casserole, though, not the person’s who created the recipe. Or, what if you run out of white sugar while making grape Kool-aid and substitute brown sugar instead? Have you made Kool-aid? Will your kids drink it, even though the color is just a little different from the way it usually looks?
So, when we use someone else’s card as our recipe, we are still making the card. If we change the stamp set, for whatever reason, or use a different color, or even change the orientation of the elements, we are adapting the recipe to fit our tastes, needs, lack of specific items, etc.
Thanks for sharing your talents! Thanks for helping me reach the above conclusion and letting me share it!
Thank you so much for your comment! I really love your recipe analogy. I never follow food recipes! (I’m also not a fabulous cook!) Thanks for sharing!