Mojo lost and found

I have not been enjoying my craft room as of late. I thought it might be that I needed new supplies. I went shopping and bought some, but that didn't seem to help. I thought that maybe I needed to take more photos but that did not inspire me either. I then pondered that I might just not be "into" crafting anymore. I did not seem to have the time I once had and if I "wanted" to add exercise into my life, something was going to have to give. (I hate exercising so it is more of a "need" for me.) Of course I didn't say anything to my husband because he would have flipped. Do you know how much I have invested in my hobbies? (Yes-I have more then one unfortunately!!)

I think the event that put me back into the "swing of things" as they say was having a friend over this week and teaching her how to make a few cards. It was invigorating to me. I didn't realize I missed the social aspect that I sometimes get from being a crafter. In fact, I plan out cards and scrapbook pages before I go to a crop because I cannot "think" when I am with people. I enjoy talking too much!! My creative juices don't flow. I used to teach others but it has been a long time and I never felt confident in my ability. I am not a huge fan of getting up in front of people.

So I want to thank my friend, Kristin, for helping me get back into my groove. She made two beautiful cards and I sent her away with a few stamp sets and pads to play with. I am hoping she will want to come over another time to do it again. In fact, I need to get more people hooked so we could make cards as a group.

I guess the whole point of this post is that I got my Mojo back this week and had a BLAST finishing two scrapbook pages and making some fun cards. I am also presently experimenting with dying sequins this afternoon but that is a whole different post!!

Today I wanted to share a step by step process of one of the cards I made this weekend. I had so much fun playing with my new "It's All Good" Hero Arts stamp set and dies. I even made two versions of the card and think I will make a few more to put away as gifts.

The first version was for a challenge over at Scrapjazz.com. It was to create a card using the color orange. This wasn't very hard for me as orange is one of my favorite colors.

Don't you love how it turned out? A close up of the details is below. I love the added touch of the sequins and gems on this!!

I decided that I wanted my next card to be a different color. The first thing I did was to drop some pink mist spray on a 4" by 5 1/2" piece of white card stock. I could have used the actual sprayer but I wanted a less-is-more effect.

 My next step was to die cut a word balloon from white paper and stamp the sentiment on it in blue ink.

On step 3, I played around with some of the other balloon shapes on the card to see how I wanted to use them. This is why I LOVE clear stamps. I like to play with placement and it is difficult to do with rubber stamps.

I stamped the word balloons  in green and pink ink on step 4 and in the next step, I played around with sentiments from some Paper Trey Ink sets that I have that would fit inside the empty balloons. I then stamped them in the same color as the unfilled balloons. 

For step 6, I folded a piece of 4 1/4" by 8 1/2" of white card stock in half. I cut a small strip of patterned paper from my new Basic Grey "Knee Highs and Bow Ties" 6" by 6" paper pad and adhered it to the edge. I LOVE this paper!! I wish I could have some bedding made in this pattern. It would be loud but no louder then the orange comforter I have in my bedroom now. (I told you I liked orange!)

For the next step, I adhered the misted and stamped piece of paper to the front of the card. I was going to use a pop dot and give this piece dimension like my first card, but I made a boo boo and had to cover it up. I didn't cut the patterned strip big enough and I didn't feel like ripping it off to start over,  so I went with plan b-covering the mistake up!!

What was my magic trick? To layer a piece of glitter tape over both the patterned paper strip and the white cardstock to mask the mistake. Layering is a wonderful thing!!

My last step was to adhere the blue word balloon onto the card with pop dots and add a few pieces of bling. I think I might like this card even more then my orange one!!

Now all I have to do is make a few more!! Thank you for joining me today. I hope you have a good week!!

Nora