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

So much for being a good blogger...

It has been two months since I have written anything. Lots of things have happened. I had a birthday, we have had two vacation weeks off, one of which we drove to Florida and back. I guess I will have to go back to the drawing board in how to keep this up. If anyone has any suggestions, I would welcome them!!

Valentines!!!

I am struggling with insomnia again so I figured I would write another post tonight. If my grammar or spelling isn't perfect, it is because I am tired. I have been working on Valentine's goodie bags for some of my friends' at work and I thought I would share. 

I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to make this year. I browsed tons of blogs and Pinterest to get my mojo going but no "brilliant," original idea came to me. Instead, I filled glassine bags with Lindt chocolate and decorated them.

The image is a printable that Papertrey Ink made available during their anniversary celebration last year. I was hoping it would eventually become a stamp but it didn't. Being a printable, though, helped make the assembly line process go a little easier.

I printed about 15 bees on a sheet of white cardstock and punched the images out with a circle punch. I then colored the them in using the copic marker colors above, black stickles and a red Spica marker. The edges were inked with Vintage photo ink and the heart wing was created by using a heart punch and a pop dot. Aren't the little bees cute?

My next step was to die cut the scalloped circles out of yellow and the doilies out of red patterned paper. I was then ready to put all the bags together.

I went through my patterned paper scraps and my stash to find paper that would fit with the Valentine theme but also coordinate with my bees. My first pick was a 12" by 12" sheet of heart paper but Echo Park. I only had one sheet so I cut it into 6, 2" by 12" strips. 

I placed each strip around the bag so the open ends would be in front. I then stapled the two ends together. I covered up the staple by layering the doily, the scallop and bee image on top of each other.

I did the same process for all the other pieces of patterned paper I chose. Below is a group shot of some of the bags I put together. I only wish I could have made them for everybody in the department!!

I hope you all have a happy Valentine's Day!! Thank you for stopping by!!

Nora

Papertrey Ink Sketch Challenge

I swear this will be my last post for today. I am exhausted and have no mojo left to do anything!!

Today there is a sketch challenge over at Papertrey Ink to celebrate their 6th anniversary. I chose to create my card with sketch #4 as my inspiration.

Here is the card I created:

I chose to use dark chocolate as the base of the card and to pair it with orange zest and raspberry fizz. I used Heart-2-Heart #12 to stamp the "flowers" and leaves. The bee is from a printable from PTI's 5th year anniversary. 

I am not sure if you can tell but I die cut and stamped 2 of the flowers and die cut one of the stems for this card. I also die cut the middle of the tag and the elements went under it. I chose to pop dot 2 of the flowers and the offset buttons were a choice. You can see this in the view below.

That is all I have for you today!! Thank you for stopping by!!

Nora

PTI 6th Anniversary Challenge

Another post with a Papertrey Ink challenge!! This challenge was posted at the beginning of the week Nichole Heady's blog and was to create a project that was inspired by one of the design teams favorite projects. I chose to use Dawn McVey as my inspiration this go around...surprise, surprise!!

The bottom left card was the card I chose to use as my inspiration. Here is what I came up with:

I stuck with Dawn's color scheme and layout on the card but made it a Valentine's Day card. I stamped the houndstooth background in Pure Poppy and Raspberry Fizz ink on vintage cream card stock and adhered it to a Raspberry Fizz card base. I die cut the heart border using my Silhouette machine and die cut the butterfly and leaves with my Big Shot using the PTI dies. I then stamped the butterfly using Pretty Peonies set and the leaf using the Turning a New Leaf set. I pop dotted the butterfly to give it some dimension and used some gems around the Valentine sentiment.

Here is a side view of the card:

I will be back later with another entry for today's challenge!!!

Nora