Wednesday, May 21, 2008

MORE SPRING CRAFT KIT CREATIONS

I've been continuing to work with the items that came in my Spring Craft Kit and here are a few more of my creations. You know it is very interesting that when I first received this kit I wasn't too excited about it. It was much brighter and more pastelly (is that a word?) than I like. I put off for over a month even looking at it again. BUT.....once I got started using it I fell in love! I am now going to be so sad when there is no more to play with and I must move on. And that moment is coming real fast there is not much left but a few scraps of patterned paper and even less of the card stock. I think I may have a dozen or so brads left and that is it for the embellishments.

So why did I fall in love with this kit once I began using it. Well for one thing I think that anything I determine to throw myself into creating with I eventually fall in love with. The more I use something that seem useless the more I seem to find uses for it. Also it has been so rainy and dreary here in Maryland this month (over 9 inches of rain so far) that the papers in this kit provided a much needed cheery bright spot in my day. I found myself smiling as I worked with them.

This first card didn't start out to be a baby girl card. In fact it started out a disaster. I began working with one of the self adhesive chipboard flowers that came in the kit. (They were my biggest challenge). I added the oversized brad for the middle of it then tried to put it against the patterned papers I had left. Nothing worked it kept getting lost. Next I thought maybe a scalloped circle under it would help and I had a piece of the pink patterned paper, but the scalloped circle was too big so I placed a smaller circle between it and the chipboard. That worked but it was still boring so bring out the piercing tool and white gel pen. Finally I had something I liked that worked against the striped background paper, but wow it's 4 layers! To balance the vertical stripes I added the ribbon on a diagonal line under this medallion. At this point I needed something in the lower right to balance everything and I wanted it to be a sentiment. For some reason that even I don't understand when I looked at the card I thought of a baby rattle and since the medallion was primarily pink it became a baby girl card by stamping the New Baby sentiment on pink! It works for me how about you?

From babies to birthday's. This second card also has a chipboard flower with a large brad on the inside. But this one looked just fine with no other additions. Maybe because it is a more normal shaped flower image. I echoed the flower by rolling the background on the card stock using So Saffron and one of my jumbo wheels from SU. More flowers on the panel of paper down the left side of the card. Then I was tired of flowers and so stamped the happy birthday message on a striped paper. Cutting around it with the same scalloped scissors I used on the sides of the panel. Something more was needed and I decided it was a splash of color so I found a strip of golden yellow card stock, but it was narrower than the sentiment piece! What to do? Well you can see what I did. I scalloped just the ends of the strip and cut it long enough to place a brad in each end than put the sentiment on top using dimentionals. I think it looks like it is floating on a stip if paper ribbon. Finally,I wanted to put three brads in the lower left. Now that I was almost done with the card I got to hurried and lazy to get out a punch template and ensure that the brads would be evenly spaced. (I blame it on my ADD kicking in.) So of course when I put the brads in they were all wrong and totally ruined the card. <> I was ready to kick myself around the room and scream in frustration. I took a break, came back refreshed and looked at the card again....more sighing....Ah ha! I'll cover up the holes that are miss punched. You can se what I came up with. Now the only problem was that when I opened the card there were those pesky holes still staring me in the face! HA, guess what's on the inside covering the holes........A second little punched strip of the patterned paper that you see on the left hand side of the card. Problem cratively solve and card salvaged!

5 comments:

Kim said...

What cute cards! Thanks for sharing them!

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

You are so clever, Suzanne! I'm glad you keep going when you reach a 'roadblock' and share the steps in your creative journeys with us. I love how both of these cards turned out, so I think it was worth the blood, sweat and tears!!

I hope you do, too :-)

Christi Flores said...

Both of your cards are adorable!!!

Lee said...

Ohhh.......very COOOOOOL idea with the punch!! And wonderful cards.......you're ROCKIN' that Kit!! And yes, "pastelly" is a word.....one of my faves!!! :)

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

Hi Suzanne - thanks for th eocmments about the birds and butterfly on my blog! I would LOVE to see bluejays here. It's funny how you get used to seeing the birds in your own area, isn't it? I must try for the Rainbow Lorikeets to show you next :-)

Thanks also for the feedback about papercraftcentral.com I'm so glad you feel there is plenty of information already! It is fun to do and I feel as though I have just got started. I plan to add so much more as I want to provide heaps of good, free content.

I will think about income producing possibilities as I go along. That's the plan for the future. Why not work for yourself doing something you love online instead of working for someone else?