Mountain Magic. . . . . .

In the 40+ years that I've lived in the Rocky Mountain States (first Colorado and now Utah), I have never grown weary of the magnificent mountain views. . . and I'm sure I never will.

(You may click on photo to enlarge.)

Late this afternoon, I just happened to be sitting by the window in Lee's hospital room, watching the clouds come over the south edge of the city as a fast-moving Spring storm passed through.

In the afternoon light and through the mist of the low clouds and scattered snowflakes falling from the sky, the Wasatch Mountains seemed to take on an almost magical appearance . . . . . .

CARDMAKING: From CONCEPT to REALITY Article 3

Good morning once again, my friends,

I hope that you’re all having a fine week!

So far in my CARDMAKING: From CONCEPT to REALITY series, I’ve shared a couple of examples of my personal cardmaking experience….one card design that evolved from a poem and one that evolved from a floral design on a duvet cover. In today’s article, I’m going to share another of my cardmaking experiences, and this one, believe it or not, was inspired by a child’s hair barette!

Now, I do have to confess that I never would have come up with this card idea, had I not been participating in a card challenge with some of my cardmaking friends…The topic of that challenge was “Make a card using a ‘found object.’” (And NO, the challenge topic wasn't my idea!)

Not having a clue as to what I’d come up with for that particular challenge, I started searching the house for a ‘found’ item, anything that I thought I could possibly work into a card design, and wahlah......I found a colorful little barette with tiny rhinestone sparkles, in one of my many “junk collection” dishes I have scattered about. I had no idea where the barette came from, but I suspect it may have been a Christmas “stocking stuffer” purchase for one of my nieces years ago, that never made it to the stocking!

At any rate, I thought the color combination of fushia and aqua were striking, and so I set about looking through my mega stacks of cardstock and patterned paper to see what might coordinate well with this little barrette. And to my delight, I found a lovely pieced of embossed cardstock (by K and Company, as I recall) that had the PERFECT color combination in a beautiful floral design.

Then I searched through my textured Bazzill (I always have lots and lots of Bazzill on hand for just the right cardmaking occasion), and selected a coordinating shade of turquoise blue for the card design background. I’d just purchased some sheets of that color in the Bazzill “Bling” line, which has a lovely shimmer.

I also was able to find just the right shade of deep pink mulberry paper to coordinate with the color scheme. I fringed the edges of the mulberry paper for a little interest and used it to create an additional border under the embossed floral paper and under the text block.

Luckily, I was also able to find two different remnants of ribbon in my ribbon stash/tin, one in deep aqua, and one in deep rose.........those worked nicely to attach through the little barrette and add another touch to the card.

Text was computer generated and printed on plain white cardstock, then I chalk shaded the edges of the text block in (you guessed it!) aqua chalk.

With a few tiny acrylic rhinestones in a coordinating shade of blue to add a bit of sparkle, I thought this turned out to be a pretty nice little birthday card. And I guess someone else thought so too, since I SOLD IT ON EBAY!

So, here's today's story of how a card made it from CONCEPT to REALITY.....and in this case, I can honestly say this little card wouldn't have come to be, if I hadn't been challenged by my cardmaking friends and if I hadn't had just the right combination of materials in my cardmaking stash! (Guess that justifies my frequent shopping trips to the local crafts and scrapbooking stores.....or DOES it??)

Until we meet again.......May you be inspired today, even by the most unlikely source.

CARDMAKING: From CONCEPT to REALITY, Article 2

A few months ago, my husband and I were in a frenzy, trying to ready the house for out-of-state company. It had literally been YEARS since anyone had come to visit us. (We’re usually the ones doing the traveling!). And since I hardly EVER spend any time on interior decorating or “accessorizing” our home, it was definitely time for some updating.

One of the activities I set about doing was to find some new bedding ensembles for our master bedroom and the guest room. Of course, being a little hard to please, I ended up going to beau coups department stores and wading through numerous online and printed catalogues, before I found something that I thought would work for us.

Eventually, I did find a lovely duvet cover and matching shams and sheets for our master bedroom, in a design and colors that BOTH my husband and I loved . . . . . which is a feat in and of itself!

I liked the fabric design SO much, in fact, that I decided to use it as an "inspiration" piece for a new handmade card. Here’s a photo swatch of the fabric design from our new duvet cover . . . . .

The color combination of salmon and blue has long been a favorite of mine, and I always enjoy creating new paper piecings, so once again, I was all fired up for a new card project.

First of all, I started with a background "canvas" of a 5" X 7" piece of white textured Bazzill, which I glued to the front of a pre-folded cardstock base which I use for all my cards.

Then I dragged out my large and medium sized circle punches, my deckle edged and regular scissors, some scraps of textured Bazzill in a peachy shade and medium shade of orange and a dusky blue, and went to work punching and cutting. One thing led to another, as they say, and the flower just kept getting bigger and bigger! And then, of course, it needed a stem and some leaves........so MORE cutting.

Several hours and many layers and glue dots later. . . . . . here’s what I ended up with . . . .

It just so happens that some of my fellow cardmaker friends and I were having a card challenge around this time, and the theme of the challenge was to “make a 'wild' card” . . . . . . hence I named this creation “Wild Flower”. . . . . .and it has turned out to be yet another example of how a card design evolved from CONCEPT to REALITY.

Until we meet again . . . . . . May your days be wildly wonderful!

CARDMAKING: From Concept to Reality, Article 1

I’ve been doing a lot of introspection lately about the craft of cardmaking . . . . . . particularly in regard to where a cardmaker finds his/her “inspiration” to create new card designs, and then, once that inspiration occurs, how does the s/he bring those designs from “concept to reality” ?

As for me, I get the inspiration for my various card designs from lots of different sources . . . . such as colorful or special themed scrapbook papers, beautiful or unique embellishments, animals and nature, a poem or saying, a life event, or even a “challenge” by a client or fellow cardmaker to produce a card along a certain theme.

From the point that I get an idea for a card, how I go about developing that card design will vary…. For example, if my “inspiration” comes from a particular patterned scrapbook paper, I’ll start with the patterned paper and build a card design either around the color scheme or theme of the paper, sifting through all my papers and embellishment to find just the right combination. Other times, I’ll find a great quote, print it on a piece of cardstock, and then pick the papers and embellishments to go with that theme. Or, I might see something (a tree, an animal, a flower) that inspires me to create a paper piecing, and then the paper piecing becomes the focal point of my card design, with the overall card design evolving around that.

For today’s Blog post, I thought I’d show an example of one of my handmade card designs that evolved from a poem. The origin of this card was a rather lengthy poem (author unknown) that one of my card clients/friends sent to me, posing to me the challenge of incorporating it into a sympathy card. After a little tweaking, my friend and I came up with a shortened version of the poem (The original poem was actually about a “ship”, but I changed that to “boat”.)

A boat sails, and I stand watching till she fades on the horizon,

While someone at my side says, "She is gone."

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all……

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone",

There are others who, watching her coming, take up a glad shout,
"Here she comes!"

I couldn’t find any paper that lent itself particularly well to this poem/message, so I decided to try my hand at developing a paper pieced sailboat. I was lucky enough to find an image of a sailboat in a cutout from a brochure I had saved. (I'm ALWAYS cutting out and saving pictures and sayings that I see in magazines and catalogues, and adding them to my “inspiration” file!)

Not being an artist by trade, but having some limited skill in sketching, I managed to come up with a sailboat drawing of my own, using the little sailboat cutout as a guide.





And from this drawing, I developed a paper piecing pattern for the sailboat. Then I used the pattern to cut out the pieces of the sailboat from various scraps of textured Bazzill cardstock that I have around, punched out a large circle (the moon, or maybe the sun...you decide!) from deep yellow Bazzill, cut out a few free hand seagull silhouettes, a mast and a tiny flag, and came up with the following sailboat design.

Since all of my cards are fully lined with another layer of plain acid free white cardstock, I printed the text of the shortened version of the poem on the inside upper liner of this card. The inside bottom of the card remains blank for the sender’s handwritten message.

Over the next week or so, I hope to show other different examples of how some of my favorite handmade card designs have come to be.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from my fellow cardmakers (and indeed, other craftspersons and artisans as well!) about how you get your inspiration, and once inspired with an idea, how you bring that idea from CONCEPT to REALITY.

Until we meet again..........I wish you calm seas and smooth sailing.

JUST IN CASE . . . . .

JUST IN CASE my cardmaker friends and colleagues out there MIGHT think that I have been "sloughing" in my crafting activities this past week, while my husband Lee and I have been vacationing in Sedona, AZ, I wanted to show them that I've been making GOOD use of my time during the evenings in our little condo as we relaxed to the sounds of the rippling waters of Oak Creek.....

Admittedly, I'm a pretty strong Type A personality, so multi-tasking is a way of life for me! And every night last week, as Lee and I settled in to watch the Campaign (I think you know which one) and Hurricane Ike events on TV, I would drag out my paper crafting "travel box" (an old shoebox actually, filled with essential paper crafting supplies) and work on some new pieces.

Sometimes, as I go through my paper crafting travel box, I even discover past projects that I've forgotten I had! And as luck would have it, this time I found a previously designed pattern for a paper pieced tulip.

So, here's what I created last week: TEN paper pieced tulips, each with SEVEN individually hand cut and chalk shaded petals, glued together one at a time with mini glue dots. (If my ancient math skills serve me properly, that's SEVENTY individually hand cut, chalk shaded, and glued tulip petals! Yes, I know.....I'm over the edge.)

Be on the watch for some new handmade card designs in my Etsy Shop, using these little beauties!

And tomorrow, I WILL get my Sedona snapshots uploaded for your viewing pleasure!

Thanks for looking, My Friends!

Halloween Tag(s): You're It!

It's another beautiful day here in Salt Lake City, with just a hint of Fall in the air.......ah, Halloween will be here before we know it!

Today, I'm featuring the work of another of my favorite fellow paper crafters, Lisa, of Scrapbook Heaven. I know for a fact that Lisa enjoys Halloween as much as I do, and she LOVES to make Halloween themed cards, tags, and other paper creations.

Featured here is a fun and colorful set of Halloween hang tags created by Lisa. Use these wonderful handmade tags for gift tags, scrapbook embellishments, notes, or any other use you can imagine! The tags, currently being offered by Lisa in her Etsy shop, are made from heavy cardstock and tastefully embellished with touches of glitter and festive fun yarn.

Check out Lisa's Etsy shop, ScrapbookHeaven (http://www.scrapbookheaven.etsy.com/) for more handmade Halloween tags and handmade cards by this talented craftsperson and card artist.