Making life brighter one card at a time
I thought I might just sneak this one in before the entries closed for the Double ‘D’ Challenges blog challenge of Candy Canes. My first card for 2023, using up some paper pieces I cut out before Christmas. I’m going to continue doing holiday cards regularly throughout the year so I have a headstart on the festive season!
Another set of trees using Gina K Designs’ Christmas Tree cover plate die. I this these are my favourite versions of the cards, I just love the more subtle colours of the papers together. I just flicked through my paper samples and found greens that I thought could work well together. Not a single paper pack in this case was a Christmas paper, so it just shows what you can find when you look outside the box a wee bit.
I’ve decided to enter these into a few challenges this week – I’ve been slack at doing challenges lately, so I guess I’m making up for lost time. I keep updating my Instagram feed, but forgetting to post here oops:
Even though they’re retired dies, I just love the Detailed Dove dies by Stampin’ Up! I decided to try three variations tonight.
This is the card I decided to enter into this week’s challenge at Just Add Ink – and also for the Sparkles Christmas monthly challenge.
I haven’t joined in with any of the challenges yet on The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers blog, but I came across this sentiment yesterday while looking for something else, and I decided I couldn’t go past joining in the Z is for Zombies challenge. It really makes me laugh, and would make an awesome non-mushy Valentine’s Day card! 😛
I’m joining the Tic Tac Toe challenge again this week last minute. I chose one of the diagonal lines that included:
All supplies are from Stampin’ Up! – Boho Indigo stamp set, dies and sentiment, plus the patterned paper. Night of Navy and Seaside Spray cardstock.
Day 9 of CardMaynia … I used a fussy cut flower and leaf from my first ever colouring exercise when I started cardmaking last year. Trying to use up things that have been sitting around unloved.
Oh boy I’m way out of my comfort zone with this one – I actually combined three challenges in one this time, covering a sketch challenge set by a new team, along with completing this week’s Tic Tac Toe Challenge, and today’s card for my personal CardMaynia challenge.
I decided to choose column 1, which is: White on white, Silver, and Die cut.
This one uses all Stampin’ Up! products, which was tough for me to do:
I managed to combine two challenges into one card, as well as getting a Mother’s Day card ready to send to NZ. Mum doesn’t know me anymore and can’t converse, but I still try to send her some bright cheery cards regularly to brighten her room.
For Tic Toe Challenge 159 I chose bright colours, ribbon of twine, and Mother’s Day.
Today marks my one-year anniversary of cardmaking – I’d signed up for some Stampin’ Up! monthly card kits from a local demonstrator 18 months ago but didn’t get a chance to start making any as I had a call my Mum had had a stroke in NZ and was unlikely to survive. My life was turned upside down and I managed to eventually get quarantine accommodation so I could fly to NZ to be by her bedside and spent a few months emptying the family home (my Dad passed away not long before Covid hit). There were also lots of work upheavals as well, so it was the perfect storm emotionally for me and my resilience took a real beating. BUT I started cardmaking as soon as I got back home to Australia as it helped me take my mind off things back home.
It’s amazing how the simple act of learning a new craft and bending your mind into a different direction really helps to feed the soul and take your mind off your worries. It’s been a long difficult road this year, but I’m incredibly blessed to have found this new hobby of mine (my bank manager might disagree, however).
As a long-time cross stitcher as my main hobby, I’ve been used to participating in ‘StitchMaynia’ or similar events where we work on a different stitching project each day throughout the month of May. I’m not really stitching at the moment because cardmaking is still my ‘happy place’, so I’ve decided to do my own version this year and call it ‘CardMaynia’. My aim, all going well, is to create a card (or at least make a start on a card) using a different stamp or die set every day in May. I hope to be able to finally christen some sets I’ve purchased but haven’t touched (and, ahem, there are LOTS), especially some that I bought while I was in NZ doing ‘comfort shopping’.
So, here is my first card for CardMaynia – using one of the first stamp sets I’d ever ordered (from a secondhand Facebook group) … ‘Wetlands’ by Stampin’ Up! (an older retired set). As it was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator that got me started on my cardmaking journey, I thought it only fitting that it should be the brand I kicked off with today.
This week’s Craft Roulette was a fun one – and I ended up with a slightly ‘grungy looking’ card for my submission:
