Perhaps normal people, that don’t have a lot of “spare” time, would opt for making a simple, easy to assembly-line card – making them all the same. (Or buying cards.) But I guess I don’t fit the categories.
When I sit down to create, I like seeing what I can do with what I have. When I sit down to create, I usually also think, “I don’t have any ideas. What am I going to do?” A couple days of “free time” work later, this is what I have. 27 different, unique! Christmas cards. Many of the same elements used here and there, but no card just like another. And just when I think I’m done with a card (or other project), I think of a way I can enhance it, make it better. I also wonder, “What if I tried this?” Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.
Creativity is something that grows. You have to use it to gain it. It isn’t always brilliant, or jaw-dropping wonderful. I doesn’t have to be. It just has to be a growing expression of your ideas. Sometimes you’ll love it, sometimes not. I found, in doing this many cards at once, that even if I loved a design, I still didn’t make another card exactly like it. I continued to think of ways I could improve it. There were no designs I hated or scrapped. (And I hope that everyone that received these cards enjoyed them and the creativity that went into them.)
I encourage you to make 2014 a year of creativity. Take time to let ideas flow, to produce whatever you enjoy making. It may be in making up new recipes. It may be in re-decorating your home. It may be in making handmade cards.
Let me know where your creative juices are flowing.
If you’d like to know what the cards are made with:
Card bases are Recollections Cape Cod Collection (blues), Shades of Red (red), Cream, and plain ol’ Georgia Pacific white from Walmart.
Patterned papers are from DCWV Christmas & Winter Stack, (and maybe some from Winter Solstice.)
Embossing folders: Paper Studio Holly, Snowflakes, and Sizzix Textured Poinsettia.
Dies: Sizzex Scallop Squares, and Spellbinders Classic Ovals.
Punches: EK Success circles, scallop circle, journal label, flourish square and scalloped scallop border; Paper Studio star, Martha Stewart Arctic snowflake. We R Memory Keepers Corner Chompers (plain and decorative), and Xacto corner rounder.
Inks: Ranger’s Tim Holtz Distress Inks (various colors). Versa Mark – and “Glitz”, “Snow”, and “Silver” embossing powders from Michael’s, and Zap! heat tool.
Stamps: (clear) Inakinkado “O Holy Night” set, (cling rubber) Stampendous “Nativity Carol” set, Magenta holly and poinsettia, (wood/rubber stamps) Stampendous “Glory to God”, Inkadinkado “O Come Let Us Adore Him”, Stampabilities “Holly Berry Border”, “Glory to God”, “Intricate Snowflake”, “Itty Bitty Blake”, Hand Drawn Holly”, “O Holy Night”.
Darice hemp twine, Celebrate It baker’s twine, and various holiday ribbons from Hobby Lobby and Walmart. Wood stars from Recollections (Michael’s).
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