Kit Swap!

I joined a Kit swap at the Paper Wishes forum this month.  If you’ve never joined one, you should.  They are a lot of fun.  Basically, each person builds two identical kits following a recipe, makes a card from one of the kits and sends the second kit to their partner.  Neither person posts pictures until both have finished making their cards.  It’s a lot of fun to see how different or similar the results are.

The kit I received had papers and die cuts from Emma’s Garden.  The really nice thing about the papers is that they’re double sided so I had six patterns to choose from (I chose all six!).

Here’s what I made with it.

 

I haven’t decided what to stamp on the inside yet, so the banner is still blank.

I cut the flowers and leaves using the 12 Flower Frenzy die set and I used Design Tool Kit #6 for the front card flap and the background on the inside.

The kit I sent to my partner included one of my photos and papers from several Personal Shopper kits.  Here’s the card I made with it.

 

Items used:

• Sparkle gold twine (Maya Rd.)
• Greeting from Card Greetings & Sentiments CD
• Tan Swirly Flowers paper
• Blue paper from February 2014 Dazzles PS Kit (you can get the paper without the printed border in the Ooh La La Artful Card kit.)
• Green paper from a Dazzles kit (I'm sure this is probably available in a paper pack, but I can't figure out which one)
• Feathers Dazzles
• Gold Jewel Border Dazzles
• Flower embellishment made with:

• Ecru card stock
• Flower Frenzy die
• Ranger Tea Dye Distress Ink
• Blue stickles

Check out the January Kit Swap at Paper Wishes to see what my partners made.

Using Photos on Cards

I’ve been in a creativity slump for about a year.  Endless hours sitting at my craft desk pushing papers around and finding no inspiration made me wonder if I would ever be able to create again.  Now I’m finally emerging from the fog and I’ve found that my style has shifted just a bit.  I think it has improved so perhaps I needed the break. 

One piece of creativity that I did manage to hang on to during those long months was my love for photography.  I especially like photographing winged things, be they birds or insects.  Several people have expressed an appreciation for my photos, so I decided to try incorporating them into my cards.

This is one of the first cards I made this year.  I created it for one of the people who helped me find my way back out of the fog.

For this card I used:

• 10 Tiny Things Plus Shadows Cutting Dies
• Unforgettable Double-Sided Paper Pack (teal background)
• Heritage Paper Pack (brown borders)
• Grapefruit Double Sided Paper Pack (orange butterfly backgrounds)
• Gold Thin Lines Dazzles
• Nestabilities Large Labels die set

My second card is from a recent trip to Discovery Bay, Washington.  There were quite a few ducks hanging around the dock and this Surf Scooter ventured the closest.  He’s a very goofy looking bird, but I just love the reflection in the water.  I chose a background that closely matched the color of the water to extend the look of the water from the photo onto the card.  I also wanted a natural looking wood frame, so I chose Paper Wishes’ Barnwood paper and popped it up on a few layers of card stock.  I mitered the corners to complete the wooden frame look.

I used the Wildflowers cutting die to cut an orange and a green layer for the flowers and pieced the two together.  I did the same with the dragonfly using green and brown scrapbook paper.  The torn edge of the tan paper from Natures watercolors gives the illusion of a shoreline.

Items Used:

• Pale blue paper (background)
• Barnwood Paper (frame)
• Nature’s Watercolors Paper Pack (tan foreground)
• Wildflowers Cutting die
• Batik Ditigal Paper Pack  (dragonfly wings and body)
• Roses in Harmony paper pack (green dot paper)
• Spooky! Halloween Papers (oragne flowers)
• Gold Tiny Words & Phrases Dazzles