True Colours

Over at Yes, Virginia, there's a fabulous photo inspiration for a card challenge.

Virginia's blog is one of my favourite ones to visit as it's always full of inspiration with simple, amazingly designed cards. After reading her post about being inspired to make a card by her salad, I learned to look for inspiration just anywhere too.

I've been meaning to enter in this challenge but I've been so busy lately and now I'm free! I have so many ideas I want to do but this is the one I came up with late, late tonight. I'm hoping to create more cards with that photo inspiration even if the challenge is over tomorrow night. The rainbow colour is my inspiration and when I think of rainbows and its vast array of colours, I think of the song, "True Colours". This is my abstract-ish representation of the song. 

The paper folding was inspired by a window display I saw at the mall a couple of weeks ago but never got to make a card out of it. It was an amazing backdrop to the mannequins. I can't remember exactly how the display looked but I remembered the square folded diagonally and arranged in an interesting pattern. As for the quilled heart, you can't tell but it's actually cut from the music True Colours that I printed out...I love that song :)

Another thank you

I also work at a tutor centre and my employer's wife gave me a late mother's day present. I really think these employers are the sweetest employers I've met. I'm going to give this card to her tomorrow.

I was inspired from the beautiful card over at CASE Study so I'll be entering this card into their Challenge #94 as well as the challenge over at Clip 'n Cuts. I had a lot of fun with this as I finally tried to make my own fringed flowers. I find the combination looks good together all thanks to the inspiration card. I also used a flash card for the middle white strip. I think I'm going to be using things around the house in my future cards :D

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

Memory Star Scrapbook Paper, Flashcard (Dollarama), Make-It Special Scrapbook Paper (Dollarama),  Smart Papers Passport Granite 

Thank You Card

I've been pretty busy the last 2-3 weeks working on the 108 report cards that I've finally finished 2 days ago. Whew! There were so many enticing card challenges that I had to miss because of it. Oh well. I'm hoping to be more active on my blog now that my teaching on Saturdays has ended (last day today!). I made a simple card to thank the principal for the teaching opportunity.

I'm also entering this card in the Clip 'n Cuts Challenge. I gave Data Manager a try and it is fantastic! It's so easy to use to list the supplies we've used. Unfortunately, I've only listed two materials as the rest of them I couldn't find online. I really like the Data Manager and I'm hoping to digitize all the craft supplies I have one day.

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

Recollections Pedal Opaque Embossing Powder, Recollections Blank Cards and Envelopes 4 in x 5.5 in, Autumn Leaves Stampology stamps (sorry I don't know the name as I've thrown out the packaging :S), Studio g Glitter Glue, Dollarama Twine

Revisiting embossing

I would love to make a post everyday but things just get too busy. This month will be especially busy with report cards for my 100 students @__@. Since I haven't even started, my goal for this week is to have at least 20 students' report cards drafted *fingers crossed*


Anyway, I made time yesterday to try making a card based on this inspiration card. I really like the black background accented with the embossed design and the brightly coloured letters that stand out from that background.

And this is what I came up with...

I haven't done any embossing since last year when I first bought the kit for it so this was my chance to revisit it :) Too bad my embossing ink stamp had dried so I used a regular ink pad instead. Also, since I don't have any background stamps, I repeated a variety of stamps to create the background. Finally I did a little quilling for my bright colours. I actually had a happy birthday sentiment initially but I decided against it 'cuz sometimes less is more. :)

Challenge:


CASE study Challenge #89 (Agnieszka Malyszek Muse)

Raine Moments: Paintlounge

I must really like Paintlounge because we went back for the third time yesterday. The first two times I've gone, I've painted this and this. Today my husband and I decided to take our little girl there for the first time. I've been telling her so much about the place and it's only fair to bring her there for the experience :). I was also very curious of what she'll end up painting.

Since there was a paint bar, we let our little girl choose what colours she would like on her palette. (While the paints are acrylic, we knew that our young daughter wouldn't put it in her mouth and we had really close supervision of her too.) Then we let her choose the tools to use. She began with the paintbrush as seen here.

Later, she moved on to use about 20 other tools (a variety of stamps, sponges, fly swatter, mats, ball) to make her mark making on the canvas. I would say her painting was an experimentation of tools rather than a representational painting of something in real life as my husband and I asked many times to tell use about her painting and she didn't say anything about it.

What I really enjoyed about the experience was seeing my daughter show her own creative expression. She chose her own colours, she kept going back for her own tools, and she told us when she was done painting. As much as my husband and I liked how the initial painting looked and wanted to take the painting before my daughter added more to it, we didn't, of course.

I believe that art is where one creatively express themselves and it doesn't matter what the product ends up looking. It's all about the process, the journey that makes me love art so much. I think this is why my art tends to stray far, far away from a reproduction or copy of anything...if I wanted to paint an exact copy of a picture, why wouldn't I just go get a photo printed from the nearest photo centre? :) Copying a picture is good practice for technique but does nothing for the creative soul. It's what's different from the original that makes something one of a kind and human.

Fun with mediums

I felt like making another card tonight. I played around with some of the things I got from my shopping spree fiasco at the art store the other day.

In this card, I played with acrylic inks for the background-I really like this medium and the effect it gives me. It's kinda like painting (which I love!) and I think it's kinda like the alcohol inks that card makers use too. I will have to make a future post about what my husband came up with from the acrylic inks (it's abstract awesomeness:) I also got a set of 24 Copic Markers to try out (soo pricey @__@) but it's an investment into my creative expression :)...I used it for the flowers on this card. I also revisited using perfect pearls to add a little extra touch to it which you can see better on the second picture (the pearls should be on both flowers though).

Challenge:

Lily Pad-Virginia's View Challenge (flower photo inspiration)
Paper Players #93 (Anything goes-Tic Tac Toe)

Card-making

I just discovered that there are card-making challenges and blogs all over the web. I think it gives crafters/cardmakers a little push, inspiration, motivation, and just an excuse to make some cards.

I got into purchasing a whole bunch of crafting supplies last year around this time but never really spent the time to get into it. I guess taking care of my daughter and moving back to Toronto didn't give me that much time for crafting. I'm hoping I can get back into card making while trying to find a balance of doing everything else.

Anyway, here's my first card to be entered into a challenge!

I'm entering it in Paper and Such (Easter/Spring theme), Just Keep on Creating (anything goes), and Lily Pad (Flower theme).

One of a Kind Show

 

I just realized that the One of a Kind Show starts tomorrow. I had previously bought advance tickets during the winter show and I totally forgot it was this week. Looks like I'll be making a trip downtown tomorrow. I'm excited! I love anything handmade :)...it's like a tangible Etsy ^-^ I hope I can get some inspiration and possibly some photos to share. Good thing I asked my aunt for some babysitting with the intention of cleaning the house tomorrow (I guess that will have to wait).