Go To Card

 If you are ever feeling "stuck", I suggest pulling out one of your go-to card designs.  The card in the top video I found over on Instagram.  It has become a go-to card for me.  You can let that pretty patterned paper do all the work.  Also if you have extra die cuts like I did you can quickly stamp a sentiment on it to make this extra easy.  I hope you get some crafty therapy in today.- Samantha

Here is the card and one extra that is inspired by the card design but just a bit different.

Clean and Simple Card

 I used a card sketch to jumpstart this simple card. Distress oxides were applied with sponge daubers to make the flowers. Then just a bit of simple drawing was added. I found a small sentiment that would compliment the card but not overtake it. See you can do this! Hope you will give it a try. Want to see how easy this is to make, head here for the 1 minute video.

Simple One Layer Card

The video shows it all. Simple. The design came from another artist on Pinterest. It is not an exact replica but it has the same "spirit". Just simple stamping can be so beautiful. Please check out the simple video over on YouTube if you want to see more details of this being made.

 Paint scraping works when making cards too! I was so excited to find this technique. It is addictive, simple, and satisfying. I tried to make the sentiment flow with all the layers by stamping on each and every layer. It really made it stand out I think. Hope you enjoy this card. Be inspired..go enjoy your stash soon.

If you want to watch the less than 2-minute video of this card please go here.

Faux Wax Seals

 

I would do the triple heat embossing along with sinking in a red rubber stamp all the time back in my early days of card making. I have been eyeing all the wax seal products out there for some time. I was contemplating adding wax seals to my growing collection. But I thought of this old technique. I tried it out. Loved how it turned out. Now I just saved myself some money because I can make these faux wax seals. I hope you find this helpful.

Getting out of my Comfort Zone

I have been exploring things that are waaaaay out of my comfort zone.  So here is a flower I watercolored following a brilliant artist on TikTok Andrea Nelson Art.  I have come to trust her tutorials.  If she says you can do it you can.  Then with the daisies, I hand drew these from a reference photo on Pinterest.  I used pens to color.  A white gel pen was used on the petals.  Then to top it off, I hand-wrote the sentiment on this one.  I never do that but I am happy with the result.  I hope you get a chance to try something out of your comfort zone too.  You can do it!

 

Use Your Scraps: Twine/String

 

You can save more than just paper scraps to use on another project. If you are new to cardmaking or papercrafts, you will find that most of us tend to do just that. Maybe even to a fault in some cases. For this project back in July, I had quite a bit of excess twine and string left over from another project. I really wanted to find a way to use that without having to waste it. Using a negative die cut was the answer in this case. I layered the string on strong double-sided tape. Then popping up the layer that I cut out a butterfly from, let all that string shine through. I kept the rest of the design simple to let this element be the focus. A simple sentiment, a little distressing with distress inks, a bit of contrasting cardstock...was all it needed. If you haven't given this a try I hope you will.

Please see the coordinating video which is < a minute here.