Recently, I was in a card making slump. Maybe worn out from the hectic holiday season, followed by family birthdays, including my own, my creative juices wouldn’t flow. I would sit down at my craft desk and flip through my stash of new stamps searching for ‘The One’…you know that stamp set that would inspire me to make the greatest card the card making world has ever seen!

After several minutes of staring into space, defeated I say “I will try again tomorrow”. Tomorrow comes and the cycle repeats itself. Finally, my need to create overcame my desire to ‘wow’ and I pulled out my favorite stamp set from Simon Says Stamp, Beautiful Flowers. This stamp set just calls my name and this time it said ‘Erika, I would make a pretty Wedgwood Art pieces’. With that, I proceeded to make 3 – 5 x 7 cards using various techniques and scrapbook paper.

White Embossing on Colored Card Stock

This super simple card simply required heat embossing the floral bouquet with white detail embossing powder onto light blue card stock and then coloring in the image with a white color pencil. I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink Faded Blue Jean to fade in a deeper blue color from the bottom to add interest. I was sure to wipe the excess ink from the embossed image to keep the flower outline looking crisp.

Stamped on Pattern Paper

For this card, I chose some patterned paper from my collection and stamped the image in blue ink. Again, for interest, I taped off a portion of the top and bottom and applied Tim Holtz Distress Ink Faded Blue Jean lightly. By the way to get a softer look, I used my Picket Fence Life Changing Blender Brushes. You can see in the photo that my tape lifted slightly and I didn’t get a perfect line, but that’s why its called ‘handmade’.

Stamped, Colored, Masked, and Stenciled

This card was a little more complex. After stamping the image in blue ink on light blue card stock, I colored the entire image with a white colored pencil. I then used a blue pen to trace over the details, like the center of the roses. I used the matching die to cut some masking paper. I knew the die cut mask would leave a small border around the image that would allow it to stand out from the busy background. The stencil used is Rubbernecker Stamps Honey Comb and I used the same Tim Holtz Distress Ink Faded Blue Jean.

Hindsight is 20/20. I should have left the stamp positioned in my MISTI and re-stamped the image with blue ink after coloring instead of tracing with a blue pen.

That’s it for today. Losing your inspiration to create is never fun and can be depressing, but I hope that this post reminds you that it is okay to re-visit those favorite items in your stash. Yea, you may feel like you ‘create with it all the time’. However, these are the items that spark your creative engine and that’s good.

Happy Crafting Y’all, Erika