Welcome to another Make It Monday post!
You should be coming here from Beth’s site. Beth is answering the question: What do you do when you have no photos for the back of a pocket page? I think her solution is so cute and I’ll definitely have to try it!
Today I am sharing three cards I made while homeless.
Not homeless as in no home to live in, homeless as in my little ScrapCave was undergoing a repaint and reorganization and all my supplies were stacked in the hallway.
Do you have a dedicated scrapping space? I know that not all of us do which is totally okay! As long as you can carve out a corner of a flat surface somewhere (dining table, kitchen table, floor, coffee table, backyard deck, coffee shop, you name it) you can create. Even though I have had a dedicated crafting room for several years now, I have found myself carving out a corner of the dining room table on more than one occasion. Usually when my craft room looks more like an episode of Horders than Good Housekeeping!
Earlier this month I set about emptying my crafting room so I could repaint and rearrange the furniture to better suit my needs. Now that I don’t have to share the space with the family computer and filing cabinet, I can really make it work for how I create. Such a treat! But in the middle of the chaos I realized I needed to make some birthday cards!
Everything was in piles, boxes, or bins in my hallway and on my dining room table. There wasn’t even enough room to set out my paper trimmer!
Rather than panic I grabbed my trusty 6×6″ paper pads, some card stock, a few embellishments, and with my paper trimmer on my lap I set about seeing what I could come up with.
Here are my TOP TIPS FOR CRAFTING IN TIGHT SPACES.
1. Grab those scraps!
We’ve all got them and I’ve posted often about using them so start with them first. Odds are, your scraps are not 12″ x 12″ or even 8.5″ x 11″. They are probably not too much bigger than a piece of 6×6″ paper. So grab them and see what happens when you layer them, line them up, punch them with a pretty edge punch, and generally play around with them.
Happy 6 Birthday card – cut out some images from patterned paper, layer them on scraps from your scrap bin, add a sentiment and some simple embellishments and you’re done!
This card was made that way. The two square images are cut from a piece of paper from a 6×6″ paper pad but the others are from my scrap drawer. Adding a glittery number 6, some shaped enamel dots and a simple stamped message make it clear who the card is for.
The hardest part about making this card was finding my edge punch!
2. Let your papers do all the work!
For the second card I used a sheet from a 6×6 paper pad (Crate Paper’s Confetti Line) as my main design element. Adding a tag cut from another sheet of paper from the same pad, a line of glitter tape and a bow were all the embellishment I needed.
Simple Sophisticated Birthday Card – let the paper dictate what, how many, and where your embellishments are going to go. Sometimes you don’t need a lot to make a big impact.
The hardest part of this card? Figuring out where to make the cuts on that beautiful paper. I didn’t want to ‘lose’ any of the words!
3. When in doubt, enamel dot it!
Okay, I realize that it’s a bit of a liberty to use ‘enamel dot’ as a verb but hey, you heard it here first!
I had a few different fussy cut tags and die cuts to being together on my third card and after several attempts I realized that I needed a non paper element to unite them. Enter the enamel dot!
Happy Belated Birthday card – when you find that all your scraps seem to be fighting with each other on your project it may be time to add a non-paper element. Enamel dots are my go-to item but you could use buttons, brads, paper clips, ribbon, jewels, or puffy stickers. As long as it’s different enough from the rest of your project you’ll find that the other items start playing nicely together.
I may or may not have an abnormally large stash of these (but I’m admitted nothing!) so finding a package with coordinating colours was not difficult. Nor was using enough on this card to finish the package. I’d been purging and throwing out things all week so it gave me a huge feeling of satisfaction to throw out the packaging! Ah! It feels SO GOOD to finish a package of enamel dots, doesn’t it?
Okay, now you’re off to Connie’s site where she’s sharing more Christmas in July and shaking up a holiday card!
Enjoy the Blog Circle and have a Happy Monday everyone!
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