Hello crafty friends. It’s good to be back sharing a card with you. I’ve taken a break over the Christmas period. I actually planned to do more crafting for fun over the holidays, but with family around all day, this didn’t really happen, and by the time I’d taken so much time off, my mojo had gone on holidays, and I was left just staring at my supplies, wondering what to do with them. This went on for days, and eventually after a conversation on Instagram, I made the decision to “just show up”.

I sat down with my design book, set a timer for 30 minutes and started sketching. Then, I set out to make the cards I had sketched. Some of them worked, some didn’t, but at least I’d made a start. This card today is one of the cards that I made in that session.

I stuck to an analogous colour scheme. Another one of my strategies when my crafty inspiration is gone is to stick to one of three colour plans – complementary, analogous or monochrome. This takes away some of the decision making, which is what is paralyzing me. Because of the leafy stencil, I started with green, and slid around the colour wheel to yellows and blues in my background.

I used regular painters’ tape to mask off a rectangle in the centre of my card, and blended this with Paper Rose Pool, and Simon Says Stamp Seafoam Ink, making it darker in two diagonally opposite corners. I then moved the masking tape to cover the area that I’d blended, and used Paper Rose Lemon and Simon Stamp Jelly Bean Ink to blend the outsides, once again having darker and lighter areas.

Next, I taped down the Gum Leaf Stencil from Paper Rose and blended over this with Simon Says Stamp Midnight Green ink.

The sentiments come from the Big Black and White sentiments, and I’ve combined two sentiments from this set. I’ve popped them up with foam tape. I’m so happy to have made a card and hopefully started the climb out of the cycle of staring at my desk!

I’d love to know what you do when you’re in a creative slump. Do you have any tips for me? In the meantime, I’m going to show up, and do the thing that I enjoy so much.

Until next time, stay well, and stay safe.

Blessings,