As you know I love doing challenges! At this time my favourite challenges are with Paper Craft Secrets who offer two challenges every month, and I also do a card swap. The January challenge with Paper Craft Secrets is ‘Black and White’, and we can enter three times for each challenge. This card is my first entry. I have always struggled with black and white cards, but I’m very happy with how this one came together. I hope you like it too!
Wow what a year 2021 was! One minute it seemed to be dragging, the next I felt like I lost a month here and there. My card crafting time was all over the place too. But of all the things I do (or want to do), creating a card or a page for an art journal is what I truly need. It centres me somehow, quietens (is that a word LOL?) my mind and calms my senses. So when I am not taking time to craft, I feel it in my mind, and my responses to what goes on around me. In heavy emotional chaotic times last year I would take myself into my craft room, even late into the evening, and start creating, and I settled down, and could again cope with what was happening.
My craft room has had its own share of upheaval. I moved everything around and put my table under the window. It was lovely with the sun coming in but it didn’t work for me. I have shelves on my desk where everything is at hand, I couldn’t have my shelves on the table under the window and I was up and down all the time. So I put it back the way it was, except there were some things that did work the other way around, so I kept them, and now I am so very happy with my space.
I submitted this photo to a January Craft Room Challenge over at Paper Craft Secrets.
I have started making pairs of cards, because I want to keep one and send one. Last night I made these two, a remake of a card I made last year for Father’s Day :
Thank you for stopping by. I hope you have received some encouragement and perhaps some inspiration to create something, your own kind of beautiful, today.
I also love making cards from a sketch. I came across Freshly Made Sketches, and decided to play along with them for their current challenge #507 (see below). And this is my entry.
I am also going through all my stamp sets and making a card from each one (some I haven’t used yet LOL), starting at A. I am currently up to B, this set is called Butterfly Brilliance by Stampin’ Up!, so decided to combine this challenge with my own challenge for myself.
Where has this year gone? It’s been a long one for us but it has gone by so quickly at the same time. I started making some traditional Christmas cards a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to do something different, and steer away from the traditional red and green. I only partially succeeded with this this one.
I enjoy making sets of cards. This set includes lace which I also like using on cards. And of course butterflies are a favourite.
I am happy to be back more often in my craft room 😃
I love this card! I enjoyed the whole process of creating it and really had a fun-full time with it and I love how it turned out.
I wanted to create a peaceful space when I made these for a challenge a few months ago. I made the blue and green background by swiping the ink pads across the page.
I love using layers and clusters of elements and embellishments as features in cards. It’s fairly new for me, having learnt it last year from Alicia McNamara at Paper Craft Secrets.
I made this one and used stencils and texture paste on the patterned paper to create a muted background.
I have been going through some old cards I made years ago and revamping them. This is one of them.
I love them both! It was a fun exercise to do, using the new papers especially to get a totally fresh look.
Where has this year gone? I started this blog early in the year with my plan to make a card a day as a form of self-care in my recovery from depression and anxiety. Then some major life changes occurred and my time was needed elsewhere. I crawled my way back into finding some time in my craft room, which has become my space to clear my head and help me to focus on something else.
These cards were made during an intense week of stress, but I haven’t had the time to post them until now. I’ve made some cards for the Facebook challenges and swaps I’ve been following which I’ll post separately.
I’d love to hear if creating helps you when you are feeling low mood. Please feel free to share your thoughts below.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Janette's Card Creations 