But I'm not crafty!

When I share my love of stamping and card-making with friends and family, I often hear, "That's great.  But I couldn't do that.  I'm not crafty."  And I know how they feel.  My brother was blessed with artistic abilities coming out of the whazoo.  I, on the other hand, couldn't draw a stick figure if my life depended on it.  In my younger days, I took up needle crafting -- cross-stitching, to be specific -- in an attempt to be "artistic."  I figured I couldn't go too wrong with a pattern and floss.  But eventually my eyesight and carpel tunnel (not to mention being a full time student and worker) got the best of me and I put it aside.

Enter card-making.  I also thought I wasn't "crafty" enough to do this.  But with some practice (thanks to my friend Linda) and looking at a lot of magazines and online sites, I slowly figured out how to do layouts, combine colors, and make cute cards.  It also helps that Stampin' Up! has great rubber stamp images that I can color in -- because I've always been good at that!

My early cards are amateurish, I will admit.  But they're still cute and recipients loved getting them.  Eventually I learned new techniques, new color combinations, how to use new tools and embellishments, and my cards have become a bit more sophisticated.  But I still look back at my early endeavors with pride because, well, we all have to start somewhere, right?  And to be honest, I look back at those cards with a bit of nostalgia for their simplicity, something which I struggle with now -- sometimes (I mean, do I REALLY need more sponged edges or another ribbon?) lol   One of these days I'll get the courage to post some of those early cards -- not all of them use Stampin' Up! products, so they're not as clean and crisp as they could be.  But for now, I'll post a few of the cards I made for convention swaps. (For those who are new to papercrafting, the beauty of being "crafty" is that we don't have to reinvent the wheel each time we want to make a card.  Instead, we can CASE -- copy and share everything.  Sometimes it's an exact duplicate, more often we change something up -- the Designer Paper, the colors, the image -- to make it our own.  Trust me, if I had to be "crafty" all by myself, I'd be in trouble!)

Here's an ATC card I made for a Stampin' Addicts swap.  An ATC (Artist Trading Card) is a 2.5 x 3.5 card that can then be added to a full card.  I made this using the stamp sets Elements of Style (Item#120045 [c]), Kindness Matters (butterfly, Item#122902 [c]), clear embossing powder (Item#109130), and ink colors Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, and Melon Mambo.

This card was for a single-layer swap, which means using only the card base as one's canvas.  Here I used the bleaching technique, which is painting bleach on colored cardstock to take color away.  I used the En Francais background stamp (Item#109521) and the Sunflower background stamp (Item#123608 [c]) and clear embossing powder.  I used Early Espresso cardstock (Item#119686) and as you can see, it bleached to a really pretty light yellow.

Finally, this card was for an upline swap with Martha Armstrong's group.  Because it was for people that are in my same organizational group, I felt like I needed to step things up a bit more, so this card was more labor intensive, as I did a lot of detailed coloring and sponging.  But as always, it was a labor of love!  And if I do say so myself, I think it is rather gorgeous.  :-)  I used our new Pleasant Poppies background stamp -- love it!! (Item#129499), our Watercolor Pencils (Item#101879) and lots of sponging with Gumball Green, Daffodil Delight, Tangerine Tango, and Real Red.

So, as you can see, I am indeed "crafty" -- and you can be too!  All it takes is some patience, practice, and a willingness to get your fingers inky!!