Let your heart soar

With the year slowly coming to an end, I for myself like to look back and see where it has brought me and what lies ahead. And despite feeling pretty close to my old, active self recently, Murphy managed to bring a major shit-just-hit-the-fan moment out of nowhere, making the struggles of the past two years seem like a piece of cake. 
I guess I'll have to see what comes my way, but I assume it will come with huge changes in life as I know it. I'm still not entirely sure about the extent of the situation, and decided to take a break from worries to create a quick and easy card following the sketch over at Freshly made sketches.  

The prominent wavy lines reminded me of a crazy ECG pattern as soon as I saw them, but I thought I'd go with a regular sinus rhythm instead. I printed the waveform from an image I found online, coloured the back of the print with a pencil and drew along the lines to transfer the silhouette on red cardboard. Once that was done, I cut it out and glued it onto a blank card base.

To follow the sketch, I then added a couple of gemstones and a sentiment. I considered printing a "Get well soon" message first, but honestly I had already switched off my printer and didn't feel like setting it up again. Looking for alternatives, I turned to my sticker stash, but I couldn't find the small alphabet stickers that would allow me to create the message from individual letters. 

Instead, I picked "Let your heart soar" for my lead theme. Because when your heart seems to go nuts at the uncertainty that unfolds, there's nothing like the urge for a little bit of normality. 

A little contribution to the December collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG with optional twist "monochrome"
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- brown sugar: ATG
- C.R.A.F.T.: inspired by a book (going for the most unusual book inspiration ever, I'll quote my ECG booklet here, or the book of Internal medicine)
- crafty cardmakers: no patterned paper
- crafty catz: ATG with optional twist "CAS"
- creative moments: ATG
- freshly made sketches
- love to craft: ATG 
- pennys papertake: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG

Scraps

Just a short post today for what turned out to be a literal scraps project.
I brought a couple of leaflets home from my trip to Italy quite a while ago, mostly to remember what I've seen and learned. When I was sorting them out later, I realized I could use the background of a brochure in one of my crafting attempts. Yup, it's all about recycling again!

I cut out the squares that advertised the town of Salsomaggiore Terme and put them aside for a while as I didn't have a particular crafting project in mind. At some point, however, they got in touch with a kraft paper card base, and I liked the combination so much that I cut the card base into pieces as well to glue the scraps together. Slowly, the idea of a mosaic card appeared in my mind, but since I thought covering the whole card base would be too much, I decided to remove the central pieces and replace them with something else.

The only problem: I just couldn't come up with a matching centerpiece. I figured I would stick with the brown shades of the scrap border, but no stamp/image/sticker seemed to complement it. Until I took my scripture wrapping paper from my stash for some other project. However, once I glued it on kraft paper background, I realized I wasn't quite satisfied with the result. It was OK, but not OK enough to glue it onto the card base.  And since I just couldn't fall for it, I put everything aside again. 

When I opened my upper drawer recently, suddenly a block of embossed papers caught my eye. I always knew they were there so it wasn't like a new discovery of a long lost treasure, but it never occurred to me to try a sheet of beige embossed paper with a rather neutral floral pattern. 

Finally, I was confident enough to finish my scrap card, and still have some scraps left for upcoming projects. I might add a sentiment of necessary to the card itself, and probably use it for a simple masculine card, or even a note of sympathy? 

A little contribution to the November collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG
- 613 avenue create: ATG with optional twist "scrap your stash"
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- a place to start: ATG with optional twist "caffeinated tones"
- brown sugar: ATG
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- creative moments: ATG
- cute card thursday: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- scrapping4fun: ATG
- sketchy challenges: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- use your stuff: use scraps
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG

Autumn bloom

In contrast to the gray clouds piling up outside, I'll present a colourful autumn-inspired card for the November Fadengrafik Challenge. We have an "ATG" challenge this month so you can link up basically anything you want, just make sure to include a form of paper embroidery in your project. 

I for my part decided to work with this floral pattern I've finished some time ago. Obviously, the flower is based on a fantasy bloom, and maybe isn't a flower at all, but I somehow figured out it would be one and stitched it accordingly. 

Once this was done, I glued it on a strip of yellow background. For a while, I was thinking about making a bookmark, but I decided to place it on a card base made from recycled paper. 

To make the colourful bloom blend with the background, I searched my stash of patterned papers. However, as I didn't come up with anything I'd like, I opted for the gift-wrapping paper with the antique scripture instead. 

I'm still not sure whether the card is a little bit too empty or not, but I'll leave it like this for the moment. Once I have a specific recipient in mind, I might be tempted to personalise it with a sentiment or some small embellishments, though.  

A little contribution to the November collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.
A little contribution to the collection of hand-stitching at made with Blümchen.

And another autumnal blend-in with the background :)

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- allsorts challengeblog: make your own flowers
- brown sugar: ATG
- crafty catz: ATG
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- creative inspirations: autumn
- creative moments: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- moving along with the times: autumn colours
- pennys papertake: ATG
- scrapping4fun: ATG
- sketchy challenges: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG

Kiwi love

Have you ever reached the "I'm sharing this amazing chocolate that my sister has brought me from New Zealand"-level of friendship? 
I can't tell which lucky coincidence has brought my colleague into my life, but since this girl marched right into her 30s recently, I started to look for a little something to sweeten up the process of getting older more experienced. 
It's been a while since I've created paper boxes, but I thought I might give it a try to create a chocolate bar envelope using a beautiful orange scrapbook paper. I like the way it has a different pattern on each side and thought it would be a quick and easy project to create a box and decorate it with some paper flowers and a birthday message. But as always, things come different in the end. 

The box did go easy indeed, and I felt confident enough to work around the chocolate bar itself, without any major markings and pre-cuts. However, there seemed to be too much orange halfway through, so I decided to cover the front lid with a beige embossed paper strip. 

Before I glued everything together, I used a small corner punch to round up the edges of the lid. Once that was done, I started to play around with the main motif. I wanted to stick to the idea of paper flowers, however, I decided to change the birthday greeting for the age, which I created by using golden stickers on a pair of punched paper leftovers. 
Since the punched ornament still seemed to be quite small, I expanded it by adding golden swirls and pearls, as well as three small orange-ish flowers. 

To make sure the box closes properly, I added a tiny orange ribbon, which also adds something "extra" on all the yawning blank that would be there otherwise.

The colour scheme of the box seems random, but is in fact matched with what's hiding inside: a chocolate bar from a land far, far away that survived not only the flight, but also the meticulous dividing done by my sister, who made sure each of us would get the most of all the different flavours she brought home.  

I did get some other pieces, too, but this one seemed to be the perfect giveaway for the occasion - not only for the matching outfit but for the fact that the birthday girl is very fond of spicy things. 

On the other hand, one must admit the wrapping itself is wonderful, too, and probably wouldn't need to be covered up at all - I can almost see myself using every tiny bit of the patterned paper in some of my recycling projects! 

But then again, life is full of surprises, and if only they were all as sweet and spicy as ginger & mandarin...

Only when I was done, however, I realized that I have entirely covered up the beautiful pattern that made me pick that particular paper in the first place. Entirely? Not exactly - even though there is no trace of it on the front lid, it's still pretty much on display all across the back of the box, which doesn't need the least of an embellishment thanks to the honeycomb print.

A little contribution to the October collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG with optional twist "gift packing/tags"
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- allsorts challengeblog: add gold/silver
- as you like it: favourite papers (among all the different papers I have in my stash, I regularly find myself using BoBunny products, or even grabbing a bunch of random papers in the store only to realize later that they have a BoBunny's logo somewhere on the side. Why? Because they come in beautiful soft colours, and their patterns can be used in so many different ways, and overall the BoBunny style just seems to match with my current style of paper crafting)
- brown sugar: ATG
- C.R.A.F.T.: Halloween/Thanksgiving
- cardz4guyz: food/drink
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: autumn
- crafty catz: ATG with optional twist "colours of autumn"
- crafty gals corner: Halloween colours
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- creative inspirations: autumn/Halloween
- creative moments: ATG with optional twist "girls"
- cute card thursday: sparkles
- friendship challenge: autumn
- kreativtanten: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- moving along with the times: autumn colours
- pennys papertake: ATG
- scrapping4fun: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG

Boo!

Slowly but surely, I feel like I'm repeating myself over and over again, but I just can't help: everything that emerges my crafting corner recently seems to go by the "recycle/upcycle" theme - either I'm digging out long-forgotten treasures from my stash, or I intentionally decide to use things a normal person would throw away. 
Long story short, I've planned on upcycling beermats for ages, mainly because I think their size could be handy for some kind of ornament or else, while the cardboard itself gives a pretty solid base to work with. The problem is: I don't really like beer, meaning I don't drink it at all. However, I sneaked a couple of beermats with me on my last visit to Prague, and they've been hiding in my drawer ever since. I planned to create something with a beermat as a base, I just couldn't come up with the exact idea of what I wanted.
Until I recently found an anti-trash ad in one of the city magazines. What looks like a cute little ghost at first, is, in fact, a trashed plastic bag (presumably floating somewhere in the ocean?), accompanied by the slogan "Waste is scarier than you think".  

And something in my head began spinning... Take out the beermat, check whether the little fella would fit on its surface, cut the ad out and think some more. After assembling matching blue colours from my paper stash, I began to arrange the cutouts: according to my plan, one side of the beermat would be covered by the plastic demon...

... the edge was to be lined with a light blue ribbon... 

... and after some more thinking, I figured what to do with the backside, too. Even though I originally planned to just place the sentiment all over the surface to create a decorative hanger, I later changed my mind to create something practical. 
And so, the rear has a story of its own. Trying to avoid unnecessary trash when shopping, I recently began to visit Ljubljana's first plastic-free grocery store. I'm far from being an environmental saint and still do buy too many wrapped things because honestly they often come handy, but I do try to completely avoid packaging especially when it comes to vegetables or things I happen to buy regularly. I got used to always bring my cloth bag with me and can't help feeling more and more awkward when I see how carelessly people will fill their shopping carts with millions of things wrapped in plastic. Congratulations on tearing off 10 plastic bags from the roll as soon as you enter the shop, Mr. & Mrs. Retiree! Now if you'd keep in mind that you're going to leave the planet in a couple of years (no offense, just a biological fact) while I'll have to live another couple of decades with your trash in my soil and water, would you understand why I'm giving you the stinky look?
Anyhow, since you can bring your own containers to the zero-waste store and weigh them before you fill them up, I thought I wouldn't need to weight my tins over and over again if I just save one barcode for each size, label it properly and bring it with me each time I stop by to fill up my food supplies. With this in mind, I created a paper slit for the barcode tags, trimmed the ad sentiment to the right size and voilá: my new zero-waste shopping gadget.
And while the rear seems ok just the way it turned out, I added a tiny silver sticker to line the trash ghost image because I just have to add little embellishments here and there ;) 

A little contribution to the October collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

A blue and white combination I can approve: beautiful Vrbsko jezero/Wörthersee on a beautiful autumn afternoon...

... alongside with the only white thing that is more than welcome to float in the water. 

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- brown sugar: ATG
- cardz4guyz: spooky
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: Halloween
- crafty catz: ATG with optional twist "witching hour"
- creative inspirations: Halloween, masculine
- creative moments: ATG with optional twist "spooky"
- cute card thursday: Halloween
- everybody art: ribbon/twine
- fabnfunky: Halloween
- kreativtanten: ATG
- little red wagon: cut it out
- love to craft: ATG 
- morgans artworld: ATG
- path of positivity: courage (I'll probably stretch the "courage" thing quite a bit here and say that courage doesn't need to be something loud and big - rather, it can be a comparatively small step out of your comfort zone, a quick reality check on whether we really need everything we think we need, and a small change of habits towards a more sustainable future. And it might as well turn out that in order to change things, one doesn't need to have an immense courage at all - just use the tiny bit you have and be amazed at what you can accomplish with it. Change doesn't need to be a scary thing at all, and the courage you have, however small, is more that enough to overcome the fears that are in your way.)
- pennys papertake: ATG
- male room: CAS
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- tuesday throwdown: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG

Black magic

As we're well into October already, it's time for a short post to introduce a new task over at our Fadengrafik challenge: we're looking for your "Halloween" projects this month, so feel free to show us any of your stitched projects that include some kind of spookiness. 
Not knowing what to create, I went for a universally usable border embroidery, thinking I'd spook it up with a Halloween themed image. 

I stitched the ornament with silver shimmering yarn and decorated it with tiny white pearls. 

Once that was done, I placed the embroidered paper on black cardboard and glued it onto a silver-ish background. It originally comes from a set of Christmas papers, but since there are no winter/Christmas motifs on it, I figured the shimmering splashes might as well represent fog in the night skies or pieces of a spiderweb.

For the central motif, I was once again saved by the Graphics Fairy with this beautiful, not too scary vintage Halloween print. You just have to love the adorable dancing mice and the cat fiddler! The image itself sticks to the stitched paper with 3D pads to create some sort of layering. 
Still, I'm not all too happy with the result as such. I'm not sure what is bothering me exactly, I guess it might be just that it's not your typical orange/purple Halloween stuff, or maybe that I'm not really into Halloween altogether? 

A little contribution to the October collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.
A little contribution to the collection of hand-stitching at made with Blümchen.

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- brown sugar: ATG
- cardz4guyz: spooky
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: Halloween
- crafty catz: ATG
- crafty sentiments: Halloween
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- creative inspirations: Halloween
- creative moments: ATG with optional twist "spooky"
- cute card thursday: ATG
- kreativtanten: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- morgans artworld: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG

Vintage autumn

Shall we start another Scrapping4Fun challenge? Matching the season, we have an "autumn" theme this time, with an additional request of make your creation look vintage. 
For my GD task this time, I decided to create a card or a tag in brown-ish colours. However, the "vintage" thing bothered me a little as I'm usually not working on vintage projects. My confusion was once again saved by the Graphics Fairy, where I found a beautiful image of mushrooms.
Once I settled for an autumn card, I went through my stash to grab the matching papers. 
It took me quite some time to pick the right ones, and even longer to arrange them properly, and just when this ordeal was done, another one began: which embellishments should I pick to keep and/or enhance the vintage look without shifting focus away from those amazing mushrooms?

In the end, I went with a couple of cream/brown paper flowers alongside with some paper foliage from the collection of autumn papers created by Nina Štajner which I've purchased recently. I've cut the branches from the paper for no reason whatsoever, and it came pretty handily as I didn't have to cut them now, meaning I could work towards my final result without rushing. After playing around with the layout a little bit, I decided to place a bigger piece of greenery in the lower corner of the card...

... and a smaller branch in the upper right corner. 

And while the upper decor is rather flat except for the flowers...

... I layered the leaves with the help of 3D pads to create a vivid eye-catcher. 

As I intend to use my creation as a birthday card for a gentleman, I placed a short birthday greeting on the base of the vintage print, which I again decorated with a small floral element. 

For some more vintage touch, I added a rather broad lace that runs through the entire length of the card but is mostly covered by the paper arrangement. Once everything was done, I placed pearls of different colours and sizes all over the card for some extra bling.

To make sure the one leftover corner wouldn't remain all too empty, I remembered a vintage butterfly print I had in my stash from some previous project. 

However, as I printed it at home, it lacked the glossy shine of the leaves that were in the rest of the card. Being the horrible perfectionist that I am, I tried to imitate the shine by adding colourless nail polish. It didn't bring the desired result at first, but after adding a couple more layers  I couldn't tell the difference between home and bought print. 
To be totally honest, the piece carried the distinct smell of nail polish for a while, but it completely cleared within a day or two and I will certainly use this random life craft hack in future! 

Before I sign off for the day, just a quick peek to the inside: with the rich outside, I decided to go for a little decoration inside as well rather than leaving everything empty. In the end, I picked a light brown paper from another set of autumn papers and placed a punched beige strip atop of it to create a pocket for the birthday wishes. 

A little contribution to the September collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

challenges: 
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- a place to start: ATG
- allsorts challengeblog: trees and leaves
- basteltraum: autumn
- brown sugar: ATG
- cardz4guyz: treea/leaves
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: lots of layers
- crafty gals corner: fall colours
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- creative inspirations: lace & pearls
- creative moments: ATG with optional twist "masculine"
- cute card thursday: dies/punches
- cutie pie challengeblog: celebrations
- everybody art: dies
- little red wagon: fall
- love to craft: ATG 
- morgans artworld: ATG
- pennys papertake: ATG
- male room: embellishments
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- unicorn challengeblog: autumn
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- pinspirational
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG