24 June, 2022

Ukraine inspired

I've been crafting in blue and yellow again, creating another card to go with a care package for a Ukrainian refugee. I worked on a gender neutral card from the beginning, as I didn't know whether I'd place it in a male or female box of everyday items. In the end, I decided to send it to a man, but first things first.
My main inspiration for the card came from "Чорнобаївка" - a song by the Ukrainian band Spiv Brativ that was published during the first weeks of the war. Or rather, in the video accompanying it. What sounds strange at first refers to a small sequence of the video that features blue and yellow waves in the background, creating a nice transition of Ukrainian colours. Upon seeing them, I immediately thought about recreating those waves in form of paper strips in order to make a card similar to said background. 
Said and done: I took every blue and yellow paper from my stash, sorting them by shade and pattern to see how many I can find. Since I wanted each strip to be visible, I figured they should measure around 1 cm in width. I then removed papers that looked very similar, but still had plenty of choice, meaning I'd have to expand my card base from a regular one to slimline. Still, I had to remove some more sheets until I ended up with 10 blues and 10 yellows. Their range goes from very dark to very light, and features patterned papers as well as monochrome ones, plain ones and embossed ones. 
Once I managed to align the papers, I cut a 1 cm wide piece of each sheet, which would basically create a transition that goes from one side of my slimline card to the other, with a bit of white card base on each end. When it came to gluing the pieces on the card base, my project became a mess. I thought I'd help myself by holding the pieces in place by using scotch tape, placing it across the front side of my gradient sketch in order to remove them one by one as I would be proceeding with my card. 
However, I picked the wrong one from my dresser, meaning: what I thought was removable scotch tape, turned out to be the adhesive one. Ooops! And I couldn't just use the other side of the stripes as some of the papers had different patterns on the back, which would mess with my idea of a gradient. Silly me! I managed to get the pieces off in the end, but it resulted in a couple of tears, which is why I had to replace a few stripes. Once that was done, I fixed the stripes again, using removable scotch tape. From there on, my work was a piece of cake: I placed the stripes on my slimline card base one by one, and when that was done, I added a printed sentiment saying "Welcome" in the middle of my creation using 3D pads. 
I've picked quite a prominent size for the message, but I had to make sure this square will be able to compete with the ones in the background. To enhance the sentiment, I placed it on a piece of golden cardboard. I think gold in this case creates a nice connection between blue and yellow, without putting too much emphasis on the yellow side even though it's very similar to the yellow shades. Also, I think it adds a bit of elegance because, well, it's gold. 
On the other hand, the golden stickers on the upper and lower edge of the card were added out of necessity: Even though I made sure to cut all stripes in the same width and length, some ended up being a bit longer than others. We're talking about fractions of a millimeter here, but enough to create a bit of up-and-down which irritated me. To create an even line, I covered those ends with a tiny golden sticker - tiny enough to go basically unnoticed, but effective enough to get rid of the nuisance I had with the strips. 
Since the card still seemed to be missing something, I had a look at my embellishments. I didn't want to add flowers or butterflies on it, since I wanted the entire focus on that colour gradient. However, I picked a couple of blue and yellow pearls and placed them randomly across the colourful background. I like the 3D effect they create, and I especially like that I managed to use those huge pearls which usually remain in my stash after I use the smaller ones. I hardly ever create projects that would require the big pearls, but I think they came handy in this one. 

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: all occasions
- as you like it: feminine or masculine (I definitely create more female projects, but I think I'd still say that I prefer male ones as they're more of a challenge to me. When I need some time off to relax, I'll usually end up making something girly, however, creating something for a man is like a brain tease to me: is that paper OK or should I keep looking for something better? Would that be too much of an embellishment? How many flowers are acceptable, and how many pearls are too many? I'll never ask myself these questions when creating for a female, and I need challenges like this to keep krafting interesting.)
- crafty calendar: ATG 
- crafty catz: ATG
- fabnfunky: summer colours
- moving along with the times: masculine/father's day
- path of positivity: ATG with optional twist "celebrate something special about your hero" (I'll not go with a specific hero in my mind here, but the heroism of the Ukrainian people in general - yes, the war may have disappeared from the front pages, but people are still defending their land and their freedom, dying on the front lines, having their homes destroyed and their loved ones killed, being internally displaced or living the life of refugees somewhere in Europe... I can not begin to imagine what the people of Ukraine are going through, and I truly wish they'll be given every form of support they need to preserve their country and rebuild it so it can prosper again.)
- pennys papertake: ATG
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17 June, 2022

Friendship

Another Friday, another challenge over at the Alphabet challenge blog. Our theme this fortnight is "Friendship", which should be an easy task for you to play along. And since I'm sure you'll come up with tons of ideas, I'll come straight to the point with my DT inspiration.
I created a simple "Just because" card for my friend during her internship - a little reminder to take a breath and hold on during tough days and endless nights in the hospital. 
If the card seems familiar to you, it might as well be because you've kind of seen it before. The thing is, I wasn't planning on repeating myself, but since I entered the speed humour challenge back then, one of the requirements was to create something in under 10 minutes. However, I forgot to use the timer while making my first card - oops! The only way to find out how long it took me to create it was to create an identical card and keep an eye on the clock this time. Turns out I'd end up way above 10 minutes, which I mostly attribute to the colouring. But, hey, I got an extra card out of it!
Since I didn't want to end up with two identical cards, I opted for a little difference this time: instead of English, I printed a Slovene sentiment saying "Hold on". 

challenges: 
- crafty calendar: ATG 
- crafty catz: ATG with optional twist "add a sentiment"
- inkspirational: use a digital element (digi)
- little red wagon: digital element (digi)
- morgans artworld: ATG
- moving along with the times: masculine/father's day
- pennys papertake: ATG
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03 June, 2022

Just a note

I recently managed to disassemble the cover of an album of patterned papers by Nina Štajner. Unlike the patterned papers inside, it featured different animals that could be used as toppings. I decided to take whatever motif I could and use it for my cards. Since the paper was printed on both sides, I'd have to sacrifice some motifs in order to obtain others. Among different deer, squirrrels, rabbits and else, I cut out this tiny little robin. I've already created some cards featuring the cute critters which I'm going to show you soon, but my thoughts kept coming back to this little bird as if it wanted to be featured in one of my crafting projects, too. I had no idea how to use it since it was so small, but this cutie simply couldn't go to waste. 
In the end, I decided to place it onto a piece of embossed paper in order to create a very simple CAS card. To make sure the tiny motif doesn't get lost, I used a tiny card base. I also framed the little bird by placing it onto a piece of light brown paper. To bring the robin to life, I added a punched branch that was a leftover from another card I'll show soon. 
I refused to add any other embellishments such as pearls or a sentiment, because I think the card looks pretty just as it is. I have no idea where the bird will end up, but I can imagine it could be used as a little Christmas present, or one of those "Thank you" notes you add to a little present. Or maybe you have a different suggestion?

The embossed background is part of my DT inspiration over at the Alphabet challenge where "E" stands for "embossing". You may use wet or dry embossing on your creations in order to play along in our current challenge. And since there's nothing to say about my card anymore, I'll just add a couple of birds :)

challenges:
- Christmas with the cuties: ATG cute Christmas
- crafty catz: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- traumfabrik: Epic - a hidden kingdom (tiny forest creatures)
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