My First Design Team Post!

Hi all! Today I’m sharing my very first design team post with you!! : ) A while back I met a crafty friend online by chance and she asked me to be a part of the design team for Southern Girls Challenge, based out of New Zealand. I was very honored and excited, so of course I said yes! Louise, my new friend who lives halfway around the world, is one of the admins of the challenge blog and I am officially on Team Lou! The theme this time is stripes, and despite the fact that it was Summertime here in Buffalo, NY (and a pretty hot one at that!), I was inspired to create a Christmas card with a sparkly, wintry blue effect. Here it is:

To create this card, I used Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Blue Topaz, a diagonal stripe stencil, the ‘Merry Wishes’ stamp set from Hello Bluebird, My Favorite Things sentiment banner dies and some clear sparkling sequins. The front panel is adhered to a dark gray, top-folding 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ card base using white craft foam. This is a trick I learned from Jennifer McGuire. First, it lifts your panel off the card base for a more dimensional look, and second, it makes it sturdier when sending it through the mail. I love how it pops up off the card base. It just really adds to the overall look. (p.s. I ordered mine from Amazon – 10 sheets at a great price point.)

This was my first time using Nuvo Glimmer Paste and I really like it. I’m not usually super keen on too much glitter or sparkly stuff, outside of your classic sequins or a touch of shimmer pen here and there, but I thought I’d give it a try. I laid down the stencil and taped it with masking tape to the edges of my card panel and applied the glimmer paste with a small plastic offset spatula made for arts and crafts. (I think I got it at Michael’s for $2.) I applied it in smooth, even strokes and scraped any excess back into the little jar. Be careful with this stuff as it dries quickly on your spatula and anything else it gets on! I wiped my spatula and stencil with a baby wipe right away and then took it to the sink and washed it with warm water and soap. There’s still some on my stencil, but that’s ok. Some also kind of dried onto my craft mat, but hey, crafting is messy sometimes. 🙂  I set the card aside to fully dry before applying the other elements.

If you’ve never checked out Hello Bluebird, you should! The have the cutest stamps and matching dies and I’ve found that their dies are very reasonably priced and are great quality. This particular stamp set has a variety of Christmas/holiday sentiments you can mix and match and I love how you can die cut the big words. It really creates an impact. And that loopy, hand-written style is great! They have particularly cute critter stamps, too! ; ) Visit them here.

So in the end, I really like the Glimmer Paste and want to try new techniques with it. It’s very brilliant and beautiful in real life. I even went to my local scrapbooking/stamp store and bought two more! 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed my first DT blog post and make sure you pop over the Southern Girls Challenge Blog to see what the other fabulous designers have created! Thanks for visiting!

 

The Journey Begins

Hello! Welcome to my crafty blog! I’m so glad you’re here.

I’m Linsey and I’m a card maker. I live in Buffalo, NY,  with my amazing husband, love to bake, and am grateful for my happy life. My creative history goes way back to when I was a kid and I’d write and “direct” plays, starring my little sister and the neighborhood kids. We loved to pretend and play and had so much fun. Years later, in 2004, I discovered scrapbooking and fell head over heels for it. I loved building layouts and choosing just the right embellishments to complete my page. I read everything I could about it and applied lessons I learned, color combinations I was inspired by, and was always on the lookout for perfect photo opportunities to preserve memories in my scrapbooks. I loved the creativity of it all, and building something around my favorite pictures and memories to better preserve the moment.

Fast forward 14 years, and I’m now totally and happily obsessed with card making, stamping, Copic marker coloring, and all things paper! I love following  and watching the pros in the crafting industry on Instagram and YouTube (Jennifer McGuire is my crafty hero!) and using the techniques I learn from them to improve upon my card designs. Paper crafting and card making truly bring me a lot of joy. The possibilities are endless and creativity really is all ours, to do with it what we want – we just have to put it to use and have fun in the process. That’s a big part of it. Have fun, do what you love, and it will show in your work (should we even call it work??).

I never really saw myself having a blog, but was recently asked to be on a design team based out of New Zealand, called Southern Girls Challenge. In order to participate on the design team, I needed a blog. So here I am, working my way through setting it up and hoping it will be useful, resourceful, and entertaining to anyone who visits.  You can visit the Southern Girls Challenge blog and participate in challenges here. I will share my card creations as a DT member here and also link them to the blog. I also have an Etsy shop where I sell my cards. You can visit my shop here.

Along with my DT work, I’ll share the cards I make in my craft room, the techniques I used, who may have inspired me to create them, the supplies I used, news, product info and just fun, random things about this hobby I love so much. It’s a happiness I want to share and I hope to inspire others to try new things, share their creativeness, and spread the love far and wide with whatever it is they make.

Thanks for stopping in and I hope you’ll visit again!

Love, Linsey