Someone recently asked me where I get my inspiration for making cards. There's inspiration everywhere! A few good places to look are paper crafting magazines, which are great for demonstrating new products and techniques, another is blog-surfing - also a sure-fire way to find something new to try on your own projects. Today, we're talking textiles. In a recent blog, I demonstrated a card modeled after one of my grandmother's needlepoint creations. This blog is about taking what you see everyday, and letting that fuel your creativity.
My 5 year old son took this photo of me in my favorite T-shirt. It's a gray background with red, yellow and orange filigree chairs, and it says blah blah blah "coffee" blah blah etc... (I love coffee). It's a very simple everyday item...
So now, here's the T-shirt in the form of a card - Basic Gray card stock, with Summer Starfruit lattice die cut, and a Riding Hood Red blossom. The "Thank You" sentiment comes from the Perfectly Penned stamp set, #122890w/112892c stamped in Riding Hood Red classic ink. Basic Gray is a fantastic launch pad for zany color.
This is a sweater from my church's coat closet... There's no telling who's sweater it is, but as I was hanging up my coat before church one morning, this sweater was there and I had to take a photo of it, it was just too brilliant.
I cut some concentric squares with my paper trimmer, 1-1/2", 1-1/4", 1" and punched a 3/4" circle of Whisper White card stock for the center. The colors here are: Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, Wisteria Wonder (purples); Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink (pinks). Sponge the edges in the darkest color, pierce the center of the stack, give each layer a good scrunch, and hold it all together with at brad. Stampin' Dimensionals are the best way to adhere the flowers to the card front, they give the brad a little cushion as well as popping the flower up off the surface.
The background is a 4" x 5-1/4" piece of vellum card stock, run through the Big Shot with the Houndstooth embossing Folder. The Label background is Basic Gray card stock cut with a Label Framelets die, and run through the Big Shot with the Square Lattice embossing folder. The leaves are Summer Starfruit, Lucky Limeaid and Old Olive card stock. Like the flowers, I sponged the edges in the darkest layer color (Old Olive) and gave each a scrunch. The leaf shape comes from an old stencil of a rounded triangle, and a little free-hand extrapolation. Stamp set is Loving Thoughts #125843w/125845c
While neither of these examples are exactly like the originals, the inspiration comes from the forms and colors of the fabrics. Take a fresh look at your decor, closet , or coat rack, and see what inspires you...
Enjoy!
