Colour INKspiration CI#193

 Loving this week’s colour inspiration from over at Colour INKspiration group on Facebook! Cloud Cover, Balmy Blue and Highland Heather … it’s just so delicious!

I decided to use this colour challenge to play with a new fun fold card I found from Susan Campfield’s YouTube channel called The Flying Finch for a card swap I signed up for in the Canadian Cardmaking group on Facebook. To go with the flying theme I paired it with the Beautiful Bokeh kit from Stampin’ Up! 

This bundle is SO stunning - came with the stamp set, coordinating dies, hybrid embossing folder, 6x6 Bokeh inspired paper pad and sparkly gems.

The Flying Finch fancy fold is aptly named because it looks like a flying bird when opened.

I coloured the focal butterfly with my colour palette coordinating Stampin’ Blends - so relaxing to colour with! Colouring is my craft therapy.

I used the Bokeh DSP for on top of the front panel and side strips. For one set of strips I embossed the white cards stock with the coordinating hybrid butterfly folder and then sponged with Balmy Blue to help the images pop.

To finish the assembly of the card I added some ribbon, sparkle gems and a Happy Birthday sentiment.

View from the top of the “flying wing” look.

This fold still fits into a regular envelope for mailing - although might need extra postage due to weight of layers.

Happy Stampin’ 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Weekend Creative Challenge #13

  It’s the weekend! That means another creative challenge for those who might want to play along someday 🤣

Nurturing one’s creativity is SO key to helping to ensure a healthy mindset … human beings are all born with an instinct to express themselves through creativity but sometimes external factors impede peoples abilty to engage in creative expression and so their full healthy mindset is also impeded! We need to get back to ensuring that everyone has at least ONE creative outlet for expressing themselves. 

So here’s another instalment of the Weekend Creativite Challenge - each week I will post a photo prompt that you can use to get your creativity mojo going! 

Choose from the photos colours or imagery or just the general feeling/emotion that it brings to your heart! 

You can create with whatever medium speaks to you and inspires you! There are so many ways to nurture one’s creative soul! 

What’s your favorute way to nurture creativity?

Here are just a few of mine:

• Colouring 
• Mixed media / Painting
• Papercrafting
• Fun Nail designs
• Poetry/Short Story/Blog writing

Snap a photo of your creative work and share it in my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' it Together community group by the following Thursday night at midnight to get your name entered into the draw! 

Bonus entry if you share the creative prompt and your entry on your own social media in a public setting and tag my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' it Together group and use the hashtag #TA4L13.

Join us here:

I will be doing a monthly prize draw inside the group from all the creative entry’s shared and that show up tagged outside the group (remember the settings needs to be public otherwise I cannot search the hashtag to see them)  … let’s help spread the joy and benefits of creativity together 💗

Happy Stampin’ 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life

Weekend Creative Challenge #10

It’s the weekend! That means another creative challenge for those who might want to play along someday 🤣

Nurturing one’s creativity is SO key to helping to ensure a healthy mindset … human beings are all born with an instinct to express themselves through creativity but sometimes external factors impede peoples abilty to engage in creative expression and so their full healthy mindset is also impeded! We need to get back to ensuring that everyone has at least ONE creative outlet for expressing themselves. 

So here’s another instalment of the Weekend Creativite Challenge - each week I will post a photo prompt that you can use to get your creativity mojo going! 

Choose from the photos colours or imagery or just the general feeling/emotion that it brings to your heart! 

You can create with whatever medium speaks to you and inspires you! There are so many ways to nurture one’s creative soul! 

What’s your favorute way to nurture creativity?

Here are just a few of mine:

• Colouring 
• Mixed media / Painting
• Papercrafting
• Fun Nail designs
• Poetry/Short Story/Blog writing

Snap a photo of your creative work and share it in my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' it Together community group by the following Thursday night at midnight to get your name entered into the draw! 

Bonus entry if you share the creative prompt and your entry on your own social media in a public setting and tag my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' it Together group and use the hashtag #TA4L10.

Join us here:

I will be doing a monthly prize draw inside the group from all the creative entry’s shared and that show up tagged outside the group (remember the settings needs to be public otherwise I cannot search the hashtag to see them)  … let’s help spread the joy and benefits of creativity together 💗

Happy Stampin’ 

Margaret 

Live, Laugh Love 

Be Totallyawake4-life

Weekend Creativity Challenge

 Happy FRIYAY and a long weekend to boot!

I had done a poll up a while ago to try to come up with ideas to help improve engagement in the group for members by posting more meaningful and inspiring content to help with promoting health and wellness and one of the things was ways to help with supporting peoples creativity! 

Nurturing one’s creativity is SO key to helping to ensure a healthy mindset … human beings are all born with an instinct to express themselves through creativity but sometimes external factors impede peoples abilty to engage in creative expression and so their full healthy mindset is also impeded! We need to get back to ensuring that everyone has at least ONE creative outlet for expressing themselves. 

So introducing the new Weekend Creativity Challenge - each week I will post a photo prompt, like below, that you can use to get your creativity mojo going! 

Choose from the photos colours or imagery or just the general feeling that it brings to your heart! 

You can create with whatever medium speaks to you and inspires you! There are so many ways to nurture one’s creative soul! 

What’s your favorute way to nurture creativity?

Here are just a few of mine:

Colouring 

Mixed media / Painting

Papercrafting

Fun Nail designs

Poetry/Short Story/Blog writing

Snap a photo of your creative work and share it in our Facebook Community by the following Thursday night at midnight to get your name entered into the draw! 

Here is my creation using inspiration from the colours in the photo.

Bonus entry if you share the creative prompt image  and your own entry on your own social media in a public setting and tag my Totallyawake4-life & Nailin' it Together group and use the hashtag #TA4L001 in this case but I will change the number with each new prompt and have it in the prompt to help remember it. 

I will be doing a monthly prize draw inside the group here from all the creative entry’s shared and that show up tagged outside the group (remember the settings needs to be public otherwise I cannot search the hashtag to see them)  … let’s help spread the joy and benefits of creativity together 💗

Happy creating! 

Margaret

Love, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

*post contains affiliate links 

Can we get a WOW?

OMG how stunning are these cars creations from Stampin’ Up! Artisan Team member Yvonne? 

Oh 

I love the turquoise colour combo with the pops of gold and definitely nailed her challenge of creating structure and texture - just 💗💗💗

Want more details check out her blog - there’s a translate button up at top if needed. 

Happy Stampin’

Margaret
Live, Laugh, Love
Be Totallyawake4-life

Are you creating for YOU?

I often hear card makers expressing frustration that they worked for over an hour creating a card for someone in their life and the receiver tossed it aside like meh and moved on oblivious to the time, love and care that went into it. My response is that you are gonna burn yourself out and stop enjoying if your relying on others to validate your crafting! IMO the passion needs to be in the experience of the CREATING and all the benefits that gives YOU in the DOING of the things more so than any potential accolades the receiver might give in appreciation of your byproduct. 

Does it make me feel good when someone tells me they love the card or project I gift them? ABSOLUTELY! Seriously who doesn’t like positive reinforcement!  But that’s just an added bonus when that happens because I already got my return on investing and internal positive reinforcement in the  creating! In the lowered stress and calmness and energy that creating brings me! 

I create for ME and it’s an added bonus if I can pass my creations on to others and they get some joy too! 

Or that I make money from people who want to commission a project or attend a technique class cause they want to learn to create for themselves too! 

When the doing of something brings you peace, joy and energizes you it doesn’t matter if others care! And when you’re more focused on external validation it looses all those things and becomes “a chore” where your more worried about pleasing someone else than you are about enjoying the process of creating. 

Happy Stampin’

Margaret 

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life.com 

Technique Tuesday- Masking

Masking is such an easy technique that can provide a total pop of elegance to any card! 

I am loving the combination of the masking with the pop of white embossed  images. 

Happy Stampin’

Margaret
Live,Love, Laugh
Be Totallyawake4-life 

Photo credit and full description here:

Bright Baubles

OK I already loved the Bright Baubles Bundle but seeing this Artisan team member inspiration and now he layered them to really make them POP I want it even more!!! 

So intricate and elegant! They’d look lovely hanging on a tree too! I just love making paper ornaments for my tree! 

Tombow glue is perfect for intricate gluing and dries clear. A little trick I use if I need a really intricate dab of glue is make a puddle in my silicone mar and use the paper poker to dot on OR I use a sponge and dab the glue onto sponge and than dab onto the paper dies for a nice even application.

 

Here is the entire Bright Baubles bundle!

 
Photo credit and full details here: 

Happy Stampin’ 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love
Be Totallyawake4-life

Happy Birthday Bouquet

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds & Friends over on Facebook! 

Today I am offering a cute little Birthday Card featuring the Winter Wonderland collection from Doodlebug Design Inc.

 
The Winter Wonderland Odds and Ends Snowflakes has so many fun little 'winter flowers' which were perfect to form a collage for this birthday card!

I used the Happy Birthday from the Altenew Hug Me stamp set.

Happy Stampin' 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 *this post contains affiliate links

SBN Sunday Sketch

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds & Friends over on Facebook! 

 Today I am offering up a SKETCH CHALLENGE of my own for everyone!

I choose the gorgeous plaid paper the Winter Wonderland 6x6 paper pack from Doodlebug Design Inc. and paired with with a coordinating Highland Heather purple cardstock from my stash!  

I cut out the My Favorite Things Photo Strip in the purple.

Again making use of the 6x6 paper to choose cute little squares to insert into the photo strip.

And for a pop of sparkle the Winter Wonderland Glitter Sprinkles from Doodlebug Design Inc.

 

Finished it off with some Baker's twine!

 Happy Stampin' 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 *this post contains affiliate links

Let's Snuggle!

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds & Friends over on Facebook! 

Today I am playing with a Slimline card design! The Pinkfresh Studio Essentials makes a great starter die for slimline cards! 

 

I just love the larger work surface for designing with on the slimline card! 

I again chose paper from the Winter Wonderland 6x6 paper pack from Doodlebug Design Inc! This paper stack is SO CUTE and great for winter birthdays and Valentines alike! 

 The little Bingo card paper is perfect for these little square accents! I chose the Let's Snuggle and Hot Cocoa weather squares and than the back side squares that spelled S N W that I wouldn't use!

 I also love the Winter Wonderland Odds and Ends Snowflake from the Doodlebug Design Inc!

 You get so many adorable little snowflakes and accent pieces in the package - amazing value!! I love that there is a mix of texture too from paper to acetate designs! The snowflakes added a perfect added pop to my squares!

 Happy Stampin' 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 *this post contains affiliate links

Are you Yeti for Valentines?

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds & Friends over on Facebook!

I chose my little Yeti from the Winter Wonderland 6x6 paper pack from Doodlebug Design Inc! One of the papers has a 'grid' like a Bingo card which is perfect for cutting up and using as focal points!

I made my collage behind by using the Winter Wonderland Odds & Ends from the Doodlebug Designs Inc. 

I also added some accent hearts from the Winter Wonderland Shape Sprinkles Stickers from Doodlebug Design Inc. 

Such and adorable Valentines card or for just because card this winter! 

 Happy Stampin' 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 *this post contains affiliate links

 

Online crop - yes please!

 The weather outside is frightful but paper crafting is SO delightful!

 

So excited to paper craft with everyone this weekend over at the Scrapbook Nerd - Friends Group online crop!

 

As part of the design team I get to help create project inspiration challenges - so here is my project inspiration challenge - hope you will come join us and play along for a chance to win a Scrapbook Nerd Online store prize! 

 

Cannot wait to see you

 

Happy Stampin'

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

*this post contains affiliate links

Love Never Melts

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds & Friends over on Facebook with another offering in the Winter Wonderland Collection from Doodlebug Design Inc.

 For my background I chose a retired embossing folder Happy Hearts from Stampin' Up! and Wink of Stella to give the background a subtle pop of glitter and shine.

I paired the embossed cardstock with a torn edge piece from the Winter Wonderland 6x6 paper pack from Doodlebug Design Inc! Such a versatile pack of paper to get you through the winter months!!!

 

 Overall it came together into a cute little Valentine for a loved one!

Happy Stampin'

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

*post contains affiliate links

 

Baby It's Cold Outside!

 Margaret here guest designing for the Scrapbook Nerds for this week!

Back to show some more love of the Winter Wonderland Collection from Doodlebug Designs Inc. 

 

 

 

This card makes use of the Winter Wonderland Sticker Icons - these are so stinking cute and you get SO MANY - perfect for making quick cards or scrapbook layouts!

The Winter Wonderland Chit Chat from Doodlebugs - again look at all the wording goodies for making both cards and scrapbook layouts!

And the Winter Wonderland 6x6 Paper pack - for a little pop of colour matting!

Seriously the little snowman are so stinking adorable .... to help ground them I sponged some light blue Pool Party ink snow hills - they are very subtle in the background.

Happy Stampin' 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

*this post contains affiliate links