Diary of a Crafty Girl

I watched my niece/goddaughter this weekend while her parents had a much needed weekend away for their anniversary.  She is a riot and kept me on my toes the whole time. One thing she loves is to paint. So on Sunday, we got out the paint and some canvas and went to town. There was a point where I felt like I lost control of the situation but it was fun nonetheless. I need to figure out how to finish my piece with the dots… I may add a quote over them or in between…

 For March I had a plan and I am happy to report that I executed it perfectly the first attempt!  I took a card layout and combined it with a color combination I liked to create what I think is the perfect card to send to your friends.  Layout and color combination are not my images, but the final product is my doing.  Let me know what you think!

 I always forget to come back and show you the cards I finished when I can't post them right away so here are my November and January cards.  November we were tasked with one design, but two different versions in case people didn't want to do a holiday card.  I made a card using our adorable hedgehog stamps along with the calendar stamps to show their versatility.  I made one a birthday card and one holiday themed. January we needed to use items from the mini catalog and/or Sale-a-Bration. I chose to use the new gnomes along with a background stamp from the mini catalog.  On Sundays, my friend and I have been trying to FaceTime to craft/journal together since she lives in Colorado and we can't do it in person.  Here is a creation from a snowy day in January.  My nieces both LOVE when it snows and it brought me such joy to see their joy so I decided to make a junk journal page dedicated to that happiness. 

 Sometimes I think I have a great card layout but it just doesn't come to fruition. I want to touch on my design process and how I get from the first rendition to the last when I am struggling with how it looks.  I started with a card based on my original layout. I planned to use a stamp set (Amazing Year) that was in the annual catalog, but didn't seem to be used too much (that I had seen). It did not turn out good at all, in my opinion.  So I sent it to my fellow demonstrators and got a few suggestions. I updated the design, but something was still off.  I asked my upline for some advice and then came up with the final design. While I did ask for opinions and suggestions, I didn't always use the advice given. The process took several days because I like to step away from a project when it's not going quite as planned.  The first one may have had potential, but I think I was limiting myself with a color palette since I was set on trying to use a specific DSP (designer