Free Spirit

I'm back, recovered, unpacked and organized again from my 15 hour crop on Saturday. Whew! I had a lot of fun and I hope everyone there did. I know some people got a lot done. I worked on a couple of cards, a small baby brag book and some outline stamps to color in when needed.

This is a card I made with the 2007 August stamp of the month, Free Spirit and Promise of Spring. When I first received Free Spirit, I didn't like it, but it has grown on me. I like the different rings that have words and sayings on them. I can see using the rings around pictures in my scrapbooks. Promise of Spring was a stamp set only available in January 2007. I hope this comes out in a future catalog. It is a very pretty flower stamp set.

I started with a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 piece Key Lime cardstock and stamped the flourish from Free Spirit on it. Then I added Precious Paisleys pattern paper to the bottom. I stamped the big flower on White Daisy cardstock in Bubblegum ink and the center in Sunflower. I stamped the largest circle from Free Spirit in Sunflower around the big flower. The large circle reads, "While an original is always hard to find, it is easy to recognize. ONE OF A KIND. ORIGINAL. PRICELESS. UNIQUE. ONE OF A KIND. ORIGINAL." I am so glad the stamps are acrylic, because I could see exactly where I need to stamp the circle.

I finished off the card with Key Lime bigger brads and Sunflower and Bubblegum organdy ribbon.

Elaine asked, "What is your best tip?"

I have two of them.

For scrapbooking, I have learned that I don't have to include every picture of an event on a layout. If the picture does not tell something different about the story, I don't include it. I used to want to include every cute picture of my boys. I just had to face it, they are all cute...LOL! Now, I pick the ones that make the layout special.

For card making, I try to use layers. Layers, Layers, Layers! I learned this from the bloggers that I have under my Inspiration section on my sidebar. In addition, this helps me use up all the scraps I seem to accumulate. I think they multiply in the box. When I put a layer on my cards, I use my background stamps to make it different or some type of technique, i.e. piercing, faux stitching. I learned this from others too! There are so many talented paper crafters to get ideas from on a daily basis.

By the way, I haven't heard from the Blog Candy winner, Shannon K yet. If I don't hear from her by the end of this week, I will have the computer select another random number.

Happy Monday!