Losing Your Creativity with Koren Wiskman

Hello everyone, Koren here with a little tip to help you out when you feel like you've lost your creativity. 

There are many factors that can affect your creativity. Recently I have struggled without having a desire to create anything at all. To fix this, I started to look to my friends in the cardmaking and crafting industry for inspiration. I started to search online for a specific stamp set that I wanted to use, and to see what other crafters had created with this exact set. I was hoping to use the Neat & Tangled Floral Frames stamp set. Unfortunately, I own the stamp set but not the dies for this set, which normally doesn't bother me unless the dies set offers something incredible, like these. But what was I to do? The die set was sold out and I was left to come up with some solutions of my own. 

I saw that my friend Tiffany Solorio had used this exact stamp set around the time that it was originally released last year. I fell in love with her card and thought, what if I just start to create my own version of this card to hopefully spark a little creativity inside myself. So, without watching the video Tiffany created, I just took her photo and tried to recreate the card without knowing what products she used or what process she took to create it. I just started to make it my own way. 

I found myself completely inspired to create this project. Almost giddy about playing with my products and creating my own version of this card- and I learned a new path to reigniting my creative spark. To see Tiffany's post (CLICK HERE!). 

Background:

I started with a piece of Neenah 110lb. Solar White cardstock cut to 4 1/4 by 5 1/2. I took one of the stencils from my stash that gave me a nice thick stripe pattern. To mimic the gray stripe background on the inspiration card, I took some texture paste and a little gray dye based ink and mixed the two together to get a nice cool gray texture paste. I used the well mixed paste and striped stencil to cover my card panel leaving behind crisp thick gray stripes. I really tend to play up the gray on my cards. 

Images:

I stamped all of my images from the Neat & Tangled Floral Frames stamp set multiple times. I stamped them using watermark ink and heat embossed each image with white embossing powder. 

To add color to my images, I used Inktense pencils that behave a lot like watercolors but is not manipulatable by adding more water after it dries. These pencils give a look that is similar to watercolors and I really enjoy using them, so that is why I reached for them first. I stuck to Tiffany's gorgeous color palette but without looking at what she originally used, I was happily guessing. I looked for a very turquoise blue combo as well as the bright yellow and gray. I loved that she used gray to color the greenery, so I made sure to copy that aspect of her card as well. 

Once all of my images where colored, I used my scissors to fussy cut most of them but when I got to the main image, I did NOT want to cut out that very detailed image, so... I grabbed an oval die from Neat & Tangled's Card Front Designs die set and cut out the image. I wasn't sure at first if I liked doing this but in the end, I think it turned out nice, once you have all of the extra floral images surrounding it and building it up a bit. I fussy cut all of the additional images.

Sentiment:

For the sentiment, I grabbed the "happy birthday to you" stamp from the same Floral Frames stamp set and stamped it into the center of my oval piece. I used a coordinating yellow embossing powder from my stash to heat emboss it. 

Once everything was cut out I put them all in my splat box and grabbed a little bit of white gouache. I mixed some white gouache and a little water into a small dish and used a toothbrush to splatter white specks of paint all of the images and sentiment. 

Once they dried, I started to assemble the card. I added the striped background panel using white craft foam and tear tape adhesive, to a light gray card base. This card base is cut to size A2 and scored in a side folding landscape orientation. 

After the main panel was popped up, I started to play around with placement of my images. Some things were adhered flat to the card panel using liquid adhesive and some were popped up using foam tape. 

Not only do I love how my card turned out, but I'm glad to report that I have been creating ever since I made this card and that to me, is invaluable. I hope you enjoyed this project and I've inspired you to create something today. 

Koren