Changing Crafts for Health

Hello Everyone,
I want to start by saying today I am celebrating!!
I am 1 year post partial left lung removal due to cancer.
How this all came about happening was a miracle because it was found during a scan of my heart.  After this scan they looked at previous scans and found that this cancer had been in my lung since 2002 and hadn’t changed!! Mostly lung cancers are quite aggressive but mine decided to do nothing for 14 years. My God was definitely looking after me because back in 2002 I was pregnant with our 2nd child. I was very lucky that I didn’t need any Chemo or Radiation afterwards because the biopsy came back clear. God is so good.

So lately I have been doing a lot of crochet because I am trying to complete some of my WIPs (Works In Progress) and I have been laid up in bed with my chronic illness.  But unfortunately I have found that I can not do the same craft for a long period of time otherwise my body starts to object to my continuing.  I had forgotten this until I started getting horrid shoulder pain because of the repetitive nature of crochet.

I decided to have some fun colouring an image and then I loved how it turned out that I decided to make a card.  Changing crafts worked and I was able to be creative again and not be in so much pain while doing it.  Diversity is good in a lot of things in life.

And this is the creation….

This card was inspired by 2 card challenges

My favourite place to start a sketch and this sketch #339 by Jen B from Freshly Made Sketches was this weeks challenge.  Then I loved the colour combination #495 put forward by Jodi from Color Throwdown so then it was off to find a suitable image to use. The image that I chose to use came from a set that I got from the magazine Creative Stamping Issue 37

This is such a lovely set, I haven’t had the chance to use it much but I am in the process of doing up my stamp storage so I hope to be able to make more use of these kinds of sets that I have accumulated.

I had stamped the image onto one half of an A5 sheet of  white heavy weight cardstock which I ended up folding and making into the card base as well. The flowers I coloured with my Faber-Castell Polychromos but used my watercolour pencils to make the burgandy/maroon colour in the background.  The papers I got from my stash same with the gold stickers.  I hope that you like my take on both the sketch and the colour challenge.

I want to thank you for stopping by my blog and I want to leave you with this last thought:
I am glad to be able to keep editing my story.
It is one of life, love, laughter and loss.
Live a life you would be proud for someone to emulate.

Have a Happy Healthy Crafty Kind of Life,

Happy Mothers Day

Hello Everyone,
While I was printing the image for the previous card I accidentally printed the digital image Pure Prairie Bouquet by Power Poppy twice. So instead of throwing away a perfectly printed picture I decided that I would take the opportunity to make a 2nd card while I had my colouring supplies out. But this time around its a really simple colouring which was inspired by the Power Poppy Blog.

The Power Poppy Challenges are intended to give us design power + creative spark. Their challenge for May is “Power & Spark with a bit of Drama!” The challenge is a black & white card with a POP of colour. And of course I could also use this image again for the Shopping Our Stash – Butterfly challenge.

And this is what I came up with for the challenge:

I don’t know if these flowers come in this colour but I love purple and it was the colour that I wanted to use this time around for this challenge.  Its a simple card but I love how it turned out despite that I photographed it at an angle. Shopping through my stash to find both the image which I have in my database and my black and white papers which came from my extensive supply of paper packs.  But you know that stack may be large but I found that I don’t have too many neutrals …. hmm…. maybe a Mothers Day or belated Birthday present for me will be some neutrals 😀

Once again thank you for stopping by and looking at my challenge entry.  And as always before you go here is a thought for you to remember:
This image is inspired by this Sunday (13th May) in Australia being Mothers Day.  I had a Fabulous Mum, unfortunately I lost her in 2017 but she is always with me. I have an amazing Mother-In-Law, she bought up a wonderful man my Hubby John and his 4 siblings. And I am a Mother. I have been a Mother for 20years since our Daughter arrived and then our Son 5years later.  I hope and pray that I will pass on many things to my kids and that they will have fond memories of our relationship in the years to come.

Have a Happy Crafty Fun Kind of Day,

 

Sketch Experiment

Hello Everyone,
Today I am bringing you a twist on a sketch. If you been reading my blog for awhile you will know that I love using sketches as a starting point for my cards.  Well I also love playing along with the challenges at both Shopping Our Stash – their challenge is to create with Butterflies and at the Cards in Envy Challenge; this time around they have a 1 layer challenge going on and this made me ask a question.

“Could I make a 1 layer card using a card sketch?”
Of course it would have to be the right sketch to do this experiment with but would it really be possible? And sketch #512 from Sketch Saturday looked like a possible candidate.

So the challenges I have chosen to combine these challenges

http://shoppingourstash.blogspot.com.au/2018/05/shopping-our-stash-353-chanson-papillon.html

Once I found these challenges I then had to go looking for an image that I could use in this experiment. So I went looking in my images and found Pure Prairie Bouquet by Power Poppy and I thought it would work well.  So I printed out the digital image and then set to work on how to turn this sketch into a 1 layer card. And this is the result:
I am really happy with how this turned out. I hope that you like my interpretation on the sketch. The circular element I coloured with my Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and I used a warm grey pencil around the outside of the image to give the illusion of a layer being their.  I heat embossed the 70 with some black glitter powder and I called the card finished.

Thanks again for stopping by and looking at my project. Please let me know what you thought of my take on the sketch and keeping it to 1 layer.  And as always before you go I want to leave you with this thought:
Change is hard but it’s necessary. We don’t like going through any kind of change but I think at least 95% of the time we are the better for it.

Have a Happy Blessed Crafty Kind of Day,

Cats Birthday

Hello Everyone,
I haven’t been on for a week – life was busier than I was expecting.  I forgot about some appointments that I had until I got the reminder texts ….

Today’s card share is a 2 for 1 project. I combined 2 challenges into the 1 card – the challenges are Color Throwdown #490 and Card in Envy: It’s Birthday Party Time.

I really loved the color combo for the throwdown challenge and I knew that I had an image that would suit it wonderfully.  It is a gorgeous free digital image from Wee Stamps called “Miss Kitty” And here is the project that I made with it …

Such a cute image. I coloured Miss Kitty using my Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils. The papers come from a Kasiercraft paper pack from my stash it had all of the colours together from the challenge combined in different ways.

Thanks so much for stopping by and having a look at my project.  I really hope that you have a great week and as always before you go I wish to leave you with this thought:

Life can get in the way of things but you can get back to where you want to be. Tomorrow can and usually is different from today.

Have a Happy Moving Forward Crafty Kind of Day,