The Perfect Pear

Camp Scrap 2014, a 6-week online event led by May Flaum, started this past Monday. She is leading/teaching 4 sections: art journaling, design/sketches, working with kits, and mixed media. One can register for just one or two sections, or take all four. I am doing all four. While I don't really do art journaling, I felt there might be techniques I could learn that I could then use in my card making & scrapbooking activities. Registration is still open, and I would highly recommend this camp!

Having said that, the first two days of camp I just got a horrendous case of crafter's block. Every time I'd go in to the craft room to make something, I would just feel totally overwhelmed, get stressed out, and leave. I spent my crafty time over those 2 days piddling--doing stuff like sorting cardstock by color. What a friend of mine calls "pulling weeds": necessary, and it gets something done. But it was still not exactly what I thought I should really be doing.

Finally, yesterday I thought of this week's "Anything Goes" challenge at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, and decided, come hell or high water, I was going to make a card for that. So I did. I took the sketch idea that May came up with for the first design session, and put my own spin on it. She basically used a grid design, and made her own card using a combination of rectangles and squares for the background. I recently got the "Custom Panels" die set by Avery Elle, and decided to use the angle die from that to cut the 4 panels for my card.

I used scraps of patterned papers in a green, yellow, and white color scheme for my card. The hardest part was actually working out the cutting angles for all the pieces. I worked on a piece of thin cardstock for my base, and cut and adhered my patterned paper pieces to that. I machine-stitched around each piece with black thread, much like May had done on her card, because I liked the contrast she'd achieved.

For the focal panel, I stamped the pear image from this SNSS set onto bristol paper using Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink, and again onto scratch paper. I cut out the second image, used it to mask the first, and then stamped again over the mask, to make the second pear look like it is behind the first. I colored them with colored pencils, and blended that with a paper stump dipped in Gamsol. I die cut that panel with a Spellbinders Standard Circles LG die, and inked the edges slightly with Wild Honey Distress ink.

I cut another piece from bristol paper using the smallest die from the Sizzix "Labels, Wavy" set, and then stamped the greeting onto that. I inked around the edges, again with Wild Honey.

I glued the focal & greeting panels in place, then matted the front panel with a piece of dark green cardstock; and layered that onto a piece of yellow-orange cardstock, cut to a standard 4.25x5.5" card size. I went over the eyes and mouths on the pears with a black gel pen, and coated the eyes with a little bit of Glossy Accents for some shine. Finally, I mounted it onto a card base, and I was done!

I don't know if I've totally broken through my block, but at least I was able to sit down and create something. And hopefully my creation will bring a smile to the face of one of our heroes overseas, and to the face of whomever s/he writes to!