Last week a couple of my crafty friends nominated me for the Getting To Know Me Blog Hop; Jennifer McGuire and Laura Bassen – love these girls so much! This hop is such a great idea and I thought it best to do this without the sugar-coating – total honesty here! There’s five questions to the hop so I’m going to jump straight in!

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I swung around from my computer and took a quick snap of what’s on my desk at the moment – there’s a card for my sister’s friends who are adopting a little girl called Alice soon. I used lots of the adorable Lawn Fawn critters on that and, having just finished taking a few snaps, I need to get it in the post tomorrow and I will try to blog about the card sometime this coming week. Hot out of the Postie’s hands is the new Simon Says Stamp/Hero Arts collaborative set for STAMPtember, Chalkboard Birthday – want to get busy with that one soon. Also I have some nice autumnal card and ink colours to play with when I get the chance. Not sure yet if I’m going to use those colours with the Hero Arts set or not; just pulling ideas and thoughts together at the moment.

Off from my desk to the right where my computer sits, I’m working on some video editing for an upcoming class, planning what projects I need to get to over the next few days and blogging this of course LOL.

What inspires your designs?

I follow a number of people’s blogs and like to celebrate great cards by popping them into my ‘Fabulousness‘ folder on Pinterest. I think this also helps me to keep up with generalities such as what is trending but also to see what has been done already. When I’m creating I get a lot of inspiration from the product itself and also from things around me such as packaging, adverts, the colours in a dress. However, when I’m in a mojo slump it is Pinterest I will turn to again but not to search for card ideas though. I will enter some general terms into Pinterest’s search function and find inspiration in home decor, fabrics etc. One of the things I try not to do is make a card that someone else has. It can be difficult at times when working with the same product sets but by looking for ideas outside of card making I try my best. Here’s an example, Rudolph cookies spotted on Pinterest inspired these Rudolph tags I made for a Simon Says Stamp blog post last year.

Or this gorgeous picture which inspired this card.

source

A more recent example of inspiration is when looking at the latest Clearly Besotted release the Woodland Pals set reminded me of the Japanese kawaii style so I tried to capture that clean line, pastel with a pop of colour.

What method/process (if applicable) do you apply to each of your creative projects, and how long does each project take to complete?

I am a really slow crafter; I mean painfully slow! Don’t get me wrong I’m totally busy when I craft; the paper is flying, the fingers are inky etc it’s just the process I seem to take. Although I’m quiet an organised person I often don’t plan what I’m going to do. Best case scenario is I may take the stamps off their backer sheet and lay them roughly in place but often as not I don’t even get that much planned. I normally have an idea to work with though; layered white on white die cuts would look nice with this, might try and use the negative space of that one, soft and dreamy vellum, cute critter scene …. After that first idea though it’s just a case, for me at least, of trying things out. Sometimes it works straight off, often as not it doesn’t and I keep trying new ideas until I’m happy. The waste recycling sees lots of action when I create and for me a card evolves from the process. That might seem really silly, it’s just a card right, but that’s how it goes for me. Lots of trying this, nope don’t like that, try something else etc. So, long story short, a card for me takes a while, probably in the 1-2 hours range most times.

If you had to describe your ‘signature style’ what would it be?

I’m certainly attracted to clean-and-simple style myself and I think at times my projects fit into that category too. I certainly went through a very CAS bare minimal phase, but perhaps more recently I’d say I aim for a ‘feel’ of light and airy. I’m not sure that is a style LOL but it’s what I have in mind when I’m making something :D

What three crafting tools/products could you not live without.

I’m going to be really boring here, but I’d really struggle without a scoring board and a decent paper trimmer! Card edges that don’t line up and scraggy cuts really annoy me! Every time I make a project I start by cutting a piece of card wider than I actually need. Then I score it at a point taller than I actually need. Use a bone folder to get a nice crisp edge and then take to my paper trimmer. I push the folded edge up to the top of the trimmer and cut a slither off the right edge of the card. Turn 90 degrees and cut the base edge to the correct height, turn 90 degrees, flip the card over and cut the left edge of the card to the correct width. That way every edge has been cut relatively to the scored fold. I know, OCD runs in my family LOL. Now for my third item, hmmm, I mentioned the bone folder but I have been know to use the back of my nail when I can’t find it so that isn’t essential. I think it would have to be my die cutter. I love dies, love the dimension of popping things up and without my old and battered Cuttlebug I’d be at a loss :D

Those cutting plates are sooooo beat up but while they keep cutting they can stay ;) Keeping me company is my favourite Herdy coffee mug, in lime green of course, and it looks like a need to make a fresh cup :D

Papercrafters who inspire me.

Now for the fun part; sharing people who inspire me! To start I want to say that by it’s very nature the people in my Pinterest board ‘Fabulousness‘ are indeed fabulous! Their designs and photographs caught my eye and made me smile :D I wish I had more time to spend looking through my Feedly blog reader and adding more finds to this board but just recently time has been short and my Feedly is rather neglected and overflowing.

Anyway, when I came to think about this part of the hop I turned to the feeds located in my reader, glancing down the list of wonderful names and my eye stopped when I hit this lady. Cristina Kowalczyk has inspired me for years with her clean designs and fresh ideas. I love that she is an accomplished author, although missed her posts when she took time off to promote her latest book. However, I’d noticed a few posts popping up again from Cristina including this one where she took Pinterest inspiration for the CASE Study challenge blog hop. I love that the bike image is stamped not only off the edge but also continues onto the back of the card – you gotta take a look! Yup simple, stunning design is how I think of Cristina :D

For my second inspirational crafter I’m going to pick the awesome Lisa Spangler. I think that Lisa’s style is so darn fabulous; she seems to hit that quirky/trendy button just right! In fact I love her style so much it was Lisa I chose to CASE for the CASE Study anniversary blog hop :D Just hop on over to Lisa’s blog and straight away the latest card there is a stunner! Rich colours, fabulous technique and it just makes me happy to look at. In fact, yes, Lisa’s blog is certainly a wonderfully happy place to be; just a little wander through her projects and you get a heart warming glow :D And I’ve not even mentioned yet how multi-talented Lisa is – she works for Hero Arts designing stamps, creating projects, teaching, managing the websites and all sorts of computer ‘stuff’!

I hope you will pop on over to Cristina and Lisa today but also next week when they will be answering the same questions :D