Scraps Of Mind

You might remember me writing about a Christmas Card Making in July event I went to that was a whole bucket load of fun. Well following on from that, Marla invited me over to a regular Tuesday night craft session that she and a few friends hold each week.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I tend to be a solitary scrapper as I don’t have any like minded friends nearby. My sister does card making but she doesn’t live so handily as to catch up for regular card making sessions. So you can imagine how pleased I was to be included in this group.

So now Tuesday night is a craft catch up night and I really look forward to it. There’s usually yummy treats and lots of chat.

I’ve just bought myself a little mini notebook computer so I can also do some digital stuff whilst I’m there.

So as the Newbie to the group, I brought along some of the stuff I had done. The others are stamping card makers and fabric crafters but not scrapbookers. Anyway one of the things I brought along was my ATC (Artist Trading Card) album. Marla was intrigued. And in next to no time she became a total addict and had joined several on line ATC Swapping Groups.

She’s pulled me along in her wake and I’ve started making ATCs for some of the swaps myself. Mind you, Marla has gone from 0-60 in an instant. She’s completely by-passed the learning stage and jumped straight to advanced. Her ATCs are absolutely gorgeous (check some of them out here). So the pressure is on!

One of the swaps I joined was for the theme of Orange and the second was a Mystery Image swap where the image was mailed out by the coordinator and you had to design your ATCs using it.

Because you need to make a run of the same ATC for each swap (a limited edition run) I like to use digital techniques as the basis for my design. That way it’s easy to repeat the design. I like to print out some of the design elements separately and cut them out, mounting them on the card using foam tape to add some extra dimension.

And of course there’s usually a brad or two somewhere in there.

I enjoyed making the cards for the ATC swaps but I can’t see myself becoming as involved as Marla. One of the attractions of ATCs for me is that I can make individual projects on a whim when the fancy takes me. And I don’t need to make several of the same thing. I don’t mind doing the occasional limited edition but I don’t want it to become the norm.

But it’s definitely a fun thing to do whilst in the company of like minded friends.

PS. Only two more sleeps before Purple and I are on the  big silver bird to Budapest. Oohh I’m starting to get excited.

Other Related Articles:

Me Time with ATCs

Artist Trading Cards

Congratulations Mum, it’s a Dell Mini Notebook

This is my new little baby.

Isn’t she cute?

She’s really dinky. Almost too small to have been taken from her mother.

And she’s purple!

I didn’t want to get anything that looked remotely like it was a work tool. This is all about play and portability.

Having lugged my work laptop across the central business district of Melbourne it does not meet my definition of  ‘portable’.

I wanted something that I could grab and tuck under my arm when I go to my Tuesday craft catch up with the girls.

I wanted instant portability without lots of cables.

I wanted a power pack that doesn’t weigh as much as the machine itself.

I wanted something lightweight enough that I won’t get fed up carrying it about when I go to Europe next week.

My baby comes with a Bluetooth wireless mouse because I hate those touchpad thingys. As with all babies there was a little teething trouble in the beginning but I found a little pacifier to stick in a USB port and the teething problems went away.

I’ve bought a cute little purple outfit for her to keep her warm when she’s having a sleep.

Just think of the digital scrapbook layouts and ATCs we can make together.

Did I mention that she’s purple?

Everyone say, “Aaahhhh!”

October 3rd is National Cardmaking Day So I thought I’d share one of my more special cards with you. Hope you enjoy.

Hybrid Card Making for Someone Special

My daughter recently celebrated a birthday, and in what has now become an annual tradition, I flew up to Sydney to spend her birthday weekend with her.

It’s been a difficult year for her and I wanted to make her a card to let her know how much she means to me and how much I admire her.

I used my favourite card making technique…hybrid scrapbooking.

I always enjoy the enormous scope for creativity I get by combining digital with paper elements. I can tailor my digital elements to suit my project by changing the colours, size and even the overall shape.

For this card I used a chipboard concertina mini book as the base and all the digital elements are from my Night over Rhone kit (available free through the Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Program) combined with some papers from Thao Cosgrove’s Art Journal Kit from Scrap Girls.

I used the masking tool to extract the images of Seona from the rest of the photo so that I could feature her. After all , this card is all about her.

Then I desaturated the background of the photos  and blended them into the background papers by reducing the opacity a little. That way I got a silhouette of Seona whilst still keeping some context of her surroundings.

The arched window from Night over Rhone is one of my favourite elements and it is very easy to change the shape and size of it so that it fits the arched shape of the chipboard page. And there’s something special about putting a photo behind a window frame I think. It sort of gives the idea of looking in on a private moment.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of flowers and brads, both digital and ‘real life’ so no card of mine would be complete unless I managed to incorporate some into the design.

Seona was very happy with the card. She said, “Oooh, my first ‘book’ card!”

I and I realised that I hadn’t made her a card in book form before.  She has a significant birthday coming up next year, her first significant one since I started card making, so I’ll really be pulling out the stops for that.

And you can back it in that whatever I decide to do I’ll be using hybrid scrapbooking to do it.

Other Related Articles:

Hybrid Scrapbooking – The Best of Both Worlds

Hybrid Scrapbooking – What’s it all about?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on losing your mojo. And it got me thinking about my own situation.

Writing Scraps of Mind takes a lot of time and energy to come up with fresh articles on a regular basis. But that’s OK because I’ve always loved doing it and I’ve loved being in touch with so many readers, as well as the wonderful comments and messages I have received over the years.

But after three and a half years it has become more difficult to think up new things. It’s started to become like work!

And that’s not what I want from Scraps of Mind.

So I’ve decided to take a break from regular posting and see how I go about taking my own advice and getting my own mojo back.

I expect that I will still post something new here from time to time and probably still offer the odd freebie as well.

So please pop back every so often to check out the site and wish me luck in getting my head back together.

Don’t forget, the Articles Page is a great place to find all sorts of scrapbooking and blogging tips treasures so why not go and have a rummage whilst you’re here. With over 600 posts and articles  in the archives to choose from you’re sure to find something useful.