Scrap Stash Saturday!

While so many of you love Friday Flashbacks, I am most partial to Scrapstash Saturdays, I think it's MY favorite day! I can't explain WHY, but maybe it's because I always have such a great sense of accomplishment when I manage to put together paper patterns NOT meant to coordinate. I like kicking conventional wisdom in it's perverbial butt once in a while and saying "nothing is written in stone....you can do anything you want when it comes to art!" That's why it's called "art". I actually went to Websters online dictionary to look up the definition of art, and I couldn't find one. I thought that was strange. Then I found this definition on Wikipedia:

"Art is a (product of) human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind and/or spirit; thus art is an action, an object, or a collection of actions and objects created with the intention of transmitting emotions and/or ideas. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art, since defining the boundaries of "art" is subjective, but the impetus for art is often called human creativity."



Don't you just love this definition? Isn't it liberating? Peeps, this FREES you to make your cards however you see fit, and if that means combining Apricot Appeal and Gable Green together because it moves you, then do it! You will NEVER find a "rule" on page 101 of the Artists Guide of What's Right and Wrong When Creating Art" manual that says these two colors DO NOT GO TOGETHER and SHOULD NEVER be put together if you want to be taken seriously as a card designer!! If you can make it work then GO FOR IT! This might seem funny to you (and it's meant to be lighthearted fun), but in all seriousness, today should be one of those days that you free yourself from "shoulds" and "should haves" and open yourself up to a whole new world of "art that makes you happy". Sit down at your stamping table and create for the sake of creating. Don't create to impress us. Don't create something because someone said that's how it should be done. Just create what makes you feel good. Create something that puts a smile on YOUR face. Because if it puts a smile on yours, I'm almost positive it will put a smile on someone else's. Ok, Lecture #265B is now complete. You are safe to continue reading!

Here are the papers I drew out of my scrap drawer yesterday with my eyes closed. Actually, they don't look that bad together on this photo, but IRL, I was slightly panicking. They did not look easy to put together. The brightness of the Basic Grey floral paper did not look good with the muted colors of the others. But, being the Scrap Stash Trooper that I am, I got down to business regardless.

I decided to use the light brown designer paper as the main paper for the card. It would ground the others. After I decided this, the rest, amazingly, just fell into place. The idea flowed, the stamping flowed, the mojo flowed. It took awhile to get it all just right, but all in all, I was thrilled with how it turned out! I used the BG paper as the background to my stamped flowers, which are by Technique Tuesday. I stamped them in coordinating inks and cut them out. Two flowers are glue directly to the paper, the third is mounted on dimensional tape. The stems for the flowers are made from the pink and white floral designer paper, and the leaves are from the green polka dot paper. I also used the green polka dot paper as a mat to the BG floral paper. I had a Cool Caribbean piece of scallop border sitting around my desk, so I added that to the mix, which I thought worked great.

I initially had stamped the sentiment from Paper Trey Ink that says "If friends were flowers, I'd pick you", but I accidentally stamped it crooked and then grrrrr....it smeared. I hate when that happens! So, I had to put a horizontal strip of the pink and white paper over the sentiment to cover it up. I wanted some sort of sentiment, so I stamped friends on a small scalloped oval and put it right in the middle, above the flowers. Since most of the card design is on the right side of the card, I needed to balance it somehow to the left side. I used my paper piercing set to pierce some holes right down the left side to draw your eye over there. I think it worked!

I had such a good time making this card, and I really like how it turned out. But, don't we always love the cards where the mojo is in high supply? That was the case here. I hope you like it!

Well, I've got to run. Three baseball games today because our game got rained out last night. So, I need to jump in the shower and get ready. I'll give you an update on Muriel later today, hopefully!


Hugs,
Amy