{Day 4} On Sketches, Lifting, and Etiquette

So is it working? Are you not freaking out as much? What I've learned from this week is that most of the advice is really similar to the advice I'd give a beginning scrapbooker. I know since I started doing the research for this week, I've lost a bit of the terror (NOTE: I said a BIT of the terror, it still scares me and sends me into a slight panic, but I'm getting more comfortable with the whole idea of whipping out a card, and I now have a few easy and quick go-to designs that will take a lot of the thinking process out of it for me. Not over thinking it was one of the tips given by a respondent. She must have known me.). I think the key is something Teri Anderson shared:

Practice! Make cards often. I make a card every single day. [She's not kidding, check out her blog] I think card making gets easier the more you do it. It’s like scrapbooking in that way. Think back to your early scrapbook pages. You got better the more you scrapped. It’s the same thing with card making.

She's right. The more cards I make, the more I enjoy it. My biggest issue is I want my cards to be cute, I want to be proud to send them, that was the same issue I had when I started scrapping. I wanted my pages to be well designed and tell a story. I think the more I make cards, the cuter and easier they'll become. I hope you find the same to be true. Please remember to load your cards inspired by this week to the Flickr gallery, I'd love to feature them on Saturday.

Remember how I said some days would be text heavy and others would have lots of pictures? Well today is the latter. You get lots of sketches and examples today. The number one suggestion of the respondents was to use sketches for inspiration. There are so many great sites and magazines out there. You're welcome to share your favorite ones in the comments section today. One that I was personally involved in, Cardmaps Today, the collaboration of Scrapbook and Cards Today and Page Maps goes on sale March 21. Loads of great sketches and even more examples of said sketches. Highly recommended! Click here for more information.

You'll also want to check out the upcoming PaperCrafts Go To Sketches for Card Makers issue (due out in August of 2011). They had nearly 2800 entries and had to pick a mere 10% of those to showcase in the magazine. It's going to be a great resource! I know those sketches inspired many a cardmaker, I know I made a few based off the list. 

Now for the sketches from some of this week's contributors! I asked some of the WCS collaborative to work up a card based on a sketch, if you measure easy by how fast the cards came back after the assignment, I think you'll find these sketches to be great jumping off points for your creativity. 

Allison Landy's sketch and Melissa Kaisermann's interpretation (Ally's version can be seen in Tuesday's post):

 


 

Rae Barthel's sketch and Aly Dosdall's interpretation:

Reneé Morris-Dezember's sketch along with her and Francine Clouden's interpretations:

Shelly Jaquet's sketch and Paula Gilarde's interpretation (Shelly's work can be seen on {Day 1}):

 

Valerie Mangan's sketch along with her and Monika Wright's interpretation:

Teri Anderson's sketch and my take on it will be in the video:

For even more sketches, head over to Paper Smooches!

A few more suggestions along the lines of sketches include visiting the blogs and galleries of cardmakers you admire to analyze what you like about that particular designer's style. Both Becky Olsen and Teri suggested this, Teri put it like this:

Find a few card makers you like. Check out their blogs and galleries. Take some time to really examine their work and figure out why it appeals to you. Are there elements you like? Do they follow design rules well? Are their cards witty? Do you like how they use embellishments?Try to turn what appeals to you into inspiration to make a card or two.

If you need yet more inspiration, you can always lift a layout you've already created. Shelly, Kelly Marie, and Rae all agreed. Shelly suggested you simple scale down a layout that you know has already worked. Why reinvent the wheel?

You can also participate in any of the several challenges out there. Teri said:

Try some card challenges.  They are another great way to get your feet wet. Just search for “card challenge blog” in Google and you’ll find a bunch of great challenges. One of my favorites is the Tuesday Trigger challenge on Moxie Fab World (moxiefabworld.com). Cath, who runs the blog and is Paper Crafts’ Trends Editor, offers an inspiration piece every Tuesday. You get a whole week to make something inspired by it. It’s always a great excuse to make a card and to see what other cardmakers are doing.

The most important thing when looking to other designers and sketch artists for inspiration, please credit them as the source. It's only polite to make sure the original creator gets kudos for helping you come up with something amazing. Thanks to Becky and Sarah for pointing that out!

Finally, I found the following card ideas, which came in an email from Paper Crafts, to be a very helpful as well. Thank you and birthday cards are always nice, but it's good to have a few more ideas when the mood strikes, right?

• All Occasion (humorous as well as serious, blank/no sentiment, etc.)
• Anniversary (milestone anniversaries as well as generic ones)
• Baby
• Birthday (kids, adults, milestone ages, teens, etc.)
• Congratulations (new job, promotion, making the cheer squad, getting engaged, getting an 'A', first house, new car, etc.)
• Easter
• Encouragement (you can do it, good luck, in general or for specific events, etc.)
• Father's Day (expectant dads, new dads, grandfathers, like a dad to me, brothers or friends who are dads, military dads, etc.) 
• Friendship (girlfriends, best friends, humorous as well as sentimental)
• Get Well (sick, hospitalization, broken bones, humorous as well as serious sentiments)
• Graduation (middle school, high school, college, graduate school, etc.)
• Halloween
• Hello
• Love (including Valentine's Day)
• Miss You (romantic, military, etc.)
• Mother's Day (expectant moms, new moms, grandmothers, like a mom to me, military moms, etc.)
• Season's Greetings (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year's)
• Sympathy
• Thank You (in general as well as for specific people such as teachers, soldiers, coaches, friends, host/hostess, etc.; as well as for specific occasions and events, such as for a gift, offering support, listening, etc.)
• Thanksgiving
• Thinking of You
• Wedding

 

Supply list:

• blank 5 " x6.5" card
• scrap of paper
• vellum
• foam adhesive
• sewing machine
• letter stickers
• scissors
• trimmer

 

 

Directions:

1. Fold card.
2. Trim scrap of paper to fit. Adhere.
3. Cut about a inch of vellum.
4. Place horizontally over front of card.
5. Add sentiment and trim vellum to fit.
6. Stitch with machine.
7. Hand cut embellishment from a scrap, apply using foam adhesive.