New Beginnings - Happy New 2024

Tuesday 30th January 2024

Hello after such a long time! 

I recently changed my full time job for a part time one and this has as a result left me some crafting time. 

I got married in September and as a result I changed my surname so no longer Jo Penney now Jo Poulton! The same initials luckily so I don’t have to change my email or blog name Joppy !

You can probably see by the photos that I have been using a new stamp set that came out with the new Stampin’ Up spring/summer catalogue. It is called 'Thoughtful Expressions' It has a beautiful humming bird on it and I love the way you can curve it around your card sentiment. I bought it as soon as I saw the humming bird, as my daughter living in Canada has fallen  in love with these beautiful birds and sends me videos of them coming to her feeder. 

I love a stamp set that has some main images and sentiments that I can use on a day to day basis. The sentiment ‘ there are no words’ is actually a good one despite the irony of it taking words to actually say it (or stamp it) ! It brings a pause to think and admire the beauty of nature and that beautiful curve shape of flying while at the same time drinking nectar suspended. 

I am not a huge fan of colouring but when I colour I prefer the watercolour pencils which I used for some of the cards. I also went outside of my comfort zone and used some alcohol pens on some of the images also! I really like the bolder effect and I will as a result be getting some more alcohol pens as currently I only have a couple of colours.

Card coloured with watercolour pencils

Card Coloured with Stampin' Blends (alcohol inks)

Slightly different colouring with Stampin' Blends

The other thing I did with the Stampin' Blends designs for this blog post was to design a card with the stamped images directly onto white card to keep it simple for anyone who only has black ink, some colouring tools and white card. It just shows that fairly minimal supplies can produce a very pretty effect. To keep balance in a plain card like this, the trick is to space the images and sentiment towards the middle of the card leaving as much outside space as you can. Add a wee bit of dimension with some gems if you have some. 

The other cards I made using the stamp set and the dies but I noticed that a lot of white space still set the card off nicely.  I stuck with wisteria wonder coloured card as a contrast and also added some stitched ribbon in line colour . I did not use a single dimensional making this card as the layers seemed to take care of the dimension I wanted while at the same time saving in postages by keeping the cars thin enough to post as ‘letter’ rather than ‘large letter’. If you were hand delivering this card you could add many more layers or dimensional foam to lift it higher. 

It took me a long time to get a couple of cards I liked as many of the designs were way too busy and just didn’t look quite right. Also I have not made cards for quite a long time so it took me a while to get myself gathered together with everything in the kitchen to put these together. 

Card coloured with watercolour pencils

I am in the middle of a bit craft room move. I have decided I don’t like crafting in the cabin outside as I like being on the house and near the door for visitors and post and near the kettle and the loo. So as soon as I can organise it the craft room is coming back indoors (and downstairs) into what is normally a spare bedroom downstairs with my keep fit  and weights equipment in it. There is going to be a swaperoo and keepfit stuff is going into the cabin in the garden. My stuff was getting a bit damp out there and my ink pads went a bit gloopy in the cold weather.

There is a lot less space in the new room, I want to purge my supplies. As I am a crafter of many crafts (more recently embroidery and quilting) I have to stash a lot more than just paper crafts. My paper crafting is dominantly scrapbooking (or at least I would like it to be!) so I shall be cutting right back on the ink pads and card. I have lost a lot of my ink pads now due to them not recovering from excessively damp and cold weather. 

The designs I made with this stamp set worked well with using pens and pencils and as a result I don’t think I will miss having every single colour of card and inks. I have decided to keep about 4 different colours as well as  the inks and set of in colours that I love from last year that stay on the catalogue for two years. That with a black memento ink pad and black and white card will make up my card making supplies. I will however be keeping a lot of stamp sets and some dies and punches. These will give me lots of variety for different occasions and I can also use some to make my own designer series papers for scrapbooking. 

I can always buy in a batch of card for a specific occasion such as wedding / Christmas etc as and when I need it. This means it’s being used straight away and not just adding to craft room clutter. So no storage solutions are needed as I will have less !

It is taking me a very long time to decide which colours to keep so I hope to update you on a future post.

In the meantime bear with me while I get used to part-time working and my new job requirements and carry out a craft/gym move! Im so bad at making decisions it might be a while.

Craft times JOP xxx