Inspiration

Where do you get your inspiration? I find it in the strangest places. At the Chicago Flower Show at Navy Pier every year they have a "table top" contest. Decorators, flower shop owners, and wedding consultants put together tables, flower arrangements, china, glasses, napkins. Every year I take pictures of all the table tops and of the separate contest for flower arrangements. Some of the color combinations are ones I would not have come up with on my own. Last night my husband and I were watching an episode of The Tudors from season 1, downloaded from Netflix and the king was wearing a coat that, as near as I can figure, was YG25 Celadon Green and Black. It was a striking combination and one I plan to use soon. I always keep a pad of paper and pen next to my chair in our family room so when I'm watching HGTV, I can take notes on combinations that appeal to me.



I also keep a stack of 4x6" index cards labeled with different categories. Examples are: Embellishments, Sentiments, Coloring, Background, Sparkle, Techniques, Card Type, and Die Cuts. On each card is a list that I can check when I'm stuck for jazzing up a card. Some of the items on the Embellishments card: buttons, brads, ribbon, rivets, rhinestones, charms, shrink-it, safety-pins, sequins & buckles. There are a lot more on the list, but you get the idea. When I created this card, there was a large white area that I needed to color and a large area in the upper left of the image that needed filling. When I went to my 'background' card, I picked chalk out to tone down the bright white and then sprayed the image with matte fixative. For the upper left, I focused on buckles because it was a boy card. All of my die cut buckles were too big for the area, but this pop top from a soda can, colored with a copic pen, worked just fine with a small strip of the background paper.



Paper: DCWV All About Boys Stack; Pebbles Ink Chalk; Spica: Clear, Silver; Distress Inks: Black Soot, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters; Stamps: Magnolia Baseball Cap Edwin, Flourishes Lamp Post; Copics: E11, R20, E00, Y13, Y02, C1, C3, Y06, Y19, B95, B93, B91, E34, E33, E31, G12, G82, V17, V15, V12, E25, Y00, Y21, RV21, YG06, Y17, C00

Please stop by StampingScrapping.com to see the latest Magnolia stamps. Pirates and brides and Fairytales, oh, my.