Inspired by PaperCraft's new book, "The Joy of Card Making," I set out to create cards from design sketches. Using the sketches did make the process easier and fun. One of the tips I'm constantly sharing is that we have too many tools to choose from now which makes creating more difficult. It's like having six different vacuum cleaners in your home, some how you never manage to use any of them or you only use one of them over and over. The sketch process (just as with the Becky Higgins' sketches) narrows our field a bit and makes the creative process enjoyable again.
While I loved the way the book showed interpretations of the sketches from other designers, I didn't like the way some sketches were so similar. For example, I made these three cards from two different sketches, don't they look like they could come from the same one?
Since PaperCraft's is known for creating several cards without ever using stamps, I tried their techniques without stamps on two of these three cards. The trick to working without stamps is to use coordinated papers like these from Delta's Sarah Lugg collections. The stamp on the first card is also from her collection made for Rubber Stampede which is part of Delta.
The cards whipped up so quickly that I didn't feel rushed with the inside sentiments and used more papers and stamps there too. I regret using such dark colors as background on the green and brown cards, they don't scan as well. The actual cards were lovelier than shown.
The green card was made from a different sketch than the rose and brown cards. After looking a bit more, I found the brown card actually matched a third sketch too. Perhaps a beginner would need the three different sketches that are similar, but the more experienced card maker may find it frustrating. The creative stamper should have no problem incorporating more stamping into the sketches and all the samples shown were just charming. I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone who is excited about card making or needs to make large multiples of cards. By providing the structure of sketches, the book gives us the freedom of creativity.
