Creative Time to Play

First post in a very long time. I have been struggling to find time and headspace to make and the idea of posting allways seemed a step to far but Tim Holtz in his recent live was talking about both making time to work and to share so lets hope I can keep sharing as well as making. Making a card is, for me, often the easiest project to find time for especially if you are someone who remembers all those birthdays. I now have decided to follow another TH tip and try "compartmental making" just siting and working for however long I have on one thing, diecutting, inking, stenciling pastes or preparing card bases. This along with a determination to use all those dies!!! 

Come on! it is always so easy to be inspired by all the makes out there, buy the die (before it dissapears) and then never get round to actually creating and using all the ideas you had for it. So the first neglected new die I pulled out was: 

Sizzix/tim Holtz Abstract Elements. The plan being to make some funky fun notelets to give as gifts. I had an inking session ages ago after the release of my favorite distress ink colour ever Uncharted Mariner (mixed in with some Crackling Campfire, Mustard Seed and Mowed Lawn, I think). It was a while ago I had that inking session (One year! according to Youtube), the idea was to just use the colours I liked and have fun. Next 'compartmetal session' was die cutting with the die set. So many fun shapes and lots of inspiration out there. Pete Hughes at Sizzix and Cheiron Brandon both Tim Holtz makers, especially got me excited. Having created a whole box of die cut pieces they then sat on my desk for months while I was distracted by life, the internet and lots of random shiny things. Finally yesterday I die cut frames with a stitched square set of dies, trying to pick out colours of cardstock that matched the colours from my inks. Today using both the frames and solid inner square and the long neglected die cut pieces I made a stack of cards. 

It did feel like play and having done whole sessions of inking and die cutting allwed me to make lots of cards in a free and easy way. Now I have happy inky fingers and sets of cards to give away Win Win!

And to top it all I have found time to blog again. Now I need to make my compartments join up quicker!

So finally, a big THANK YOU to all those who have continued to call into my blog, to Tim Holtz and his makers for keeping me inspired and finally the cat for sleeping outside in the sun all day just so she would not distract me.

I do hope to be back again soon, much sooner than a year! 

Wishing you all happy inky fingers

As these cards began with a day of colourful play and ended with vivid graphic cards I am linking up with Time Out Challenges this week "Colourful"

and Colorful Options  whose challenge for August is Yellow- Green

and Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge which asks you to keep it clean and simple