Tuesday Tips & Techniques

This week’s Tuesday Tip sprung from my general loss of mojo and resulting lack of organisation, especially when I am gathering together my supplies for a crop or craft day, but I think it is actually helpful in finding a starting point for any project. Sometimes it is better to just prep yourself a potential kit, doing all the mindless boring bits, the fussy cutting, the grouping together of useful products, finding the right stamp or embellishment, printing your photos, even if you have no real plan at this stage. I find whilst I do this it makes me really focus on the detail in the products, the images, the colours, the patterns, the words, that elusive inspiration then creeps up on you and ideas start to grow, worst case you have the groundwork done when you do get the crafting itch. A good example is this 12x12 Paper Pad, loved the rich jewel colours the moment I set eyes on it, had to own it but then…..

….. forgot I had bought it, filed it away, what was I thinking, so many flowers and busy patterns, can’t imagine what I planned to do with it! You too?

I decided to follow my new formula and go through all the papers, and don’t forget the covers, decide which ones lend themselves to fussy cutting to create embellishments or journaling cards and, a couple, ok quite a few, podcasts later, when I looked anew at my pot of bits, the remaining papers no longer seemed so full of overwhelming pattern and I had a stash of potential embellishments.

Now I have the beginnings of some page ideas and a trawl through my photos brings candidates so, print photos out, change my mind several times, you know how this goes, but, I have ended up with photos matched to cardstock and embellishments resulting in five, yes five, potential pages! Now some of these pages will never materialise, but using this method I usually end up with three or four finished pages and I don’t spend all my time at crop simply drinking tea and chatting because I arrived with no crafting plan or starting point. It stops me from aimlessly wandering between my study and the coffee machine when I am at home too lol!

My plan now is to make up for my lack of recent crafting and turn this kit into actual finished layouts which I will share here on Sunday evening, and I will record my process on video too as I go along. In this case I am making layouts but I think the process lends itself to any project. What do you think? What is your starting point? How do you prep for a class or craft day or crop? How do you kickstart your mojo? Share your process and tips in the comments below, we all need a helping hand here and there.

Catch up soon Valx