The Creative Process

The Inspiration
You never know when inspiration will strike. Yesterday I received an email about Crate Paper's new line called Fourteen. I fell in love immediately. Are you surprised? I truly LOVE that company. Look for that line in store in the upcoming weeks!

That email then lead me to Crate's blog. Ahhhh. Crate's blog. It is so pretty and inspiring. There was nothing in particular on the site that made me think, I HAVE to do this or replicate that. But it just had me thinking, I NEED to craft!

The Supplies

So I decided to pull out a frame I bought at Winners back in the spring. It was $19.99 and then marked down numerous times. It was scratched and in rough shape but what did I care? I was going to give it the Paper Pickle touch and they only helped me by adding a few scratches!

The Photos
I also decided to work with some photos that my sister Krystle took of the kids in May. Honestly, why have I not created with these before? The photo shoot is amazing....taken in the bush behind my brother's house. We set up a vintage bed that Krys bought from a customer of ours (thanks Kay!) and added a few vintage props and voila! Magical!

The Process

When I am creating, I like to pull out all and ANY supply that I think matches my photos or theme. And yes, I do go to the archives....old rub-ons, chipboard, and miscellaneous trinkets that were saved over the years from clothing tags to thread spools.

And then I do a basic layout of the photos....Shuffling from here to there. Next, I start throwing the embellishments at the project to see what "goes". Sometimes it just takes that one perfect embellishment to pull it all together to get the creative wheel rolling full steam ahead. That perfect accent or accents in this case were the thread spools. I knew they HAD to grace this project. As a side, I picked up a ziplock bag of spools from an estate sale months ago. I had no clue when I would use them but I knew they would be perfect for something! My advice is to not let those perfect little finds go. Pick them up. They may be just the thing you need for that next project!

Distress Your Heart Out
I distressed the frame with the heart distressing tool from We R and a nail file! I then added some rub-ons (notice how perfectly they were applied...ha!). I then took some random stamps and black staz-on and stamped sporadically. Various colours of distress ink was used to reapply colour to the distressed frame.

It's all about the Details

As I mentioned, the thread spools were THE perfect accent. I also used the beautiful diecut banners from Basic Grey's Lucille collection, Dear Lizzy and MME chipboard pieces, a cloth tag from one of Julia's dresses with a subtle Unity stamp applied. The saying was perfect "Let us play in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see." Ah. Love.

The Feeling

I don't know about you, but whenever I create anything, I can't stop looking at it. I take it everywhere I go just so I can study it a little more to see if I forgot anything. Then I like to share it! I sent a text to two sisters at midnight last night to get their approval. Krystle messaged immediately. Ah. Sweet success....she approved! What do you think? I know it will look perfect on my mantel!

Open today until 3pm. Stop in and see the project for yourself! If not, I wish you a Happy New Year! May 2013 be filled with creative victories and much joy!

Kim