Here's a Challenge to Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile

I used to think that I had to create everything from scratch. I either had to draw it, make the stamp for it, sometimes I even made the paper for it. As you can imagine, I did not have a lot of completed projects from this period of time. I've come to have a more Marcel Duchamp view of my creativity. To paraphrase, I've come to see that Creativity can be in the selection.

Now I am head over heels in love with kits. With a kit all of those pesky, overwhelming choices that I need to make about every single thing are put aside and I can focus on making something. I can learn a new technique. I can shift my focus and take my mind off my troubles with the joy of a new project, the smell of paper, the beauty of a new stamp or beads or whatever the kit contains. If I'm feeling stumped, working on a kit can prime the pump of inspiration, I start thinking ... "Ohhhhh, what if I used this kind of paper, what if I made a stamp with something I can't find a stamp for or a stamp in a different size." I keep my notebook nearby so I can write down the ideas, and try them later.

I also have participated in some challenges. And from this I have learned to use materials differently, make a lot of something (or at least a few lol). I have the joy that I made something creative, but also the joy that I made something quickly, perhaps even that I made multiples of things.

I'm also learning to make things that aren't perfect. Okay, I'm actually learning to be happy with things that aren't perfect lol. I've always been ABLE to make things that weren't perfect, but I'd usually stop working on it if the flaw couldn't be fixed and throw them away. Unless it was a sweater with a dropped stitch. In high school I would say, "how are they going to know it's homemade if it doesn't have a hole in it" and keep on knitting. So now I have the joy of continuing to work on something, and a chance to make lemonade out of all those lemons.

And now for those of you who like a picture-rich post, and you know who you are lol, here are some pictures of cards I made from the Greetings to Go Castaway kit from Club Scrap.

The coconut anatomy and Big Thanks are stamped images.  The splatter is made with a wet brush colored with a watercolor crayon.

In real life the mat looks more graduated than it does in this picture. The I love to sea that smile sentiment is a stamp, the cut-apart is inked with light blue and green. The image under the cut-apart was rescued for future use : ).

The two white cut-a-parts I inked the edges with a pale blue and a light green Martha Stewart cat-eye ink pad. The chartreuse mat had a lovely dolphin in the middle so I cut it out before mounting the starfish in it. I'll use it for something later. This time I remembered to set the brads before I had put everything on the card. But, if you forget, you can always cover them with a lovely stamped image lol. I'm thinking about adding some heat embossing to the starfish and the happy anniversary, or maybe some diamond glaze.

Teal ribbon wrapped around the mat, ends held in place with brads (remembered before I glued down the mat lol). I inked the cut-apart with a little light green and light blue ink.

The sentiment and the turtles were hand stamped. The turtles were colored in with some garden green and some blue Stampin' Up watercolor crayons. The ink was water base so it looked more water-colored when the crayons were blended. It's one of my favorites.

Same coconut stamp, brown ink, watercolor crayons in coconuts and border. This is another favorite of mine.

The dolphin, whale and swordfish are stamped. The whale and big thanks are part of a cut-apart that came with the kit. The edges are inked.

The mat and the two cut-aparts were inked with a soft blue ink pad.

I tore the cut-a-part, then colored it with a water color crayon then blended it with a wet brush. I tore a piece of handmade teal paper and glued it around the mat. Three brads which I also remembered to set before I glued the mat on the card (yay!).

I inked this one along the edges of the mat with light blue and green. I loaded the stamp with ink and then just kept stamping above and below the original stamp and then down the mat.

The white printed cut-apart was inked with light blue and light green inks which matched the printed colors remarkably well. The graduated mat had an image, which I saved for future use. The teal mat is the most beautiful paper. It looks like water, if water was paper lol.

Torn strips of handmade teal paper, topped by a swordfish cut-apart edged with blue and green ink. The teal paper was a bit resistant to being glued, so I used Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive and put it under a box of watercolor crayons and some colored pencils until it had dried.

The clams were stamped on the card. The white cut-apart was edged with light blue ink.

Jelly fish were stamped on the background. The cut-apart was inked and attached with dimensional dots.

Everything was inked with Versamark Ocean.