Howdy all,
Welcome to my Tuesday Talk blog post as part of Art For The Mind #AFTMBH1 Blog Hop.
So I'm a huge Supernatural fan and I promise not to over geekout on you in this post. However, part of my love for Supernatural is more than the TV show, it's the actors, the behind scenes team, their families and most importantly their fans. The Supernatural fans consider themselves not only a fandom but a family, because family doesn't end in blood. They are a truly amazing supportive group of people from all walks of life the globe over. They believe it's okay to talk about your struggles, in that You Are Not Alone and to Always Keep Fighting (your own mental battles, or challenges) as ways to keep going when times are tough or the darkness becomes overwhelming.
This group of people even spawned their own charity, Random Acts, headed by the cast member Misha Collins (Castiel). Random Act's main fundraiser is called GISH, which is an elaborate creative scavenger hunt. As I participate in GISH, it gave me the opportunity to be part of a card exchange this last holiday season. I sent 10 card to the 10 people after me on the list, and everyone else did the same. There were many hundreds of people from all over the world involved. What I love is that it gave me the opportunity to connect with 20 complete strangers who happened to be like minded creative nerds.
During the pandemic many people have been in extended periods of isolation in some truly scary times. Some have barely seen other people other than the delivery guy in months. For me, reaching out and connecting with these 20 strangers actually meant more than sending cards to close family and friends. (I try to check in more regularly with family and friends wellbeing over Covid).
When I saw the Flowering Cactus Product Medley it immediately reminded me of one of my fellow GISH card exchangers, they were from Texas and had noted that they didn't have cowboys were they were but they could see Mexico from their window. As an Australian, the idea of seeing into a whole other country from your house was absolutely amazing. So I wanted to make them a card and tell them how amazing I thought it was and more about life here. To continue the new connection, a new friendship we had made simply by sending a card.
The cactus reminds me of my vision of what Texas might be like, and I loved that this product medley had such a lovely suite of colours and flowers rather than a more desert colour theme. I chose to really work with these colours bring the green through with the card base and sentiment piece in Old Olive cardstock and the main panel with patching Old Olive pattern paper from the DSP in the Product Medley.
The cactus features are mostly die cuts from the Designer Series Paper from the Product Medley, got to love when the dies match the paper as well as the stamp set. I also did the tall cactus in the background with a die that also embosses on the Old Olive cardstock, the embossing is quite striking. The die cuts were all layered together then popped up on Dimensionals, because a Kerrin card just isn't complete without Dimensionals.
For this card I decided to challenge myself and make it a fancy fold or fun fold. It's a variation of a reverse double gate fold based off the fabolous Patty Bennett's card. However instead of simply looking up how Patty did hers or following the lovely converted to metric design from my Team Leader Michelle Mill, I wanted to create a version of it from scratch for myself. After 3 trials, I'm really happy with this design, which also nicely fits into a normal Basic White C6 envelope.
The Flowering Cactus Product Medley and refil packs are available now in the new Jan-June Mini Catalogue. Click HERE to see what other fabulous products are available in the Mini Catalogue.
To give the card a polished look I embossed the sentiment in white and used the cute felt flowers from the Product Medley on the sentiment as well as the design panel. Tip, use the Liquid Glue to adhere the felt flowers.
Did you know with every $90 you spend in January & February you are eligible for a FREE product from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue. That's FREE products for a limited time on top of any other promotion, make sure you check out the Sale-A-Bration promotion by clicking HERE.
Thanks for coming over and having a look, I hope you feel inspired to create your own cards and projects, please see below for a link to products used to make the above card.
BLOG HOP to see what other awesome creations are happening in the Stampin' Up! world, remember my name is Kerrin Shannon, so start with the name and design after mine.
To join in future Art For The Mind Blog Hops, go over and join our Facebook Group HERE.
Product List
