You're A Deer

The journey begins! Or rather, it began earlier this week. I made my first ever greeting card with a handful of paper craft supplies that I receieved from my wonderful husband for Christmas. Yes, ladies, it's true! You too can train your men to shop in craft stores! All you need to do is make a list, complete with the exact pinpointed location of each item on the shelves and detailed drawings of the aisles in relation to the door and cash registers.

Anyhow, there was nothing in particular that I really needed for Christmas this year, and I'd been wooed by all the stamps, inks and pretty patterned papers at Michaels for quite some time, so I decided that paper crafts would be my next venue in the world of creating. I somehow stumbled upon a youtube video of the extraordinarily talented Kristina Werner, which led me to her blog (see sidebar -- she's totally worth checking out) and after watching a few of her Make A Card Monday and Finally Friday videos, I knew I just had to try my hand at making a card of my own.

And viola! (Or however you spell that. It never looks quite right to me.)


Not too shabby, right? Okay so, it's not fantastic, but it was my first attempt. Considering the fact that I had no idea what the correct card size was, and no idea how to use my new Fiskars rotary cutter (Is that even what it's called? I'll have to look that up.) I was pretty pleased with the results.

I don't know why the top of the card looks crooked in the pic. It's really not. It must be just how I placed it for the photograph. Let's take a closer look at some of the detail.

I stamped the little deer in walnut colored ink, then added a little detail with some colored pencils. At first I colored his little nose pink, but that didn't look right, so I went over it with brown. The combination turned a deep red, which made him look a little too much like Rudolph, so ended up having to go pretty dark to cover it up. I tried to balance it out by giving him some hooves, which I think actually tied in nicely with the dark brown stripe in the ribbon. Happy accident. :o)

And that's what I love about creating. There's really no right or wrong, just trial and error. Just stress-free, rolling with the wind, going with the flow, cool runnings and all that kinda vibes. And really, couldn't we all use a little more of that in our lives?

If you've created something new this week, post a pic of it on your blog and copy a link to it in your comments. I'd love to take a look at your little piece of happiness.