My Time To Craft Inspirational Design
Travel
Good day, fellow crafters. I am thrilled to introduce this week’s inspirational submission for the My Time To Craft Challenge Blog. As a part of the design team, it is our responsibility to collaborate and devise themes that will test your abilities and, ideally, ignite your enthusiasm to explore fresh and new ideas. However, what I like most about being part of the team is seeing how we each showcase our take on the theme. For instance, generally, what I would think of when someone suggests traveling to me are airplanes, luggage, beaches, and Mai Tai’s. While I do have plenty of stamps and dies that would allow me to create a project with those types of images it wouldn’t expand my critical thinking about the topic so I gave it more thought and developed the card you see below. I had a lot of fun with this one, especially putting a new twist on what I think of when someone says travel. I hope you are inspired to enter this challenge and I can’t wait to see your creative take on this week’s theme of travel.
The only thing that I knew for sure when I took on this theme challenge was that I was going to use one or more sheets of paper from a travel-themed scrapbooking paper pack that I have been sitting on for quite some time. I of course wasn’t sure as to which one I wanted to use exactly as they are all very good but after browsing through the options, I ultimately decided to utilize the map paper you see in the background. I really liked the colors and imagery on the map which made me think of nature, mountains, camping, ski lodges, and how one could travel to remote locations, and suddenly it struck me: why not travel by Jeep? Fortunately, I had the perfect tool to bring this concept to life—the remarkable die set from Erin Lee Creative, which you can see in the image to the left.
Having decided on the background and foreground imagery I began crafting this card by cutting the map paper and a black cardstock mat, which framed the map off quite nicely, to their final dimension and adhered them to a pre-cut A2 white card base. I then set it aside to allow it to dry while I worked on the Jeep.
So my favorite color for a vehicle is either black or red. With that said though I have never had a red vehicle of my own because I have often been told that red cars tend to draw attention from both the police and thieves. Naturally, no one wants to risk receiving a ticket or having their car stolen. Although I believe these claims are just tales, it's better to err on the side of caution, wouldn't you agree? However, when it came to creating this card, I decided to indulge myself and feature a vehicle in both red and black regardless. To do this I used the Jeep die and red cardstock for the main body, and black cardstock for the trim and tires. You are probably thinking at this point, how did you make the card light up? Well, my fellow crafter, I regret to inform you that it's merely a playful illusion created by the light in my studio bouncing off the silver mirrored cardstock from a specialty pack I happened to have. It would have been truly remarkable, though, so I'll make a mental note to give it a try in the future and see if I can bring that glow to life.
I assembled all of the pieces but I just did have the feeling that the Jeep was currently or had been recently traveling off-road. So the first thing I tried was slightly skewing the jeep to make it look like it was climbing something but it ended up just making it look like the card was crooked. I still like the idea of the Jeep being off-road but didn’t want to cover up the map background so I decided that the Jeep would be climbing over some small boulders instead. To accomplish this I cut up some gray cardstock into a rough shape and with some darker gray ink gave some detail around the edges to bring them to life. I also incorporated some green cardstock grass between the boulder for effect. With that all done I adhered it to the card base and thought I would call it done. However, it was still missing something that I couldn’t place so I put the card aside to think.
In the end, I came to the conclusion that “that something” was that it was just too clean looking to have been out in the wilderness. So to combat that I made sure to outline all of the parts in a fine black ink pen and then used a bit of blended black ink to make the Jeep look dirty and grimy. I felt this set it off nicely and again was ready to call the card done when I was asked about the windshield. Where was it? Did I forget it or was there a piece missing? The answer was I had tried to cut it out of cardstock but it didn’t feel right so I hadn’t used it. I had also tried to use vellum but that also just didn’t feel right. So in the end I turned to Glossy Accents and filled in the area of the windshield and set it aside to dry. Once dry, the result was astonishing. I must admit that the photo may deceive you, as the lighting in my studio tends to play tricks with anything coated in Glossy Accents. In reality, the surface is as smooth and flat as real glass.
To finish off the card I used black ink and a sentiment from Spellbinder’s Hit the Road stamp set (STP-020) that was simple and to the point.
Reflecting on this project, I am reminded of the joy that comes from embracing creative challenges and thinking outside the box. I look forward to future challenges, pushing the boundaries of my creativity, and witnessing the remarkable work of fellow crafters such as yourself. It is through such experiences that we continue to grow and nurture our passion for crafting.
