***WARNING - Gabi, if you don't want to know what I made for our swap, then read no more.***
The two swaps that I'm currently participating in, a Cookie Swap and Post Card Swap, have really stretched my imagination. I thought they'd be easy, but I was wrong. As much as I like to look at pretty papers, I have a hard time coming up with ideas on how to use them.
My first challenge was the cookie swap. The idea was to come up with some sort of decorated recipe cards and recipe card container. I'm real original, I went with a recipe card holder. I decided to decoupage my holder, which was a lot of fun. An important lesson to note is that mod podge doesn't come off of the kitchen counter easily, so be careful where you use that stuff. After I decoupaged my holder I was a bit lost, so I went on my first trip to a scrapbook store. Oh. my. god. Those papers were so pretty. I was in a paper buying frenzy, but I really didn't know what I wanted to do with the paper. After much hemming and hawing I came up with my design for my cards, then decoupaged my holder some more to match my cards. Yes, it looks like a kindergarten did it.
I do not scrap book and I have no clue how to do that kind of stuff. I visited a few scrap book blogs for inspiration, any boy, there are some talented people out there. How they achieve such beautiful results with all those layers of papers and mixed media I'll never know. Seeing all that kind of made me want to pitch mine, but then I'd have to make something else. Gabi, I hope you like what I've made. I also made some goodies in the media I'm most comfortable with (fabric), but I'm saving that for a surprise. You'll have to wait until your package arrives!
Yes, I know I could have made some sort of recipe card/holder thingy using fabric, but I didn't want to. I wanted a challenge. And I got it.
The next project involving paper that I've been working on is a Christmas post card swap. This was fun. After the cookie swap, this was a breeze. I don't know why, but I found this much easier. I ended up making two versions of these postcards.
Simple, but cute. Both of these swaps made me realize that I like simple things. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Now my next challenge is getting these things to the post office!
