Stash Kit Project: Info 2

I originally wrote about the Stash Kit Project in August of 2016, and I've had several questions about it since. So, I thought that I would make a follow up post to expand on the idea of making kits from your stash.
 
The first big thing that I want to mention is that the purpose of a stash kit is to give a jump start to your creative process and to make card-making easier. What that entails may be very different from one crafter to the next - as it could be anything from simple organization (a box with all the essentials to make a card without having to pull out a million supplies), to inspiration (a project to get you warmed up and get the creative flow going), to learning (a box with all the supplies for trying out a new technique).

Another important thing to mention is that you are entirely in charge of what the kit is and how you use it. My friend Maggie does scrapbooking and she takes the leftovers (ex. letter stickers that don't spell out anything, flowers in colors/designs she doesn't like, cardstock with blemishes) to use as layout practice. When she likes a layout design, she sketches it out and uses it with the supplies she loves. And my friend Amélie makes her kits based on supplies used on a cards she made and loved. She includes a photo of her original card in the box, and she can quickly use the kit if she wants to recreate the look.

Lastly, I wanted to share a few ideas for making a couple of unconventional stash kits:

Inspiration Kit:
This is a great kit to use on those days when you just don't feel motivated to create - maybe it's been a long day and you're tired, or maybe you feel overwhelmed by your stash. Sometimes we just need a starting point to get us going.
- Add inks, cardstock and/or patterned paper that fits a certain palette.
Try going for colors you don't use often or combinations you haven't used on a card in a while.
- Make a "mood board" featuring embellishments, layout/card sketches and stamp/die combos.
Sometimes being in the right mind-set is the inspiration you need. Having a small collection of supplies to use together could really get those creative gears going.
- Add an old supply you've had for ages and one of the newest things in your stash.
Pairing the old with the new is a great creative exercise and it really helps you feel like your stash is a working collection instead of individual pieces.

Themed Kit:
This type of kit is excellent both for crafting in a hurry (last minute cards) and filling up your stash of cards you'll need throughout the year. I find this type of kit to be excellent especially for cards that are more challenging to make, such as sympathy or masculine cards.
- Add a variety of stamped sentiments, including several font and color choices.
You can stamp your sentiments on banners, for example, or heat-emboss them onto cut-out panels.
- Add several style options, ranging from mature and serious to young and funny.
Since the kit isn't meant for a single card, a group of elements will give you enough choices for several cards without overwhelming you.
- Include quick basics such as card bases, stickers, pre-colored stamped images, die-cut shapes/panels.
This will ensure that you'll both be able to make a card quickly, but also spend extra time playing around with placement, combining different supplies if you wish to.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Final Quad

As I will be going on a lovely family vacation for the next couple of weeks, I thought I would post the remainder of the cards for the Sea & Cats kit.

 Just a fun 'n simple little creation featuring a white queen cat and her bowl of goodies.

Another monster-ific unbelievable birthday with Lawn Fawn's sweet Nessie.

Birthday duo of yellow-orange kittens with a doily and a bright birthday sentiment.

Last (but not least), a "from all of us" type of card featuring lots of kitties.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Sandy Kraken Birthday

This is probably one of my favorite cards in the Sea & Cats Stash kit. There's just something about a wide stripe that makes my heart happy - and even more so when it's paired with a sparkly kraken and a whimsical birthday greeting.

For this card, I used the Mini Stitched Scalloped Rectangles dies from My Favorite Things. I purchased this set of dies during a Black Friday sale, and I'm so glad I did. I love how sweet the scallops look and how well the different sizes layer together. I can see myself using this die a lot (along with the mini rectangles), which I got at the same time.

The scallops added a "cute" touch that fits so well with the adorable Lawn Fawn designs. That's something I find myself looking for often, I think. If a stamp is edgy, I aim for an edgy die or layout. Something as sweet as Lawn Fawn calls for sweet detail like scallops.

To finish my card off, I added a few enamel shapes, echoing the aqua background on the small rectangle and the pink blush on the kraken's face.

Thanks for reading!

~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Kitten Birthday Duo

Today's card is a break from the nautical and a splash into the wonderful world of cats. A kitten celebration seems perfectly fitting for a birthday, and a neutral teal-inspired palette keeps it fitting for both guys and gals.

I colored one kitty into a Siamese and another into a taupe-brown with a hint of white. One of my dear childhood friends had two cats just like these, and it was fun trying to figure out the best way to make them recognizable. I softened the background and gave it a little focus with some distress ink blending. And, lastly, a trio of enamels added a bit more visual interest.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Bigfoot Birthday

  Lawn Fawn Lovable Legends

It wouldn't be a birthday card without a monster-ific creation featuring Bigfoot! Since I'm planning this card to be a part of a small birthday set, I kept it very simple with minimal layering and embellishments. That way, I can recreate the same design with another stamp or two, and have a cohesive-looking birthday gift set.

Though I chose boy colors with aqua/teal and grey, the scallops add a softer touch. A palette change to pinks/purples would work with this design just as well. The enamel star could be replaced with a heart or a bow to make the card feel more feminine.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Bubble Birthday

 Lawn Fawn Lovable Legends,
Papertrey Ink - Keep It Simple: Birthday II Mini Stamp Set

Card 3 in my Sea and Cats Stash Kit features yet another adorable Lawn Fawn squid, along with a sentiment from PTI's Birthday II mini stamps.

I kept this card a little more on the masculine side - as it feels like it would be fitting for a boy birthday card. So, a palette of green with some sparkly enamel dots as bubbles worked perfectly for what I had in mind.

Being a boy card, I kept it very simple beyond that, adding just a sentiment and a small circle to ground the images.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Squid Thanks

 The second card in the Sea and Cats stash kit features an adorable giant squid and tiny boat from Lawn Fawn's Lovable Legends stamp set, along with WPlus9's Dockside (retired) sentiment. I also used a navy polkadot paper and die-cut a stitched rectangle out of a white cardstock panel for my scene. If I was making this card again, I would probably cut another panel to make the sea and sky look different - but I'd already adhered everything together when I thought of it.

This card is very simple and easy to put together. I like how the rope "thanks" matches the nautical theme of the squid and boat. As a last touch, I added a pink anchor to the end of the "T" to tie in the pink cheeks on the squid.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK Sea & Cats: Nautical Retirement

 The first card in my Sea and Cats Stash Kit share is a retirement card, using the WPlus9 Dockside stamp set (now retired). I was inspired by the nautical patterned paper that featured some classic colors  (navy and aqua) along with coral, pink and taupe. The softer colors made the palette feel neutral, which was just perfect for the retirement card I wanted to make.

I used some Lawn Fawn inks along with a couple of enamel dots as an embellishment.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Stash Kit - Sea and Cats

Today, I'm sharing the stamps that I'm using in my Sea and Cats stash kit (read about my stash kit project here). I've named this kit Sea and Cats because it includes some nautical elements and a kitty stamp set. I don't think I'll be combining the two ideas necessarily (though the idea of a seafaring kitten does sound fun), but I will be using elements from all sets to create birthday cards.

Here are the stamps that I'll be using in this kit:

Lawn Fawn Lovable Legends

My Favorite Things - Cat-itude

WPlus9 Dockside (large set from 2013, now retired)

Papertrey Ink - Keep It Simple: Birthday II Mini Stamp Set

I have also selected various patterned papers from my stash, with a combination of darker (muted) blues/teals/greens and a few bright pieces for the kitten cards.

Lastly, I'm using up some enamel dots:

Thanks for reading!

~Elle~

Chatty Sunday: January Stash Kit review

Here we are at the end of January, and you're probably wondering what happened to the January stash kit. Tthe answer is... well, nothing fun.

For some reason, the kit for January just didn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I actually loved all the components of the kit - I had a ton of random ideas for the stamps, the paper and the embellishments. I stamped out a whole bunch of cute images that I colored. I even put together a couple of extra cards! But the process, as a whole, left me very underwhelmed. I don't feel like I gave the supplies a good workout, and I really didn't feel that I should be setting the supplies down in the "used" pile.

And I'm kind of glad, actually. Not all supplies will inspire me in the same ways, and I think that's the whole point of doing this project - to figure out how my supplies are best used and to make something productive with them. The fact that a month was underwhelming is good. I went from very structured sets last year (thematic sets) to something completely random in January, and it was a bit like a swinging pendulum - neither extreme worked for me. I don't want completely structured, but I also don't want completely random, either.

With this in mind, I figured out a couple of changes I need to make to the kit process:

The first change is to make the kits a bit smaller. January's kit had 7 stamps - and that's just too much for a single kit. I've decided to go back to a 4-stamp model, with it being broken down to: one smaller set (ex. 3x3 or 4x4 set), one standard set (4x6), one larger set (4x7.5 or larger) and one sentiment set (any size). This gives me a great variety of stamps to use, but without feeling like the amount of material I need to use is overwhelming.

The second change will be to take out any rubber stamps. Although I do plan to use my rubber stamps, I think they're better-suited to single cards. Almost all of my rubber stamps are character stamps, and the majority are a bit complicated - so they take a lot longer to color. I think it will work better to use them as I'm inspired to, instead of forcing them into a kit.

And the last change will be to get rid of the monthly time element. Instead of a monthly kit, they'll just be kits - and I'll continue working on them for as long as it takes me to make 12 cards. I'm still hoping to hit that 1-kit-per-month mark, but I am also looking forward to feeling less pressure to try and cram making 8 cards in one evening. Deadlines can be a great motivator, but too rigid of a schedule starts making the process feel like a job or a chore, and I don't want that.

In the next week, I'll be sharing my next kit. The focus will be on birthday and masculine/boy cards, as I'm going to be working on some gift sets for Christmas.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK January: Favorite You

Today's card is the first card in the January's Stash Kit project (you can read more about the project here, and see January supplies here).

Whenever I start on the kit cards, I always start by laying out all the supplies and making a quick "warm-up" card. I don't usually keep this card - it's just playful practice to get me more familiar with the supplies I'm using. But this time, I actually rather like how the card turned out.

I kept the card super simple, adding just a couple of dies (tag and a scripty You), along with a couple of stickers and enamel shapes. Not too shabby for a practice card, right?

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Stash Kit: January 2017

Since it's a new year, I thought I'd start with a fresh new kit for January -- and take the opportunity to incorporate some of the recently-purchased supplies I got in the holiday sales. I've added extra stamps for January, as I intend to carry some of them over to the months that follow.

As with previous months, I will be adding a variety of cardstock, dies and coloring mediums such as Copics, Prismacolor pencils or watercolor. 

Without further ado...

Little Darlings - Rainy Night

Reverse Confetti - Lift Me Up

Pinkfresh Studio - Happy Days

Ellen Hutson LLC - All Inside

Neat & Tangled - Giving Tree

Simon Says Stamp - What's Brewing

WPlus9 - Garden Buddies

Pinkfresh Studio - Felicity 6x6

Pinkfresh Studio - Felicity Word Stickers

Webster's Pages - #Happy phrase stickers

Gossamer Blue - Gramercy Road enamel dots

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Chatty Sunday: Stash Kit October Review

 As October is now over, I wanted to review the kit and how I did with it.

In last week's chatty Sunday post, I briefly mentioned one of the biggest challenges and concerns with this kit - that the cards were starting to look or feel too similar. Both September and October had very thematic stamps (fall and Halloween) . October, in particular, was difficult because I felt like I ran out of steam sometime in the middle of the process (the spooky purple card). While I'm not unhappy with the cards I created, those last few cards fall more in the category of "like" than "love".

My goal with the Stash Kit project was to make use of my supplies, but I didn't want to create mindlessly or repetitively. Instead, I wanted it to be a way to continue being creative while having a better and more definite focus.

So, future kits will be less thematic, and hopefully a lot more fun.

Here's the tally:
- 11 cards created.
- Added dies, ribbon and card bases from my stash.
- Images colored with Copics and fussy-cut.
- 14 colored images and 4 sentiments left -- they will go in my ready-to-use bin.
- Images were colored with Copics and a couple were enhanced with Prismacolor pencils.

While Copics are still my top choice for coloring, I will try to expand my range a little in November and add some watercolor and purely pencil crayon coloring as well. I think that will lend itself to new techniques and designs.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK October - Batty

This is the final card using October's Stash Kit. With this card, I wanted to try a layout that was a bit like a scene card without being an actually elaborate scene. I used the adorable bat from Witch Way Is the Candy? by Birdie Brown (now retired) and some bits of paper I still had from a previous card. I added pops of white around the patterned paper strip and a couple of die-cut clouds to make the circular panel look like a purple moon.

 Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK October- Purple Kitten

Today's card is another Stash Kit card, using the cute cat and witch's hat from Lawn Fawn's Spooktacular stamp. This time, I tried a different card layout, going with a relatively clean and simple design and using up some paper scraps I had on my desk. I also tied some ribbon to this card, as well as sprinkled just a couple of enamel dots.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

Stash Kit: November

One of the challenges with October's kit was that cards started to all look the same. So, I decided to add a touch of randomness and variation.

So, the kit for November does not have one unifying theme. Instead, I've just pulled a few random stamps from the stash and added a couple sets I could use for Thanksgiving projects. Since the selection is random, I've also added more paper pads.

Let's jump straight into it!

The Greeting Farm - Wednesday

Art Impressions - 29 Again

 

My Favorite Things - (BB) Harvest Mouse

Simon Says Stamp - Apple of My Pie

Neat & Tangled - Better Together

Paper Smooches - Metropolis

I've chosen 3 different paper pads.

Lawn Fawn - Perfectly Plaid Fall 6x6

Lawn Fawn - Sweater Weather 6x6

Avery Elle - The Happy Collection 6x6

Lastly, I've added a few embellishments:

Your Next Stamp - Give Thanks for Sparkle Gumdrops

Your Next Stamp - Love Earth Gumdrops

Doodlebug - Rainbow Assortment Sequins

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK October: Orange Mummy

We're winding down to just a few kit cards left! For today's card, I kept things very simple and used one of my go-to layouts -- rectangle panels of various sized. I layered the sentiment and the mummy cat together and embellished with some enamel dots.

I opted to use orange tones, as I have mostly gravitated toward purple, green and black when it comes to Halloween.

This card is using Mama Elephant's Meowlloween Extras stamp and Doodlebug sprinkles orange vellum (I believe it's now retired).

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK October - Purple Spook

This card actually came together rather accidentally. I was planning on a much more elaborate set-up, including a patterned paper panel and some scattered sequins. But, as I was rummaging through my stamped images and sentiments, the ghost and the sentiment rectangle just fell together. I liked how it looked - like the ghost was popping out of the sentiment.

So, I simplified my design and just let that placement be the focal point. I wanted to add a bit of color to make the sentiment stand out, so I blended in some Dusty Concord distress ink into the corner. I adhered the sentiment and the ghost, then added them to a black card base. I tied some purple ribbon underneath.

The last step was to add some dots with Nuvo crystals. I added the purple dots just fine, then planned to add another few yellow dots for contrast. Of course, the yellow is not working great for me and instead of a nice dome, I ended up with a line. I was pretty bummed out, but then realized it could be fun -- it looks like streaks from falling stars or firecrackers, and that's a very interesting look. Creativity to the rescue, right?!

Thanks for reading,
Elle

SK October - Be Afraid

Yet another cute Halloween creation for October's Stash Kit project, today! Like yesterday's card, I'm using Mama Elephant's Meowlloween Extras stamp and Doodlebug patterned paper, along with a selection of dies.

For this card, I wanted to add a touch of sparkle, so I adhered a strip of sparkly silver cardstock. I kept the rest of the card very simple, and added the sentiments stamped on banner dies.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~

SK October: Mousey Hello

Time for another Stash Kit card! This time, I'm using Mama Elephant's Meowlloween Extras stamp. I absolutely fell in love with the adorable little mice that's featured in this set - they're the main reason I bought the set - so, I wanted to make them a main feature.

I kept the card very simple, cutting a rectangle of Doodlebug patterned paper and using the Tri Circle die to create little windows for my mice. I added the mice with some foam squares, and adhered a simple sentiment underneath.

The card was missing something, so I added a couple of enamel dots and a hand-drawn border.

Thanks for reading!
~Elle~