A Little Pretty Paper

Ah! Little did I know that all it would take was a little pretty paper to inspire me. I went back to my desk to straighten up and was putting my Everlasting paper packet away when I caught sight of the Cranberry flowered paper. It reminds me of an old-fashioned wallpaper print. The card colors are Cranberry, Desert Sand, and Bamboo. I sanded all of the cardstock edges and distressed the Bamboo pieces, the patterned paper, and the natural twill ribbon with my Bamboo ink pad. The stamped images are mounted with foam tape. I even came up with my own sketch, although I'm sure it's something I saw somewhere once upon a time. While In My Heart will most likely never be my "cup of tea" when it comes to favorite stamp sets, I'm feeling better about it and my mojo. Tomorrow!

My Mojo Is Missing

I love Close To My Heart's Stamp of the Month program. However, every few months I end up with a stamp set that is difficult for me to promote, because it's not my style. January's In My Heart is one of those sets. I thought and thought, stamped and stamped, and threw one piece of cardstock after another into the wastebasket. I tried different color combinations. I heat embossed. I tried dry embossing. I got out the glitter and ended up with nothing more than a mess.

It wasn't just this stamp set today either. I saw a cute snowflake card on someone else's blog and couldn't even manage to stamplift it. After several attempts, I gave up on that card, too. There's no magic in Kathi's Corner today. My mojo is missing. The three cards I'm posting are pretty darned blah even though I like the red/white color combo.

For more (better) ideas, check out CTMH's website. The brown/pink color combination is awesome, as are the cards in the additional artwork. I especially like the Love card. Desert Sand, Cranberry, Outdoor Denim and Sweet Leaf are not colors I would have thought to use together with this stamp set. The results, however, are stunning. Perhaps a good night's sleep will be the cure for my creatively crunch. I hope so. Like I said, I think the SOTM program is great. I realize, too, that while nearly all of the stamp sets have broad appeal, not every set is going to appeal to every stamper. You never know, too, I may just wake up tomorrow morning, park my backside in Kathi's Corner, and be inspired to create something awesome with In My Heart. We'll see . . .