Marching In

Hello there
Its a bit of a wet one here in Hertfordshire, but never mind, it's March at last and there are welcome signs of Spring everywhere.  
Just think, at the end of this month it'll be time to Spring Forward - we'll be re-setting our clocks to British Summer Time! 
I think Spring is my favourite season.

This week on The Daring Cardmakers its Enfys in the hot-seat for the very first time,  She's hosting the March Elemental Inspiration Picture challenge and has chosen to go down the Home Décor route.  
This is my card:

This is the photo Enfys chose for us to work with

My thought process went a bit like this;
Ooooh lovely, I do love a bit of Black & White, those stripes on the rug are fab! The vase of twigs would make the perfect focus piece for a card. 
Oh, actually, there's a stripey cushion just behind the vase, its like a background for it. And there's a framed picture on the wall, so I could make a frame for some striped paper and sit the vase on top.  
Bingo! Stripes. Frame and Twiggy Vase - three elements.

Info:

White, Black, Brown, Kraft card from Bazzill

Tonic Nested Rectangles (set of mixed straight and scalloped edges) to make the black frame.  Brown layer was hand cut

Striped paper is by MME from a 6x6 pad.

White vase was made by cutting down an oval (Tonic Nested set) of Bazzill Diamond White card.

Twigs are from Spellbinders Cherry Blossom die set

 (this is one of my most used die sets)

Arranging the elements on the card, I decided the background looked a bit too plain, so embossed another piece of the same white card using "Woodgrain Cottage" (Teresa Collins, A4 folder) - which added in another 

element from the picture too 

The vase looked dull too, so I used the berries from a Holly set (Crafters' Companion) to cut a load of tiny black dots and stuck them on.

'Birthday' is by  Creative Dies (CraftStashUK)

It did need a little splash of colour, and if you look in the top left of the picture near the glass vase of twigs you'll see some books and other bits on a shelf unit.  The tiny bit of yellow would be perfect to add some Spring blossom to my twigs - just like the forsythia or Winter Flowering Jasmine in my garden!

(tiny flowers also from Spellbinders Cherry Blossom die set)

I'm interested in how different crafters work.  I'm definitely not a plan-it-out-first sort of person.  Usually I find a starting point and just see what happens from there.  It doesn't always work, which is why I end up with half-made cards with backgrounds but no focus piece, and focus pieces with no backgrounds made.  Sometimes it's because I just don't like how they've turned out, and sometimes its because I can't find the right 'marriage' between the elements.  Maybe a bit of planning would help, but I think I'd still go off on a tangent most times 😉

What about you?  Do you go with the flow, or are you a meticulous planner? 

Anyway, thank you for popping by today, please leave a message, I'd love to hear from you - and do take a look HERE to see what the rest of the DT made.