Scraplings

This week on the Daring Cardmakers it's Paula's turn to set the dare and it's her first time setting the challenge. She's come up with something both practical and unusual. Practical because it's a chance to use up scrap cardstock and unusual because of the shapes and sizes of the cards we're been making.

My first challenge is all about

SCRAPLINGS

Scraplings are little narrow cards made from scrap cardstock. You know how when you make a card from a a piece of A4 or Letter sized cardstock you're left with an off-cut? Well that's the basis of a Scrapling. When folded in half, the Scrapling's card front will measure roughly 2 1/2" x 4 1/4" , though this depends of course on the size of card you were making in the first place!

Paula set the pace when she gave as examples not one but THREE little beauties to admire. They looked so pretty grouped together that a few of the team followed her lead - or it maybe that they were just showing off lol lol
So when you head over to the DCM BLOG you'll find lots of Scraplings to admire and inspire/ there are solos, duos and trios to see, so please check them all out - more info on them all will appear on our personal blogs too.


I made two - because I had two pieces of the Kraft card lying on my desk from last week's dare. Somehow they were different sizes, which is strange as both the cards I made last week ended up the same 14cm square that I prefer....
That's really why I made one portrait and one landscape style card, they'd have looked rather odd otherwise.

I used MME "Merry Days of Christmas" papers for these two little cards.

I knew I wanted to use those papers but couldn't decide how to use them on the little cards - you know how it is when you're having one of those days, nothing goes according to plan, does it? Even something as simple as sticking a couple of scraps of paper on a card is difficult!

Then it took me ages to make the sentiment because I was trying to be clever (I should know better by now). Hubby was working from home yesterday but was soooo busy and looked so stressed that I didn't like to keep asking for help, but in the end I had ask how to to get the ampersand behind the words as I'd got in a right muddle with layers and backgrounds and Heaven knows what (I'm so not techie!).

But it was the snowflakes I think that really slowed me down and ended up with me adding my cards well after 10am this morning!
I wanted to achieve something similar to the K&Co layered snowflakes you can buy - but they are in whites and blues and I wanted creams and reds because I'm awkward.

I knew the smaller dies in both Spellbinders sets weren't going to be much help and the Cuttlebug ones weren't what I wanted either.
I have a couple of punches but I wanted more variety. That's when I ended up searching the web for clipart snowflakes and converting them to Robo templates.
It took ages to get them into template form, and then the templates took ages to cut etc etc - any other day I'd have asked Hubby for advice, but I muddled on because he was so busy and I didn't like to bother him again! I just know that he'd have got them sorted out in a quarter of the time and they would have been more streamlined and quicker to cut.

Never mind, I got there in the end and actually even though I got myself in a right old pickle I did enjoy working with these Scraplings, they are a lovely way to use up off-cuts and a really nice size to work with. I've just been thinking that it would be fun to make little envelopes to fit them, too. Not sure whether I actually will or not mind!

Right. I'm going to take my coffee over to the other desk now and investigate the contents of the parcel that's just arrived from the lovely Karen at Charmed Cards and Crafts - then I plan to do some more crafting - and please, please let it not be as much of a struggle as it was yesterday!

Thanks for popping by and for leaving such wonderful messages which are always such a thrill to receive