The trouble with waiting for inspiration to strike - and this applies to anything creative - is that you could be waiting a while. Probably more so if, like me, you don't have a very visual imagination.
Confetti Birthday Kit by Stampin' Up!
The trick to inspiration is to give it some sort of framework. Help it along, if you will. Create boundaries or limitations. I always find that when I have the world to choose from, I get stuck in indecision and not knowing what to do or choose. When I have limits, I can (usually) decide. It still might take some deliberations, but I can decide.
It's the difference between "What do you want to do?" and "Would you like to do this or that?". "What would you like to eat?" or "Here's the menu: what do you fancy?"
Cross stitch and crochet tend not to need limitations: I usually have a kit, or a pattern, or a project, in mind when I start. They aren't the every-day sort of craft that card-making is, for me at least. For card-making, limitations can be a colour, or a stamp set, or a patterned paper.
When even those limitations fail me for making cards, though, I turn to a kit: a Capsule Craft Room in a box. Not a kit like the ones that Aldi do, which have a whole load of pieces, but no suggestions, but the ones more like a Lego kit, which have all the pieces for a specific project, but you could also go off-script and make something else too. They're good for trying new things - a technique or embellishments - without committing to buying an excess of new supplies. They're also good for suggesting new layouts, which is where I normally lack inspiration.
Forever Friends Kit by Stampin' Up!
For card-making, I particularly like the Stampin' Up! Kits, which often now come with both a small ink pad (what they call a Stampin' Spot) and a stamping block. I've previously had kits which only come with the ink pad, which isn't an issue: I already have stamping blocks anyway, and a stamping platform. I like small ink pads: they take up less room than the full sized ones, obviously, which makes them a much better fit for my crafting space. And if you're an occasional crafter like I am, it's easier to feel like they get used enough to justify their existence.
The instructions, too, I think are better than the previous Paper Pumpkin kits I've found on eBay (Paper Pumpkin kits aren't usually available in the UK). Easier to understand, and the separate card designs have their own instructions, which makes it much easier to work out what you need to do with each one.
As well as kits, though, I'm trying to give Inspiration a helping hand by collecting layouts and creating a look-book of card-sketches and scrapbook layouts, for when I play with my non-kit supplies. Another way of creating limitations: starting with the basic design and fitting the stamps and the pretty paper to that, instead of the other way around.
What do you do to give Inspiration a helping hand?
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