What "Inkspires" You Blog and Video Hop

Greetings friends and fellow crafters. LeeAnn here with a creative post for Create and Inkspire. The question behind this post is "What Inkspires You" as in   "What made you fall in love with cardmaking? A technique? A stamp company? A crafter?" ... well... I think back to when I first started crafting. 

I want to fly away to see my grandbabies, my daughters are the reason I started crafting in 1998 and the grandbabies are the reason I got back into it in 2014. 

Today... my card is made using Alcohol inks and Dollar Tree stickers. The black layer of cardstock and the poster board I did my ink blending on also came from Dollar Tree (their poster board works great with Alcohol Inks), and so much cheaper than YUPO!!! I used alcohol blender solution, along with Aqua, Sailboat Blue and Silver Mixatives to create my background. This is such a fun way to play around. My inked layer is 3.75" x 5", with the black layer being 4" x 5.25" and my cardbase is 4.25" x 5.5" top folding, American Sized A2.

Up next in the hop is Laura and her fun video

https://youtu.be/coEtVe66BNc

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MY TOTAL BACK STORY, 

You really don't have to read it all if you don't want to, but if you want to know about me and how I got started... well here it is. 

It was 1998 and my girls were 10, 8 and 7. We lived in Georgia and all the rest of our family and friends  that they grew up with lived in Florida. I knew we were going to be moving back to Florida soon, but wanted memories of our life up in Georgia and the friends they had made. Facebook wasn't a think, we had AOL and messenger and otherwise they talked on the phone, imagine that. 

Anyway, I went to a Scrapbook get together, and bought all the stuff. Came home, started pages, and album and had fun. Then we moved back to Florida. Didn't take long for me to be invited to a Scrapbook get together and I knew I was all for it, I went, bought more stuff and signed up to sell it myself. I had get togethers at our home monthly and we had a great time. Stamping was started out and I said HECK NO, I will not be doing that, I don't want to have 500+ stamps so I have everything I want to say in 5 different fonts, I will just use the computer. 

Low and behold life happened, and all my product was gone.I was so upset over it, as i had a couple thousand dollars in product and albums and memories gone.

THEN, I remarried, and there was a scrapbook superstore in Pigeon Forge, TN where we honeymooned... OMG, that place was big and I spent $80 without thinking. Still no stamps, got home and never touched it. 

Fast forward 2 years and my daughter said she was pregnant... well that was the end of it. I had to have all the things started looking at Cricut or Cameo... decided on Cameo. Started with the vinyl kit, sentiments, designs and all cut with vinyl or paper only. We lived in a small town, only place to shop was Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart, unless we drove over an hour either way. 

I started making cards because not all family had computers and facebook. 

These are the first cards I ever made...

The first card below was for my Aunt, she helped raise me and I owe everything I am to her. She loved the cards I would make for her, and would call me when she received one. Aunt Eloise was 81 when I started making my cards, and sadly we lost her 3 years later.

This second card was for my Mother in Law, she is just the best. She has done so much for my husband and I in the years we have been together and she still has this card now, sitting on the shelf in the living room. She is the first one that ever asked me to make cards for her, I made 100 the next Christmas for her to send out to family and friends. This is the reason I do not make 2 of the same card if at all possible now. LOL.

This last card is one i made for my daughter when she was pregnant with my grandson, my first biological grandchild. I was so proud of this card, she has it in the box with all my grandsons baby keepsakes. Makes me a proud mama and Mimi. 

Eventually I did turn to the wild side, it only took about 3 months... August 2014 we went to Virginia for my grandsons birth, yeah I bought some Craigslist packs while up there, a bunch of wood mount stamps, inks, paper, tools and fun. Now, I have a room full of love, I'm happy with my clear stamps, never did get with the wood mount and have given them away. But something I also do from time to time is stroll the craft section and Dollar Tree to see what fun I could have.

Then I found Design Teams, I have been on at least one team since September 2015, and have so loved almost every minute of it. Sometimes getting projects completed at the last second, while other times getting projects done days, weeks and sometimes months before they are due. I love it when I am able to do that, but sometimes that isn't always possible.