Monthly Makes for January

I've been relatively productive this month, taking part in scrapping and card challenges on the UKS forums. I also decided to join in the Monthly Make for 2012 on the Felt Fairy's blog (see badge at the bottom of my blog). This month I have made my first ever ATCs, for a swap, and a card that I can now put up because the person I sent it to should have got it by now!

ATCs represented a completely new challenge for me: being creative in such a small space. When I scrap, I tend to leave space rather than fill pages up too much, but being able to fit everything I wanted onto a little card was a challenge for sure. I made a series of 6, entitled "Secrets in Lace", and 5 have been swapped; I kept the first one as I thought it might be nice to hang on to my first ever ATC. I'd be happy to make one-offs or more series if anyone wants to do a swap, just let me know.

 This card was really fun to make, it came out more like a scrapbook layout than some of my cards, but it was for a lovely friend so I wanted to spend a bit more time on it, hence I've used more techniques, more layers than I usually would: inking, stamping, die-cutting, collage. I liked the contrast of the girlie pastel dress and bunting against the aged feel of the stamped background.
Now I'm on a roll with my cardmaking I'm starting to enjoy it more, like I used to when I first started. I think taking inspiration from scrapping has really helped so I'll try and keep up with the 52 card challenge for the rest of the year!!