The Power of Practice – Stamped Smiles

Hello friends! I’m so excited to be sharing a special collaboration blog hop with my fellow crafty friends collab FB group as we share our own personal progression on how practice over time can help to increase your confidence and skills within your crafting journey. (blog hop links are at bottom of post.)

So please grab your favorite beverage and join us in this fun and informative blog hop that shows how “the power of practice” can be utilized in your own crafting! (highlights are done in red.)

I would like to start off by stating each person’s experience is their own journey and will run on it’s own pace which is something that we all need to be aware of and patient with. Some particular skills will take much longer to grasp than others and you need to take it easy on yourself without harsh judgement. Just enjoy the process and have fun with it! (That was and still is the hardest thing for me to learn.)

Although I’ve been paper crafting for the last 20 years or so, I’ve been involved in several different crafts throughout my entire childhood or since I could hold a crayon in my hand! My grandmother as well as my mother has passed down their experience with crafts which I learned from and picked up many others along the way including what I love today. So some things I do may already come naturally for me without recognizing where it came from because it was taught to me long ago. There are some things, however, that I’ve had to spend the time learning.

Now taking classes aren’t the ONLY way to learn something for sure! Good ole “Trial and Error” are great for learning and gaining personal experience from…which I tend to learn the most from actually!😁 Another thing that helps is new tools/products to help make the process easier or look more “finished” or “professional” in nature. When I first started with my stamps, there was not a common heat tool for instance. I had to heat emboss over a stove! So times have changed as well as techniques and inspiration. Inspiration is EVERYWHERE over the Internet too! Many people have so many clever ideas…I wish I could keep up with them all! Some things may not be of interest to you and others may intrigue or intimidate you. Find what interests you the MOST..at the time…and work on it because you will love learning about it which means you will gain more knowledge from it. You don’t have to share with others what you do as long as YOU enjoy what you’re doing. Do what feels right to you and your journey. It’s never about others, it’s about YOU!

I feel like I could write an entire book on just this matter, but since this is a visual craft, it’s better to “see” with your eyes sometimes or show how things can come together…or not!🤨

I’m starting with a photo of a card I had made back in 2007 when I had already been a year into having a blog and was still a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator at the time. Even the technology of simply taking a photograph has improved tremendously over the years…

crafting encouragement single Neighborhood_by_basement_stamper

I no longer have most of the products used here and I had to lift the photo from my Splitcoaststampers gallery as they have stored my oldest photos I have anywhere. This was the first place that I shared anything I made online. (There are 124 pages of my gallery and if you look through, you will see the progression over time.)

Now I could really criticize myself and pick this all apart, but it was part of my process at the time. And at that time, I was happy with it. It looks like I’ve colored with ink pads and a blender pen, cut out the images with scissors as well as cut fringes of the grass border. (tools have improved since and many purchases have been made as well!😊) As we move forward, I can share how I updated that design today:

Vicki-CraftyChefs and POPhop

What I have decided to do was to take the photo of the older card above and make an updated version of the same design, but with the mindset and techniques that I’ve learned since. You can see that my coloring has improved as well as the different tools and items that have been updated to help with my design execution. I still used similar colors, similar layout design as well as coloring an image, but just maybe updated the look from the practicing of not just the coloring over time, but the practice of just cutting the layers and putting things together as compared to years past. Just meerily putting together card after card has helped me with the practice and made me better aware. So you can see how just putting together a card in general, with practice, can help improve skills!

Another tip I find helpful is to join your fellow crafty friends in groups and collaborations like this blog hop as well as other groups which is what I’ve also made this card for, called “The Crafty Chefs“, where we take turns coming up with a new “recipe” to follow each month. There’s no pressure, just a group of friends coming together, learning from each other through challenges, and inspiring one another as we enjoy our love of crafting! For me, this is a huge deal. Check out the link above if you’re interested in joining with us! It’s still fun to craft, but it’s even better when it’s shared with someone. So here’s the September Crafty Chef’s recipe that our head chef Linda has come up with for us to use:

Crafty Chefs Sept recipe

(I have used ALL of the “must do” items and then added a couple of pearls from the “can do” items.)

I have found that within the last several years, many people enjoy watching video tutorials on You Tube..which makes sense because seeing someone actually doing something or putting something together is a better way to learn rather than just seeing a finished photo of a project. So to see how I’ve made my latest card for my son’s birthday, check it out below or CLICK HERE to view on my You Tube channel:

Hopefully through the video you were able to learn a few things that you can incorporate into your own card making. Sometimes we can improve upon ourselves by even trying to recreate something we’ve done in the past and add some new things you’ve learned along the way. It’s a great way to see how far you’ve come along and not be so critical of yourself to remind you that you are always learning, as I still am right now as well.

I have to chuckle at this card for my son’s birthday as he is a fun-loving jokster that will appreciate this along with the fact that it’s a bear image. He was nicknamed “Bear” in his school years, so I thought these Big Grumpy products from Taylored Expressions would work perfectly for this! I’ve also used the Big Grumpy Birthday stamps to go with him along with the other products used in my video above.

For the sparkle, I’ve taken some Stickles Star Dust glitter and added to the birthday hat as well as the center of the bow in the present. I used a glitter brush pen over the balloon and bow. I added dots to his cheeks, hat and the present with a white gel pen. I forgot to mention in the video that I’ve added a couple of brown pearls to the blue strip so that I added something from the “can do” list for the Crafty Chefs recipe!😉

I really hope that this post was helpful as well as enjoyable for you and that you received some benefit for taking the time to read over it. I know that I will be looking forward to seeing what my other crafty friends have to share and inspire me with! I think there is something to learn from everyone no matter how long you’ve been doing it.

The power of practice simply means, to me, being able to refine your skills into something that you want to be better at, take in more information or take it to the limits of your ability. This is done by repeating often and over time to increase or add to your knowledge of what you’re trying to improve upon. If we are not trying new things, then we are not learning or growing as individuals.

Please be sure to check out the following crafty friends’ blogs below to see their take on this blog hop concept: