Concord & 9th—Paper Piecing to Get Your Crafty Mojo Back
Hello, Crafters!
The post I’m sharing today is not what I planned on sharing when I was crafting at the end of last week. I was playing with a layering stamp set when it felt like things were not going right, and I couldn’t get what I had envisioned to come to fruition. Feeling defeated, but also annoyed that this stamp set that I’ve had in my ‘to use’ bin for probably a year and a half would be going back into that bin. Why couldn’t I make one simple card?! I started getting stressed about not having anything to share today, when I remembered how playing with the Triangle Background die seemed to help me out of a funk when it felt like I was getting into one last month. So I thought, why not give this therapeutic (and somewhat mindless) crafting a go, but this time with the Honeycomb Quilt Top die set.
I had used this die set back in the fall, and I realized that I hadn’t used the hexagon dies with the ‘hi’ and the star. I figured that would be the perfect parameters for my crafty session, so I got to picking out my color palette. I have two palettes in my Swatchbook that are pretty similar, but a little bit different. I had originally planned to stick with just one (Dove, Midnight, Lemongrass, Carnation, and Sweet Pea), but since I decided to make my second card a birthday card, I wanted something a little bit brighter, so I pivoted to my second color palette of Dragonfruit, Sweet Pea, Lemongrass, Blueberry, and Pebble.
Honeycomb Hi Card
After die cutting Dove, Midnight, Lemongrass, Carnation and Sweet Pea cardstocks with the hexagon dies, I got to playing with placement. I started off in the lower right by making a flower with half of a Sweet Pea, Midnight, a Carnation ‘hi’, Lemongrass, then half of a Dove hexagon. When I started creating this card, I didn’t have the ‘hi’ hexagon in place because I wasn’t sure if I was using it yet, but I’m mentioning it here so you can see where I started! I had no plans for arrangments here, and decided to make another ‘almost flower’ starting with a Sweet Pea hexagon, then moving up throught the rest of my colors. Once I got to this point, I started adding hexagons on trying to balance colors across the card front. I basically kept making half flower shapes off the two that I started this card out with, and since I felt pretty happy with it, I glued it all down. However, in comparison to the next card, which I made yesterday morning, this one feels a bit basic/drab. It’s not horrible, it’s just a different vibe from the next one!
Honeycomb Birthday Card
Now, this card, this one I love! After completing the last one, I felt a little insecure about sharing it, so I decided to make another card but using the star hexagon die this time. Since I thought the stars were happy and playful, I decided to make a birthday card. Since I wanted my colors to reflect the vibe I was going for, I switched to my second color palette which, like the last card, has Lemongrass and Sweet Pea, but also Dragonfruit, Blueberry, and Pebble cardstock. Having the Blueberry in this card really makes the Midnight in the last card look almost black, so I definitely prefer this color palette more!
When I first started placing my hexagons, I had just thrown some colors around, not thinking too much. But then I had the idea to have the hexagons go basically in the order they were on my swatch (Dragonfruit, Sweet Pea, Lemongrass, Pebble, Blueberry). I looove how this looks with that sort of order (it’s super pleasing to look at on the swatch haha!), so I’m glad it worked out on the card. I snuck in some of the star hexagons and decided to leave the middle white. I like that the sides of the card kinda curved in a little bit and felt really balanced, and with the greeting I was planning on using if I filled in any more hexagons, it could either feel unbalanced or seem like the whole background was full.
With my background looking good, I got to work on my sentiment. I pulled out the ‘happy birthday to you’ sentiment die from the Exclamations die set and cut the shadow twice out of white cardstock (it’s the thin stuff I use for dimension), then die cut the sentiment from matte gold and three layers of plain white. This sentiment is thick!! That was the reason I decided to double up my shadow layer. Once I got the sentiment onto the shadow layer, I decided to put a heart between the ‘to’ and ‘you’, like I had when I was guest designing with this set. This heart was pulled from the All the Love die set, but I’m sure you could find a heart in your stash that would work just fine!
Before popping the greeting onto the card, I decided to use the star fall out to embellish the white hexagons. I didn’t have much of a plan here except I wanted the Dragonfruit one popping out at the top of the greeting (not much Dragonfruit at the top of the card), and the Blueberry one popping out of the bottom of it. I glued the stars down then the sentiment, and called this card done. It’s funny because now that it’s done, I noticed that my star cut out hexagons are a little wonky, I guess there is a ‘right’ way to glue them down so they all look the same! 😂 I’m okay with them being a little funny, I think it adds to that playful vibe!
I hope you liked these cards! If you feel in a rut, get out a paper piecing die set! It really helps you to bust through that rut and get your mojo back. If you feel too overwhelmed by color, check out my Pinterest board to get some color inspo! Thanks for stopping by the blog today! I hope to catch you next time, but until then, happy crafting! 😊
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