Today is World Cardmaking Day. Apparently. And I have nothing.

I have nothing ready. No dazzling sample to share. Nothing to illustrate the fun to be had with my hobby. I should have planned in advance, but in reality I have sat down with 45 minutes in which to think of a card, make the card, photograph the card and blog about the bleeping card. Hardly conducive to a nice relaxing afternoon, so I though about not posting at all, but the gods of paper craft would not allow that.

So, some panicky strategic thinking is required. A kernel of a plan forms. I will make a super-quick card using minimal supplies, something which perhaps a total novice, happening across the World Cardmaking Day theme might look at and think, hmmn, well I can certainly do THAT for goodness sake…

Here we go then. I chose one set of stamps, three shades of ink and a card blank. I could have used just two inks and the stamped the rain in black, but ink is not exactly pricey and most people would happily choose a few colours to get them started I think. Also as a tool I do have an acrylic block or two, but if you don’t own any you can use an empty CD case as this will hold your stamp firm and let you see the positioning.

I stamped the greeting first, to make sure it would be where I wanted it on the card. It is actually straight but the photo makes it look a bit wonky! If I did the umbrella first then the sentiment may have ended up too low. Actually I think I could have positioned the brolly a bit higher here, but this was a one shot attempt, no time to re-do anything. If you are starting out and wonder how to do all this, The Cobweborium Emporium has a couple of brilliant detailed posts all about stamping technique.

Second I stamped the handle, then the umbrella frame (is it a frame? Or a canopy?). The infill sections are separate images, so you can add them inside the frame or stamp, cut out and layer on. I decided on the latter to reduce any possible mess-ups. I was going to glue them all flat, again in the spirit of keeping the supplies list down, but the middle section just looked so darn good raised up on one tiny, tiny bit of 3d foam that I had to go with it.

Finally some raindrops and, because I have them, a sparkly gem for the peak of the umbrella. Again this could easily be left out. I could add ribbon or baker’s twine too.

There we have it. A card, a picture or two, a blog post. 45 minutes well spent, hopefully.

Supplies: Clearly Besotted April Showers stamp set; Altenew inks Jet Black and Caribbean Sky; Brilliance ink Rocket Red. Gem from Docrafts