The What I’m Working On Blog Hop!

Hello everyone!

Something slightly different for today. A couple of weeks ago the lovely Louise at Boys, Bugs and Beautiful Buttons took part in the ‘what I’m working on’ blog hop (HERE is her post), and she nominated me to take part. I was supposed to post last Monday but I was busy checking out all the entries and drawing winners from the Refresh Your Craft & Soul challenge entries, so I didn’t have time to get this finished!

I’m going to answer the four questions about what I’m working on / my creative style, then at the end I’ll nominate 3 more people to hopefully join in and post their answers next Monday!

Q1: What am I working on now?

Right now, this very morning, my table looks like this…

… because I spent yesterday afternoon making some birthday cards for a few friends birthdays that are coming up. I’ll show you them later this week when the recipients have opened them! I’ll spend some time today tidying away all this mess so I can work on another project… probably my layout for the August Scrap 365 Sketch – my July layout and process video went live HERE on Saturday, so now I need to work on the next one!

I’ve also been working on some more stencil designs for my Happy Scatter Etsy Shop. When I’m planning out the designs I don’t begin in a very organised way… here’s a glimpse of my initial ideas sketched out on an envelope:

They will look a bit more professional in the finished design!

Q2: How does my work differ from other’s of it’s kind?

Everyone has their own style that’s unique to them. I’d say you can spot my projects by something that’s colourful, playful, and sparkly – there’s always got to be some gems, sequins, or other sparkly thing scattered around my card or layout!

Q3: Why do I create what I do?

I’ve always wanted to keep a diary. I’ve tried several times in my life. I am useless at it! I write in in for a week or so then forget all about it. The only time I manage to keep it up is on a short holiday… but not when we went travelling for 6 months, I gave up then too. But scrapbooking works! That’s why I always have journaling on my pages, even just a couple of lines, because I want to be able to look back one day and remember how I felt or what was going on at that time in our lives. I hope as they get older my kids will like to look back on it too.

I also love it because of the creativity, which is probably why I’m able to keep up with it. I’ve been an artist / craftsperson of one kind or another all my life – my mum is a fine artist (as well as a clown!), so she taught me to experiment and make things. I call it my therapy, because crafting soothes my soul. If I haven’t crafted for a while you can tell because I get grumpy!

Here’s an acrylic painting I did years ago, before scrapbooking became my main creative outlet:

Q4: How does my creative process work?

That depends entirely on my mood! Sometimes I start with a sketch, sometimes with photos, sometimes with colour, sometimes with a deadline and a certain project in mind. I don’t usually plan it out to much before pulling out products, but I do tend to push things around quite a lot before sticking anything down.

I make a lot of mess for each project but always tidy it away before starting the next one – partly because it drives me crazy if I can’t find something I need to use as it’s under a big pile of stash, but also because I craft on our family dining table so I need to clear away for meals quite often. We do eat on our laps on the sofa when I’ve got a blog event approaching!

You can see some of my start-to-finish layout process videos on My You Tube Channel.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you’ve found it interesting reading my answers!

Now it’s time for me to nominate 3 bloggers who I’d like to see answer these questions…

1. Sarah at Time To… ~ she’s the owner of SJ Crafts and also a good friend who understand my paper obsession!

2. Jacky at Scrappy Jacky ~ I’ve been reading Jacky’s blog for years, I love her layered cards and seeing photos from her life!

3. Annie at Arty Farty Annie ~ Annie’s creative flair has always inspired me to play with my supplies more!

I don’t think any of them have participated in this expanding blog hop before. We’ll see if they are able to answer the questions too!

Bye for now, have a great week!

Jennifer x