World Card Making Day - Throwback to the Beginning

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today, in honour of World Card Making Day, I wanted to take a look back. Back to where I started, back before the blog, before any of the amazing tools and stamps, challenges and inspirations, back before I found a community.

If you look back through my blog, this particular card doesn't show up at all. I don't think so anyway. (I hope not, it was totally unedited in my folder - yikes!) This card, came before my first blog post. I started blogging in November of 2015 and while the number really doesn't seem that long ago, it feels like I've been blogging for so much longer.

I distinctly remember colouring this card. It was the very first time I actually coloured hair with Copic markers. It was the first "people" stamp I coloured, and I remember choosing this one, because if I got the skin tone wrong, I could say it was supposed to be like that because she's a scarecrow. I remember being terrified to give this away - but I did.

And I remember the look on the recipient's face when she opened it, how happy she was to receive it and how proud and amazed she was that I had made this - with her in mind.

For me, it all started a few years ago, when my oldest friend and I were both pregnant with our first babies -

and I said "Hey, why don't we scrapbook their baby books?"

and she said "I don't know how to scrapbook."

then I said "Me neither."

and it was the start of this amazing adventure for us into paper and cutting and that phase of stickers and funky edged scissors. Those babies are both going to be 12 in the spring and she and I still get together almost weekly. She's still scrapbooking, making the most beautiful page layouts and designs and it blows me away. She doesn't even need the pictures to put a design together and yet somehow, no matter what pictures go in there it looks fabulous.

I moved to card making right before Christmas in 2013 (I think, I'm pretty sure) using my scrap supplies and some stickers, and let me tell you it has been a crazy journey. I was recently cleaning out my craft room and came across some of those cards and I almost cried.

I gave those to people. Real people. People I loved. I couldn't even believe it - because I look back now, after the years of practice and the new tools and my own personal evolution and I can't even imagine it. I could only picture the look on their faces when they received it. Like "ummmm thanks?"

But if they actually felt that way, the never let on. I think it totally helped that prior to me making cards I never gave out a single card to a single person for all of my adult life. Not to my family, or friends or children. Not for any occasion. I had no use for them. So when they actually did receive a card from me - at Christmas, no less - it wasn't just a card. It was a handmade card.

It's crazy for me to think, that I had been making cards for nearly two years before I started a blog. Before I looked for support and encouragement from people I didn't know. Before I looked for a sense of community - and I can't imagine being without it. I cannot picture my journey without each and every one of you, to share my ideas and the things that inspire me, to be there for any one who is feeling down or lost or overwhelmed, because I have been there. We all have.

For me, World Card Making Day isn't just some day where I have a "legit" excuse to go hide in my craft room and play all day long, it is a reminder that just like me - this whole community started out in a corner of a dinning room, terrified to show anyone what they were doing. That every day, there are people out there doing what I love to do and discovering how much they love it too.

I hope that anyone who reads this today is inspired to share if they have been too shy. To finally post that picture because today is about a community of friends that I cannot even imagine my life without.

I hope you enjoyed today's post. I know today was a bit different than usual, and I hope you don't mind, I think it is important to take a moment, every now and then, to remember that there are real people behind every card. If you made it this far, thanks for sticking it out! Drop me a line in the comments section below or follow me over on Facebook