Guest post - Claire found her craft mojo!

You may remember that I recently wrote a post called "Find Your Crafting Mojo" for my friend Claire, who blogs over at Life, Ninjakillercat and Everything Else. At the end of the post, I set her a challenge, to work through my five point plan and come up with a card, and here is the beautiful card she made for me:

Isn't it beautiful? And here is what Claire has said about her experience of working through my plan:

I promised Jane a blog post as a few weeks back she graciously wrote a blog post for me on finding your crafting mojo , this was the crafting version of throwing a gauntlet down but instead it would be scissors As I've had a lot of time on my hands recently I thought I'd better follow the advice on Jane's blog post.

1. Planning What You want to do.

I think once you've established your crafting project then you can get planning with what you need to do , the first time I did was establish as to what crafting goodies I had in the house . I opened magazines abundant about the place and sorted them out , I then decided upon a small project and it was all systems go . Planning has also included writing this blog post ~ coughs I'm about 2 weeks late but I don't think Jane has noticed , you'll not tell her will you now ?! You could get yourself a notebook and write down any ideas you might have so then you've a point of reference when your crafting mojo goes awol.

2. Recycle and reuse

Recycle and reuse what you've got , how many times do you get a present that's wrapped in some sort of ribbon / lace and thought that's pretty . You'll be amazed when you start looking around what you can reuse even the pretty insides of envelopes can be a crafting inspiration.

3. Beginning to craft

If you've never crafting before in your life and haven't a clue where to start then buying a magazine like Quick cards is a good start as they'll cope with free gifts that can help you start your craft stash . Trust me once you start crafting you'll soon amass a crafting stash and you might even find that people start giving you things and of course there are always the competitions you can enter . Start off simply and build up your skills gracefully , using prefolded cards can help you as once you know what your dealing with you can have a go yourself.

4. Seeking Inspiration

As mentioned in point 1 planning is a good way to helping you were your inspiration as is Pinterest also getting out with your camera is another way of getting inspired . Inspirational ideas can hit you at any point so do keep a look out !!

5. The Finished Article

 I used a kit that came with my craft magazine and it was really easy and knowing that I could take my time with it even though it was a relatively simple kit really boosted my confidence. I made the card and I even tweeted out a picture to the magazine the kit had come with.

..... right, Jane taking over the reins again - I was so impressed with Claire's card that I urged her to join in the current Stepper Card challenge at Shopping Our Stash, and if you'd like to pop over to her blog to give her some crafty love for the beautiful card, you can find her  post here.