Using Twinkling Paper in a CAS Layout: Part Three

This is the second day in a row that Blogger has not posted my scheduled post on time. My apologies to all who get Simplicity by email because this means a day's delay in delivery of the feed. Not sure what is going on since everything is scheduled correctly, but I am sorry.

Two questions came up in the comments from yesterday's post.

1. Susan asked if I stamped the images and then punched the squares, or punched and then stamped. Ordinarily, I do stamp first and then punch with the punch positioned upside down so I can see exactly where the image will be. This time, however, I punched first, expecting to leave the squares plain. Once I arranged them on the card (but before I glued them down), I decided the cards needed some random stamping to make them more interesting. As I stamped (over a piece of scrap paper), I thought about how the squares would be arranged and tried to place the images so they would look random and give a sense of movement when placed on the card together.

2. Sue asked why the Merry Christmas image looks better centered while the Happy Autumn looks better on the right. My best guess on this has to do with the fonts. Happy Autumn has initial caps (first letters capitalized) with very strong contrast in height from the caps to lower case, plus a descender of the letter y. By putting the sentiment off-center, that height variation is complemented by the asymmetry. If that sentiment were centered, I think it would look weird because the only "off" thing would be the capitalization because the squares are so evenly lined up.

I LOVE the font of that sentiment, BTW.

The Merry Christmas sentiment, on the other hand, is in all caps. Visually, it's very balanced, as are the squares. That makes it look better centered.

That's my theory, anyway.

Now to today's card....

I thought it would be helpful for new stampers to see a card as it develops, particularly how I place things and how I decide what to do next.

Let's start with the shimmery paper. I stamped my image (shown), then stamped the sentiment (not shown). I cut them out using a quilting ruler and craft knife. I like that because the quilting ruler is transparent with a grid. You can easily get even borders and make sure your stamping is straight if you cut this way.

I also make sure that the proportions of the cut panel will fit on a standard card. This stamped panel is 3" x 4.25"...leaving an even matte when you put it on a standard 4.25" x 5.5" card.

Here's the stamped and cut panel.

Next, I put the panel on an almost amethyst card, but it looked very blah. So I cut a black matte sized 1/8" bigger than the stamped panel (3 1/8" x 4 3/8"). The black really helps anchor the whole thing. So I glued it all down.

The card still looked a little plain, so he next step was to bling it up a bit. I added lavender Stickles to the berries on the branch and attached a sheer white ribbon knot with a glue dot. The shimmery sheer ribbon (from Michael's) is a perfect complement to the shimmery paper. And, well, Stickles doesn't need a reason, does it?

Congratulations to Simplicity reader Amanda B! She won 6 FREE STAMP SETS from Shady Tree Studio's new release. Dang, I wanted to win that one!

Tomorrow, I'm going to post my little chart for matting proportions. It's such a simple little thing to make yourself, but I use it all the time when I go more than one layer, so I thought I'd share.

Supplies
stamps: SU Garden Silhouettes, Hero Arts sentiment
ink: Memento black
paper: Arches hot press watercolor, SU black and almost amethyst
accessories: Twinkling H2Os, Stickles, sheer ribbon