Monday, November 22, 2010

More Rectangles and a Before and After

So, a LOT of you really liked the Fun with Rectangles post, so I thought I'd start this week off with a couple of different takes on those happy floral birthday cards. Let's start with a festive flourish for Christmas. This card uses Papertrey Ink's Silent Night set.


Design Discussion: I made sure the flourishes didn't "match up" across the rectangles on this one. At first, they did, and it looked, well, boring. Static. Flat. Well, the stamping still looks flat, but there's enough movement to the flourishes that it doesn't matter. Having them not match up keeps a very simple card interesting. Go figure.

Now, this next card is the BEFORE version. My thinking here was to turn the original layout and make the rectangles uneven and asymmetrical...because I have an old and discontinued set from Hero Arts (Woodland Leaves and Grasses) and thought it would make a great guy birthday card. Problem was, I thought that the yellow-gold of the ink for the grass was a lot more yellow than the reddish-orange of the leaves in the upper right panel. Instead, they came out wayyyy too close to each other to allow for a green panel on bottom. The colors are just off.

Before


So if fixed it.

After


Now all the colors are in the orange-red family and harmony is once again restored. Not bad for a guy card, eh?

Supplies
Merry Christmas
stamps: Papertrey Silent Night
paper: PTI white
ink: Memento
accessories: dimensionals

Happy Birthday
stamps: Hero Arts
paper: PTI vintage cream
ink: various Ancient Page and Memento
accessories: dimensionals

26 comments:

  1. Oh, that masculine card is perfect! TFS!

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  2. Superb cards, and I love the after version :)
    Jackie xx

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  3. Oh, I really like both versions. Great, great design.

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  4. Great guy card ...and it made all the difference in the world, changing the ink...the green threw it off. I make things like that and know it is off but can't figure out why/which part. Seeing it here is a good lesson.

    Love the flourish card too. Simple perfection.

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  5. Love the 'after' guy card. I have that Hero Arts set and will need to remember how you made this and do a case-thanks for the inspiration!

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  6. I really love these cards using the rectangles and now the uneven boxes. The problem I have is getting the dimensions correct. Would you share what size you made your boxes or does it vary with each stamp?

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  7. Love how you showed us the before and after versions. Great cards!

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  8. Love these cards - so classy! Did you just stamp twice without inking to get the shadow colour, or did you actually use a paler shade?

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  9. Janet, I stamped and huffed and stamped again.

    Sherry, I'll do a post about how to size these shapes to fit. I basically use a process of trial and error depending on the stamps, but there is a method to it.

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  10. A very nice guy card, as well as a card anyone else would enjoy, for whatever occasion. I love your new placement and different sizing of the rectangles. Gives a lot of interest to the card! Very different, eye-catching, CAS, and pretty!

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  11. Awesome masculin card - the layout is a great one too!

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  12. 2nd note - Susan, silly question here. I want to ask you about your dimensionals. Do you put one in the center of each panel, or 2 at opposing corners or what? And are your SU dimensionals maybe not as high as others? When I made your 3-panel card from the other day, the panels seemed so much higher off the card than yours. I just assumed pop-dots from craft stores were the same. True?

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  13. I love them! You are so right about the color on the second card...and the way you "fixed" it is perfection! Love the rectangles AND I just got the Silent Night set and will definitely be lifting your design for that first card! Awesome work!

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  14. Love the guy card--thanks for the before and after! You've done it again!

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  15. The masculine card is one I have to file away to use as I always struggle with them. I'll probably be trying the Christmas one today. Thanks again for your great inspiration.

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  16. These are great. I especially like the masculine card. The differing size block arrangement along with the perfectly-sized stamps just give it that extra oomph!

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  17. Beautiful card! I love the flourish rectangles and how you fixed the grasses and leaves card! Love your CAS style! Sue (suen)

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  18. So the "fixing" makes me wonder about your adhesive choices (has this been discussed?). Are you able to peel up a panel? Do you cut apart? Start over? By the way, I love before and after pics and talk.

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  19. SU dimensionals peel off with a little rubbing. I lifted the green-stamped panel off carefully, rubbed off the left-behind sticky stuff, and attached the new panel. Mostly, this works. Sometimes, the card gets bent, in which case AR/OC me kicks in and remakes the whole thing. This surgery went pretty smoothly.

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  20. Brilliant, simple, excellent design, love the finished article :0) xx

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  21. Susan you are just too clever. I love these cards with the simple curly flourishes in the top one and the gorgeous warmth of the images in the second one.

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  22. MS bow punch!!! OMIGOSH I need that one.

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  23. Love the double stamped images and your colors. Fun placement and layout.

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  24. Oh I do love every single card you make! Silly question on the birds in the first cards. One faces one way and the other faces the other. Two different stamps?

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!