OLW30 Challenge, Part 1

This is today's second post. I just couldn't wait to share my first few cards from the OLW30 Challenge. Jennifer is hosting this week, and she challenged us to get inspired by THIS SITE.

At first, I thought, "This is going to be tough!" And then I made six cards inspired by three different ones from the website in about 40 minutes. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?!?!?!?!

Anyway, the first card that inspired me was this one:

Now I didn't know Jennifer's challenge ahead of time, and I've actually been working on a tutorial to help people find inspiration from a variety of places rather than simply copying cards. This is a great place to start, so I'll share my thought process here.

As I quickly scanned the cards on the link, I noticed the style is largely loose and whimsically artsy...definitely not LateBlossom. This is NOT A PROBLEM. In fact, it was rather exciting to think of transforming these fab cards into something that looked like me.

The card above stood out on a first pass through the page because I really liked the combination of outline and block stamps. I thought, hmmm, I have some outline and block stamps, don't I? Sure, I do. And they are almost all from Papertrey Ink. When I started flipping through my stamp index, I was blown away by how many PTI sets have an outline and shadow image. VERY convenient, eh?

First up, the umbrella set, which I have hardly ever used (wish there were smaller umbrellas to balance all the giant ones) and thus can never remember the name of. I stamped sentiment first and arranged the black outline images around it, making sure they formed a triangle. Then, I followed those with bahama blue block umbrellas. For some reason that completely baffles me, the images are feathery around the edges. But then, I looked back at the looseness of the inspiration piece and didn't feel so bad about it.

Next, we flex to coffee cups from Warm Happiness. Ahhh, coffee. As you can see, I followed the same idea as the umbrella card, but I did only put the steam curls over the block cups. It was looking busy enough.

Finally, a Christmas card using PTI's Merry and Bright. These trees are smaller than the umbrellas and cups, so I had to add more. Since three trees tops were showing, I put rhinestones on them to reinforce the basic design.

If you haven't done so already, click over to Jennifer's blog and get the details on the challenge. I'll be posting at least two more cards for it tomorrow!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: a bit of bling

Hero Arts Swirl Christmas

Hero Arts consistently puts out stamps that make me very happy. I mean, could this set be any more appropriate for clean-and-simple stamping? I think not.

Given yesterday's tutorial on the rule of thirds, let me point out that the sentiment is in the upper left sweet spot and the tree is mostly inside the far right third of the card. That little bit of scooting of the image to the right of the imaginary line gives the card a bit of interest (bending rules can be quite useful) and allows the tree to go off the bottom and sides of the card, giving it a more grounded look. If I had placed the tree directly on that imaginary line, the right corner of the tree would have been unattractively crowded against the edge of the card. This way, it looks very deliberately placed.

The card needed a little something something, so I added half pearl ornaments to the tree.

I hope everyone in the US is getting ready for a very happy Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. Blessings to you all, and many, many thanks for your continued support of my little blog.

Design Tutorial on Rectangle Cards

In my first semester teaching Freshman Composition, I had a student bring a graded paper to me and ask, "Why did you add the commas there?" My mind was a total blank. I knew with absolute certainty that the commas belonged, but I'd forgotten why. I recovered nicely by saying, "Let's look that up in your handbook so you'll be able to find the answer yourself next time." Smooth, eh?

That night, I read the entire handbook to refresh my memory about the rules. And I've never again forgotten the rule about commas around nonrestrictive modifiers.

So when several people asked me how I'd come up with the sizes of the rectangles on this card, my first thought was that I'd just used the Force. I didn't think about them. I just made them.

But then, as I considered the question within the context of all I've studied about design in the past eight years, I realized that I've just internalized the rules enough that I don't consciously think about them. But they are there, nevertheless, working away for me every time I sit in my craft room.

I love rules. Especially this one because it's the heart of pretty much every card I make in one way or another.

The Rule of Thirds

This is what happens when I free-hand something, so now you know why I rubber-stamp whenever possible. But this crudely drawn chart shows the rule for card design perfectly...because it's not precise. It's a rough guestimate of thirds, and that is all you need. Seriously. These lines are the guides for most designs and they are very flexible. You can remove lines at will to create zones of white space and of stamping, as I did on this card, or you can use the top left or bottom right intersections of the lines (the sweet spots) for your focal point placement, or you can add borders along a line to anchor matted images on a card.

Here's a sketch of the actual card, including the precise measurements of the rectangles. The card is a standard 5.5" x 4.25" card.

As you can see, the blocks are arranged to take advantage of the rule of thirds...not exactly precisely, but close enough for government work.

Sizing
I started with the left-hand block by stamping the grass onto a scrap of cardstock and then cutting it down to about 2/3 the height of the card. Then I trimmed it a bit more and made it narrow. Then I stamped the smallest block and cut it out so it was about 1/3 the height of the grass block and wide enough to go across the card nicely...about twice as wide as the grass block. Finally, I did the same to the bigger block, but this time I did actually measure and do the math so it would fill the space available properly.

I do all my measuring and cutting with a craft knife and 6" square quilting ruler. The ruler is see-through, so I can place it directly over things and see exactly where I need to cut.

Spacing
The spacing of the blocks is critical...it's all got to be even or it'll look really unbalanced. The spacing between the rectangles themselves must be the same, and then the margins around the edge of the card must also be the same. To do this, I placed the rectangles on the card and fiddled with them until it all looked even. Then, I stamped the sentiment BEFORE popping up the rectangles because honestly, sometimes those dimensionals really get in the way of stamping.

Now, here's where I get a tiny bit obsessive. With all the blocks placed properly, I carefully remove one, apply SU dimensionals at top and bottom, then place it where it belongs WITH TWEEZERS. Then, I repeat until all blocks are stuck.

I hope this explains the process in a way that encourages you to loosen up and play with the rule of thirds in your own designs. It's important to realize that this layout "I" came up with isn't at all original to me. Let's face it. There's only so much you can do with a 5.5 x 4.25 canvas. Plus, this rule of thirds is tried and true and has been around for eons. I'll bet the ancient Greeks used it for designing their temples.

Now, the new card for today trades rectangles for squares, lines them up along the top horizontal line of thirds, and uses my new Martha Stewart bow punch.

Dang, that Papertrey Silent Night set is more than worth the $24 I paid for it!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink, Silent Night
ink: SU cherry cobbler, always artichoke
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Martha Stewart bow punch, square punch, dimensionals, dark red rhinestones

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

I Can't Think Straight

What a day. We got up early, drove to the Columbus Zoo, walked around all day, drove home, met sitter, left for dinner, got stuck in horrendous traffic, ate at the bar of a nice restaurant because there were no tables for three hours, saw Harry Potter, and drove home, and now, at 11:46 on Saturday night, I can't think straight.

But I wanted to give you a card for Sunday. So here you are. I can't say a single intelligent thing about it except that I like it. A lot. And that's not very intelligent.

Sorry.

Have a lovely Sunday. I think we're having pajama day at our house. Devotionals in front of the fireplace at 10:00. Or maybe 11:00. Whenever I start thinking straight again.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Fun with Rectangles

I've been thinking a lot lately about my favorite design tricks, and my conclusion from all this thinking is that using shapes (squares, rectangles, or circles) as key design elements makes me very happy. You can arrange them in tidy grids or rows, you can get whimsically asymmetrical with them, you can pop or not pop them, or you can use one all by its lonesome for big impact.

So, when I decided I needed some birthday cards, I pulled out SU's Stem Silhouettes and Garden Silhouettes and played around with putting the images on shapes.. These two cards are what happened.

*squeal*

Same thing, different colors:

The rectangles are 2 1/8" x 1 1/2" and are, of course, popped up on dimensionals. I stamped each image in a light color first, then overstamped (but off-set) again with a darker shade of the same color. Really, you could just use a dark ink, stamp once, huff on the stamp, then stamp it again. But I had the ink colors so I used them. I stamped the sentiment justified right in gray because black looked wayyyyy too stark and dark. All inks are Memento.

I thoroughly enjoy experimenting and playing around and trying out new things, new products, new styles. But this crisp, clean, colorfully white look is more me than any other.

Up tomorrow, a Christmas card with circles...oh how I love my punches!

Supplies
stamps: SU Stem Silhouettes, Garden Silhouettes, PTI Birthday Basics
ink: Memento
paper: PTI white
accessories: dimensionals

OLW29 Classic Beauties Inspiration

A quick note because someone asked: the set I used for the bookmarks is Papertrey Ink's All Booked Up.

This week's OLW Challenge is to get inspired by last Sunday's post of Sunday Sweets on the Cake Wrecks blog. For those who've never visited Cake Wrecks, it's a blog of professionally made cake disasters...except on Sundays, when they show photos of gorgeously designed cakes. Last Sunday Sweets, titled Classic Beauties, struck me as a perfect OLW challenge.

The real challenge here is to keep to one layer. White or clear embossing on colored cardstock, pressure embossing, and using punched borders as masks to ink one layer are just three ways to get the look of some of these cakes without adding layers. Surely you can think of others!

I made two cards using two different cakes as inspiration. The first, which is 3" x 5.5", has white embossing of First Fruits, a set by Papertrey Ink, on SU's Marina Mist paper.

The second card uses PTI's Spring Moss cardstock and Friends 'til the End stamp set. The turquoise ink is VersaMagic. I colored the center of the flower with a white gel pen and embossed the first part of the sentiment in white.

OLW29 Rules

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single piece of cardstock folded in half.

2. Make a one-layer card inspired by a cake from the Classic Beauties post on Cake Wrecks. Keep embellishments to a minimum and do not add layers!

3. Upload your card somewhere online and link to it using the OLW29 InLinkz button on the sidebar of Simplicity.

4. The most important rule of all: HAVE FUN!