NOT a Christmas Card

Nope. Not a Christmas card. This is a Christmas PRESENT. And there's nothing particularly Christmas-y about it, is there?

These are going to my father-in-law, who lives out west. The Bold and Free set by Mark's Finest Papers gave the perfect image for him. The feather is stamped in Memento dark brown and the pen is a Zig writer in dark brown. I accented the envelopes with the little feather in the set. The whole sheebang will go into a clear card box from Papertrey.

This set of single-panel notecards was made the old-fashioned way...I drew the lines using a template as I show in this tutorial HERE. It's a super-easy way to make a fast and extremely economical gift. I'm about to get jiggy with making a bunch of these for Christmas. It's so easy to vary the stamp image to customize the set for any loved one!

OLW30 Challenge, Part 3

Here's part 3 of my OLW30 entries. Seriously, I am lovin' this challenge and it's really putting a dent in my need for Christmas cards, LOL!

Here's the inspiration card from Vigo's website that I used. Actually there are several cards with this gray/white with a touch of red color scheme that really appealed to me.

Of course, I had to make sure there was plenty of white on my versions. This card and the third combine Through the Trees and Silent Night, both sets from Papertrey Ink. I rounded the corners with scallop scissors.

This card mimics the shape of the original inspiration piece. The sentiment is from Signature Christmas, which, for some tragic reason, I had forgotten about in the last few months. It's an awesome set that I used on most of my Christmas cards last year. I added the extra bird on this one to bring together the two sides of the card.

This third card uses a visual triangle of red (which another gray with red card on the inspiration page had).



This color scheme is so pretty and incredibly flexible. I'm going to experiment further with it. It just looks so clean, and even my darling husband, who pretty much ignores what I do with paper, said he really likes all three of these. Cool, eh?

Another Swirl Christmas Card

I'm too full of turkey and mashed potatoes to do the post I'd planned about inspiration, so instead I'm going to share this pretty shimmery reindeer card that uses one of my favorite inks: Brilliance Pearlescent Beige.

The reindeer is from Hero Arts and the sentiment from Papertrey. The sentiment is stamped in VersaColor bark. The nontraditional colors are really striking and, in my opinion, make this super-simple card something special.

Happy Friday, everyone. How many of you are going shopping? I'm staying home and starting to decorate for Christmas!

OLW30 Challenge, Part 2

If you are reading this in email, you may have two posts. The first OLW30 post should be below!

Here's the second card from Vigo Cards that inspired me for the OLW30:

My version of this card shows how far from the inspiration "look" you can go in a challenge. When I take on an inspiration challenge, I try to find some main idea (layout, colors, concept, embellishment, shape, theme, an image) and then run with it. In this case, the concept of a four-letter word with letters replaced with images was what appealled most to me. So I ran with it.

I like words, type, and playing with letters. My original intention was to copy this card fairly closely, since the PTI Stocking Prints set has pretty stockings for the L. But then I ran into trouble finding an appropriate image for the V. Nothing I had seemed to work. I realized that I'd need to use letters for the V and E, which I thought would look pretty weird.

This meant I could use an ornament for the O, and just stick to letters for the L, V, and E. Also, I no longer had any reason to stick with LOVE. HOPE would work as well.

Suddenly, I knew who I would send this Christmas card to: a friend who has been battling colon cancer since spring.

Changes I made include shrinking the word size, using only two colors, and changing the word. My version gives much more white space and a more serene, peaceful feel to it, very appropriate for my friend and her family.

I still have at least one card left to share for OLW30.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thursday, and to everyone in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (alphabet), Papertrey Ink (ornament)
paper: PTI white
ink: memento cottage ivy, SU real red
accessories: none

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