One-Layer Wednesday 9: Flourishes

This week's One-Layer Wednesday Challenge is to use a flourish on your card. Small or large, one or more, doesn't matter. Just use a flourish.

My card uses PTI's Silent Night flourish and a sentiment from My Sentiments Exactly. The ink is Memento bamboo leaves and Danube blue. A sprinkling of blue rhinestones in two sizes completes the card.


Rules for OLW9

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

2. OLW9 highlights flourishes: use at least one flourish on your one-layer card.

3. You may embellish as necessary, but please keep it clean and simple, with minimal embellishments to make your design work.

4. After you post your card online, come back here and link to it using the OLW9 InLinkz button on the sidebar.

5. The most important rule: HAVE FUN!

FYI: For the next week and a half, I'll be spending time with extended family and will have very limited time to plug in. Karen Dunbrook has graciously agreed to start the Clean and Simple Favorites thread at SCS on the 19th and 26th. Next week, I will not be posting a OLW Challenge, but it will resume on June 30. I have something special planned for Simplicity next week (you'll never guess the theme!), but if I miss a day or two, know that we're having lots of fun in real life and my internet life will resume soon.

What I Think about Ink

This is the second post for Tuesday. It's just words, words, words, so if you want to see today's card, please scroll WAAAAYYYY down. Thanks!

Amy Kilbreath asked my opinion about inks and good matches for Papertrey colors, given PTI's recent decision to discontinue their inks. I don't have a list of matches (perhaps one of you can share a link?), but I do use VersaMagic Aquatic Mist to match PTI's aqua color. Other than that, I wing it, which really isn't very helpful, is it?

Ink is a funny thing. What one person loves and works with beautifully is a challenge and annoyance for someone else. I could write a whole book on my experiences with and opinions about the inks I've tried. Below is just a summary. Perhaps it will help anyone who is shopping for new ink. If you are, I recommend starting with just a pad or two in your most-used colors and playing before investing whole-heartedly in a particular ink type or brand.

1. VersaColor, VersaMagic, Brilliance: These are thick-formula, quick-drying inks that give really nice coverage. They are archival, so they are safe for scrapbooking. My one beef with them is that the thick formula tends to dry out easily, especially in the large pads. I've often had to re-ink them right after buying them! But this seems a natural hazard given that they are formulated to dry quickly. The dewdrop size of the Brilliance and VersaMagic are my favorites, and they have all been nice and juicy for me and last longer, perhaps because of the tight fit of the lids. The VersaColor comes in a cube, which doesn't seem to last as long and doesn't have the tight lid of the dewdrops. These all work GREAT with clear stamps and rubber.

2. Memento: These are runnier dye inks that are pretty safe for scrapbooking. I love the dewdrops and have every color available. The small pads are very juicy and give lovely color. They occasionally are a little blotchy with photo-polymer stamps, but only with bigger block images. As you can see, they did an awesome job on today's card with clear line stamps. They come in a marker form as well, which I will likely acquire at some point in the future.

3. SU Classic Ink: LOVE these. I have almost all the colors in full-size pads and will use the discontinued ones until my paper and refills are gone. I may or may not get the new SU colors, and I may just be very selective. These, like the Memento inks, usually work fine with photo-polymer stamps but can get blotchy on large block images. I NEVER use these in my scrapbooks because they are not archival or permanent. They WILL fade over time.

4. Palette/PTI inks: I have dark chocolate, noir, and vintage cream, and love all three. Vintage cream is more like a pigment ink (and comes on a foam pad) than the other two colors (which are on felt pads). The chocolate and noir will not run with Bics, Sharpies, or Copics. They work great with clear or rubber stamps.

5. Memories, Ancient Page: These were the first dye inks I ever bought, and I have most of the colors. They are waterproof dye inks. They don't work like watercolors, as do SU classic inks. They are safe for scrapbooking, but don't work well AT ALL with clear stamps, although I believe Memories reformulated after I stopped buying them...Hero Arts sells them and their designers use them without apparent problems with their clear stamps.

6. Colorbox Pigment Ink: A slow-drying pigment ink appropriate for heat-embossing. These are archival. I have a bunch of the Petal Point sets and use them occasionally, though not as much as when I started stamping. Most of mine are 7 or 8 years old and still going strong. They work great with clear or rubber stamps.

7. SU Craft Ink in white: Hands down, this is my favorite white ink. Love it.

8. StazOn: Great for stamping on slick surfaces.

I have a few Colorbox Chalk inks (don't like them...dry out soooo fast and the color selection is just odd!), VersaMark (love it), and a few other miscellaneous pads. My total pad count is over 300, so I'm really particular about what I buy now. I will not likely buy the PTI inks when they are available.

If I had to get rid of inks, I'd cull most of the Ancient Page and Memories, some of the SU colors, and all the Colorbox Chalk ink. As these dry out, I'm pitching them and not replacing them. I'd keep/replace all the Memento, VersaColor, VersaMagic dewdrops, VersaColor dewdrops, and Palette inks, and most of the SU classic ink.

A note about matchy-matchy: Now that my style has settled into CAS, I'm much less concerned about matchy-matchy. I sort of wonder why I had such a hard time matching inks and paper before, but really, when you use white card bases and very little colored cardstock, life is easier.

Thanks, Sue Berker!

Sue Berker was kind enough to send me some die cuts for the Up, Up, and Away set from PTI. Seeing as I'm a backward hick who doesn't own a die cut machine, this is akin to winning the lottery, especially since I do have the set and frankly wasn't looking forward to cutting out those baskets. The balloons, no problem, but those tiny baskets...not so much. So thank you, Sue, for making this card possible.


I chose to make it a Miss You card because every time I see balloons up in the air, I think about people being out of reach, off in the distance, out of touch, hopefully having a good time but oh my gosh that thing could plummet to the ground in a heartbeat!

You might say I have issues with hot-air balloons. But they are so pretty and colorful up in the big blue sky and a perfect subject for cards, don't you think?

Angelahatha at SCS also sent me some other die cuts that I'll be showing later. Y'all are just too good to me!

Supplies
stamps: PTI Up, Up and Away, Mega Mixed Messages
ink: Palette noir
paper: bashful blue, green galore, white
accessories: balloon die cut, cloud die cut, dimensionals, rick rack, gemstones

Inspired by Joan B...Again

I love Joan B's blog Paperlicious, and as soon as this post came up on Google Reader, I knew I just HAD to copy her card. 'Cause it's wonderful.




As you see, I didn't change much other than the stamps and type of ribbon. Joan used Waltzingmouse Stamps flower and sentiment (I haven't gone there...yet), and I used a Hero Arts flower and Clear and Simple Stamps sentiment. My ribbon is grosgrain, only because I didn't have a matching satin ribbon. She blinged, and so did I because blinging makes me happy. Oh so happy.

Remember, to bling is a verb. At least here on Simplicity it is. Webster's needs to catch up.

Oh, and I forgot to round the bottom corners, but since I like the corners square or round, we'll pretend that I did that on purpose.

Happy Monday!

Scale Matters: Before and After

First of all, thank you all so much for your kind comments on my last post. I'm so very excited, and it makes me even happier to know that you are, too.

For today, I wanted to make a super-clean card using the Martha Stewart whale punch, which is just so stinkin' cute. But the experience turned into an entire Simplicity Tip on scale. So here we go with a Before and After.

BEFORE



We might title this one Where's the Whale? Good grief, he looks sooooo small on a standard 5.5" x 4.25" card, doesn't he? That sentiment is too big and further takes attention away from the whale. Plus, he's stuck in the center (because the sentiment was centered and it looked weird for him to be offset over it), which makes the whole design look fairly uninteresting.

And yes, I used old-fashioned deco scissors to make the waves. At first, I used the Fiskar's wave border punch, but the waves dwarfed the whale even more, so I switched to the scissors, which worked much better for scale but not well enough to save the whole card, LOL!

AFTER


So I adjusted the scale by using a 4.25" square card, moved the whale into the natural "sweet spot" on the top left of the card, and used a smaller sentiment in the "sweet spot" on the lower right. The scale is much more pleasing to the eye now, and the offset layout more balanced and interesting.

Well, I think so, and hope you do, too.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (top card); PTI (bottom card)
ink: Palette noir
paper: cool caribbean, sahara sand, white
accessories: whale punch (Martha Stewart), dimensionals, deco scissors, small black half-pearls

I'm in Soooo Much Trouble

Second post today...please scroll down for today's card!

Have you checked out Nichole Heady's blog today? Don't go there! No matter what you do, just DON'T. Trust me. It's terrifying. It's absolutely, positively sucking the balance right out of my bank account and into the heart of darkness.

The horror. The horror!

I'm doomed. Resistance is futile. Why bother?

Ka-ching.

*wink*

Coffee and Penguins and a Really Cool Blog Badge

Memory Box's penguins are just the cutest little critters. There are dozens of them with all sorts of accessories. My favorites are, of course, the aviator, the chef, the artist, and the coffee-drinker. If you could see me now, sitting in my breakfast room at my desk with a cup of coffee by my side, you'd know why this coffee-drinking penguin stamp is so extremely appealing to me.


Simplicity Tip: To matte or not to matte? That is the question. Here it is necessary, but I ALWAYS try to do without mattes whenever possible. In this case, the gingham ribbon and sentiment put too much black on the left side of the card, resulting in an unbalanced feel. By adding the black matte, the penguin gained a little visual weight and evened the card back out. My Simplicity philosophy is to always ask, "What is the LEAST I need to get my point across visually?"

Which leads me to the extremely cool badge my very creative reader Tejal designed. I don't know if Tejal had read all the way back to the first post of Simplicity, but I used this quotation from Leonardo Da Vinci to jump-start this whole crazy blog. So I've added Tejal's pretty creation to the sidebar of Simplicity. If you would like to do the same, she gives easy-to-follow instructions on her blog. Just click the link in her name above.

Thank you, Tejal, for sharing your talent and enthusiasm with all the rest of us! You ROCK!

Long live simplicity!

PS I can't believe how easy Blogger's new design feature is. It took all of five minutes to completely freshen and update the look of Simplicity. I hope you like the new look because I sure do!!!!!! And I never would have tried it if Tejal hadn't mentioned how much she loved it. Thanks again, Tejal!