Friday, May 17, 2013

Riffing on Card Creations: Inspired by Kalyn Kepner

Yet another gorgeous card from Card Creations, Vol 11 inspired me to make a variation. This one was a bit complicated to adapt to my style, so I took a few photos of the process to share with you.

First up, Kalyn Kepner's fabulous card uses K & Company stickers in an amazingly pretty CAS layout that shows off a lot of white space.




The incredible detail and coloring of the stickers would be pretty much impossible for me to duplicate with stamps (plus, I'm not doing that much fussy cutting for all the coffee in South and Central America combined). My original intention was to keep Kalyn's colors of olive, purple, and blue and to stay as true to her layout as possible. Everything else was up for simplification.

I used Gina K's Hello Sunshine set for the flowers and leaves in my first attempt, and Brilliance inks. Instead of fussy cutting, I punched variously sized circles to arrange in roughly the same layout, thinking the stylized block stamps would look great on circles. Here's the first mock-up attempt.




Two things struck me as deeply wrong here. First, and most noticeably, the olive ink is too harsh for the blues and greens on white card stock. The Brilliance olive is a weird color anyway, but the leaves also look too busy and strange punched in circles. Secondly, there needs to be more variation in the size of the circles...these are all too close in size, even though I used three different punches.

So I ditched the olive altogether for a more harmonious analogous color scheme (colors adjacent on the color wheel...blue, lavender, purple). Then I pulled out Beautiful Butterfly from Papertrey and stamped a large and two small butterflies. This gave a bit more variation in the circle sizes, and everything fits into its circle nicely. This keeps the busyness of the design more visually logical.



The numbers are more pleasing, too. Rather than two of everything, we have one dark-blue flower, two purple flowers, and three lavender butterflies. The arrangement is not quite right yet, but it's getting closer.

And here's the finished card.




After I'd stuck everything down, I realized it was just a bit too low on the card...maybe a quarter inch too low. Too late to fix that, but a single rounded corner helped. So did adding bling to the butterflies.

Bling makes everything better.

What I love about both cards is how they show up the value of a good, solid layout. A good layout can be the basis for any kind of style!

Supplies
stamps: Gina K, Papertrey
ink: Brilliance
paper: Papertrey
accessories: assorted circle punches, dimensionals, ribbon, corner rounder, rhinestones

8 comments:

  1. I am always amazed by your talent in simplifying card designs. Your card is absolutely stunning. I really appreciate being shown your creative process. It's enthralling to see.

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  2. Kaylyn's card is just stunning - what people can do with stickers amazes me!

    LOVE that 3rd card -- I see triangles wherever I look ;) - You taught me well....

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  3. Susan, your inspiration is very pretty - what you did with it is amazing! Thank you, for the glimpse behind your thinking - it really helps :)

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  4. What a fantastic insight into how to take a card apart, analyse it's components and put together something completely new and amazing and just gorgeous ... thank you, Susan! Anita :)

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  5. I agree with the other commenters -- what a gift to see behind the curtain! And to know that even you don't just magically wave your hand and output an amazing design ... there are iterations and hard thinking behind the artistry. Thank you!

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  6. I enjoyed seeing how you worked through the process and ended up with a beautiful card. So pretty!

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  7. That is a lovely card Susan. Initially I thought the first card was fine, but then as I read your thought processes, I could see what you meant.

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!