From Meh to Marvelous

After seeing Sylvia Blum's card on page 20 of Take Ten, I knew I needed to pull out Papertrey's First Fruits and use bling in the gap on the wheat stamp.

Sylvia Blum's Fabulous Card

Using bling instead of twine or some other embellishment or a sentiment (as PTI's stamp is designed to do) is BRILLIANT.
See what I did there? Brilliant? Bling?

And of course, I love Sylvia's use of white-on-white and the clean simplicity of her card.

Anyway, the gap in the PTI wheat is far too wide for small bling, and I don't have a die for a banner and such, so I came up with this drab imitation of Sylvia's lovely card instead.

Meh.

White-on-white looked odd, so I opted for kraft, which looks drab with the brown bling and soft apricot ink. The apricot is not bright enough, and the brown bling and kraft don't provide enough interest or contrast.

I truly felt that I'd not done Sylvia's card justice.

So I changed up the colors and hit on a complementary color scheme that left me giggling with glee.

Marvelous! 

Note how much fresher the complementary color scheme is than the more monochromatic scheme. Archival saffron and StampinUp Baja breeze add interest, zest, energy to the same design. Using more white also pays proper homage to Sylvia's bright design much better than the kraft possibly could. 

I like this so much that I made a coordinating envelope!

So if you're ever looking at a card that feels blah or cliche, consider a change of color scheme. To add energy, choose a complementary color scheme.

Not a bad save, eh? And many thanks to Sylvia for her fabulous inspiration.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey First Fruits
ink: Archival saffron, StampinUp Baja breeze, Hero Arts soft apricot
paper: PTI kraft, white
accessories: Copics, clear bling