One Stamp, Two Ways, and a New OLW Challenge!

For the OLW Challenge, please visit Jennifer's blog HERE. (You can also click the link in the sidebar for OLW34.) By coincidence, my first card today meets the challenge to use just one image stamp and one sentiment on a one layer card.

The small chandelier stamp from Hero Arts is such an elegant shape and design, but it's not small. My cards yesterday and today are standard 5.5" x 4.25" size, and as you can see, that chandelier takes up a lot of space. Today, I want to show two different uses for a largish image like this one.

First, a totally flat, one-layer card. Yesterday's cards used ribbon and smaller sentiments, but to achieve balance with the larger image and just a sentiment, I looked for a sentiment that had nearly as much weight visually as the chandelier. To anchor the chandelier so it wasn't just floating around, I stamped it so the top runs off the card. The sentiment is an old PSX stamp, stamped in Memento London Fog.

While this looked simply elegant in real life, I want to add Stickles to my computer screen. Which would be bad for my screen, don't you think?

Well, the second card actually photographed better than it looks in real life, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

Here, I used the chandelier to make a background for a popped focal panel with a sentiment. The background is slightly asymmetrical (on purpose, to keep it interesting), and when I first added the sentiment panel, something looked wrong. The sentiment was nicely centered but looked too even against the background, so I added the half pearls to give a little more asymmetry to panel. I think it worked nicely, and the pearls, from Hero Arts, are a dead ringer for Memento New Sprout...the green I used.

Design Discussion: Random stamping on backgrounds is an art unto itself. If you stamp truly randomly, without thinking about what you're going to put over the background, you'll often end up with awkward gaps or crowding when you place your focal point over the background. For this background, I planned a visual triangle around the center, so you see most of three chandeliers, all slightly running off edges and all off-set from each other. Then, I stamped just a bit of the bottom of the chandelier in the big blank space at the top...not enough to register as a whole chandelier, but enough color to create three largish blank areas in a nicely asymmetrical triangle behind the sentiment panel. Also, there is no trapped white space, which I'll talk about in detail on another post. In short, trapped white space is an area of white space that can't get off the page and creates an unpleasant hole in your design.

On another note, if I'd had teardrop pearls rather than round ones, the green card would look EVEN BETTER. But alas, I don't have teardrop pearls and wonder if anyone makes them. With all the chandelier stamps out there right now, that would be a popular embellishment, I think. Plus, you could make flowers with the teardrops as the petals and leaves, rain drops of blue ones, and fun corner embellishments combining teardrops and round ones.

Oh, my gosh! Someone make teardrop pearls RIGHT NOW!!!!! I will buy them in every color. I promise!!!!!!

Soft or Dramatic...What's Your Opinion?

Good morning!

I have a question for you for which there is no right answer...it's just a matter of taste and opinion, without moral or ethical significance.

Do you prefer soft cards or dramatic cards?

My butt is on the fence, but today, I'm definitely leaning toward soft, serene, peaceful cards. Perhaps my life is a little wacky and chaotic right now (in a good way, I keep telling myself), and I crave calm. Perhaps I've always found peace in soft colors and subtle images. Perhaps by February, after months of gray and white landscapes, I will once again gravitate toward bright, fun colors. But for now, this soft chandelier is making me very happy.

I used Memento London Fog and Angel Pink for the stamps, and a sheer ribbon with shimmer to hang the chandelier and anchor it in all that restful white space. I do wish I'd cut the ribbon more simply at an angle rather than notching it, but that's a quibble. The card makes me happy.

Today's more dramatic card changes the orientation from portrait to landscape and the white ribbon and gray sentiment for black. I remember watching a home decor show on HGTV years ago in which the designer explained adding a touch of black to light pastels helps keep them from being too blah. This is, I think, a universal design idea that works extraordinarily well on cards and scrapbook pages, too.

I cut the ribbon too short on this one (what was it with me and ribbon that day?), but otherwise, I like this. The sheer/satin ribbon isn't too heavy for the chandelier (as a solid satin or grosgrain might have been), and the black certainly kicks up the baby blue.

So, what is your preference: soft or dramatic? Why do you think you're drawn to one over the other? Or are you, like me, affected in your preference by whatever is going on in your life...your mood, level of caffeine, etc.?