Variations on a Theme: A Wreath for All Seasons, Part 1

I saw a card using A Wreath for All Seasons from Papertrey in Card Creations, and it inspired me to do my variations on a theme on that set. My first layout uses the basic idea of the inspiration card by Maile Belles to accent the wreath with a button and punched leaves that you can see here.

I, of course, took her pretty card down to one layer and vastly simplified it because a) I don't have that patterned paper and b) I can't help myself. Here's the first layout using it...one card for each season!

Spring has pretty Memento angel pink berries on it (they show lighter than they are in the photo, though) and a darker pink for the sentiment. The button has a few leaves tucked under it just like Maile's

For Summer, I used cantaloupe and tangelo inks, and a fun flower button.

Fall uses potter's clay for the berries and sentiment. The brown button is the center of an improvised sunflower, made with two daisy punches layered askew.

Finally, the Winter card is stamped with red ink accented with a poinsettia (another, larger daisy punched twice and layered). The center is a gold half-bead rather than a button because none of my yellow buttons looked right.

For the record, I prefer buttons to have a bit of thread on them, as Maile's card shows. BUT given the super simple design of these cards, thread, which I tried, looked sort of busy. For once, I didn't thread the buttons, and for once, I'm good with that.

See? I told you yesterday there would be LOTS OF WHITE today.

Several of you commented yesterday that you own Dot Spot from PTI and haven't used it. Oh, the tragedy! I love that set and consider it the best $15 set PTI has ever offered for sale. Hope you can pull it out soon and discover its joys for yourselves!

OLW47 Wishful Thinking

Today's card was inspired by the fact that it snowed here today. Really? Snow?

Sadly, yes.

Instead, I'm left longing for butterflies. Summer.

This week's OLW, hosted by Jennifer, is a sketch challenge, and what a challenge it is to keep it to one layer. I chose to go with a very old block stamp from Hero Arts (one of the first rubber stamps I ever bought!) and a butterfly from an alphabet set, also Hero Arts, that happens to coordinate. LOVE this shade of blue (Bahama from Memento). I jazzed the card up with little dots of Sakura Stardust pen in the middle of each butterfly, though I don't think it shows up well in the photo. It adds just the right amount of interest in real life!

This card isn't perfectly square because even with a stamp positioner I stamped it too far to the right and had to cut an eighth inch off the left side.

You wouldn't have known if I hadn't told you. But I did. Nobody's perfect.

So click on over to Jennifer's blog to play along with the OLW!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: Memento Bahama
paper: white
accessories: Sakura Stardust pen in clear

Using Twinkling Paper in a CAS Layout: Part Two

Today's cards are a variation on yesterday's use of squares punched from shimmery paper colored with Twinkling H2Os. I used a slightly larger punch (1" rather than 3/4") and six squares rather than three. Each square was stamped with small images appropriate to the color scheme.

For the blue and lavender paper, I used Hero Arts snowflakes and sentiment stamped in Memories soft silver ink. The ink dried very quickly on the shimmery paper, too. I alternated blue and lavender squares to add interest here.

The red and gold paper became a fall card on a PTI vintage cream base. The leaves (Hero Arts) and sentiment (Mark's Finest Papers) were stamped in Palette dark chocolate, and as above, I alternated the colors.

I can't decide if I should have put the Happy Autumn sentiment in the center or not. I rather like it justified right with the edge of the squares. Perhaps I need to put a couple of brown pearls beside the upper left square to balance it, or perhaps the asymmetry works well enough alone. Indecision may or may not be my problem, but I usually err on the side of CAS in cases like this.

I do know that the Merry Christmas sentiment--with all the letters in caps--looks MUCH  better in the center.

Tomorrow's Twinkling card will be something completely different from yesterday's and today's cards. Not a punch in evidence, LOL!

One-Layer Wednesday Meets Inspiration Week: Day 3

Wow, today is a two-for-one! A challenge and a give-away! And no, you don't have to do the challenge to have a chance to win the give-away.

Today's One-Layer Wednesday Challenge is to be inspired by NATURE! Many of you have already commented that nature is a big part of your inspiration. Well, here's your chance to express that inspiration in ONE LAYER!

My card set me to giggling with glee as soon as I made it. Y'all know how much I love autumn (or fall as we always called it in the South). Autumnal colors look dreadful on me, and I always avoided them in my clothing but was secretly jealous of my sister who could wear food shades like pumpkin or mustard and look awesome. She's also tall and skinny. As you can imagine, I had issues growing up.

Since I started papercrafting, though, I adore using the rich and warm colors of my favorite time of the year, and any excuse to use a tree stamp is welcome. PTI's Falling Leaves is simply perfect for creating a little fall scene. See that cute little branch sticking in on the right? See the missing leaf? See how it's fallen to the sentiment, almost like a punctuation mark? See how it hints at a lovely triangle of pumpkin pie ink on the card?

See? See? See?



*giggle*

You all have no idea how it's killed me to wait for the OLW to post this card. I made it over a week ago!

Okay, okay, I'll get myself under control here. Back to business.

OLW21 Rules

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

2. Make a card that is inspired by nature. Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Please share your creation by posting your card online and then using the InLinkz button in the sidebar of Simplicity to link to it.

4. Most important of all...HAVE FUN!

Give-Away

Please share what inspires you most in nature in the comments. If you live in the U.S., you'll have a chance at winning a big ol' stack of paper. Yes. Paper. The most natural of the supplies for our hobby. Check out the gorgeousness! Thirty-four colors of StampinUp cardstock, three sheets of each, 102 sheets total. And yes, it's the real thing, even if I refuse to use the egregious exclamation point. Only I am allowed to use egregious exclamation points on this blog.



If you live outside the U.S., feel free to comment and just list your country (or say "not for the drawing" if you're shy or already have too much paper, like I do) so I'll know not to count you for the give-away.

And FYI, tomorrow's give-away will be open to everyone once again. Yippy!

Remember, if you read Simplicity in your email, click on the post title to go to the actual blog to leave a comment. Emailed responses will not count for the drawing.

Falling Leaves

When I ordered Papertrey's All Booked Up, I also got Falling Leaves, a small $15 set that is utterly fabulous. I've already used every stamp in it on a number of cards, and this is one of my favorites!


More Mustard, chocolate chip, and a bit of layering, just like I do with my turtlenecks and sweaters in the fall. The simplicity of the stamp images makes me giddy. They are so easy to work with! Plus, the sentiments in this little set are wonderfully fall-ish.

Y'all already know how much I love fall.

And yesterday I picked up this year's issue of Papercrafts Christmas Cards and More, or whatever it's called. Anyway, all I can say is

THUD!

It may take a few days to even know where to begin in praising this magazine. I'm so excited about Christmas now!

Fall and Christmas. This time of year is a crafter's paradise!

A Few Autumn Cards

Must. Take. Break. From. Christmas.

Ahhhh. Pumpkin. Rust. Chocolate. Mustard. I'd forgotten what you looked like.



Simplicity Tip: When you are overlapping a cardstock border with ribbon as I did above, DO NOT put tape on the back of the ribbon on the front of the card. Unsightly bulges result. Tape it firmly inside the card. No one cares if ribbon wraps to the inside. NO ONE!

If I tell myself that often enough, maybe I will start to believe it.



All I have to say about the second card is this: sometimes, you gotta pop a card for all it's worth and just add extra postage. I popped this one and have no regrets.

Supplies
stamps: Fall Elegance, First Fruits
ink: PTI vintage white, SU pumpkin pie, VersaMagic brown, pumpkin
paper: SU pumpkin pie, more mustard, really rust, PTI vintage cream
accessories: rhinestones, ribbon, dimensionals, Fiskars threaded water punch, corner rounder

Inspiration Everywhere

So, this card came after doing several cards a la Donelda's here (will show those soon) AND seeing a scrapbook layout in the latest Creating Keepsakes Magazine that used squares with alternating rounded corners to make stylized leaves on a fall layout. I decided my colors and the close arrangement of the squares looked more like a flower than leaves, so I added the half-bead to bring the whole thing together. The sentiment is from PTI's First Fruits.

Oh. My. Gosh. Simple and pretty and clean. I just love it when ideas from multiple sources form a harmonious new beauty. It fills me with gratitude.

Have a grateful day!

Supplies
stamps: PTI First Fruits
ink: SU chocolate chip
paper: PTI vintage cream, SU really rust and pumpkin pie
accessories: square punch (1.25"), corner rounder, large half bead

Pumpkin Punch

I picked up the Fiskars pumpkin punch (the squeeze kind) at Joann's on sale last week. Love it! Here are a couple of small cards using it.



As you can see, I dressed up the pumpkin with hand-drawn lines using a StampinUp really rust marker and sponged some really rust on the edges to give it a little depth. Without these touches, it's a bit, well, plain, but sponging and drawing lines are easy and quick. I love that the PTI sentiment from Limitless Labels fit perfectly on the pumpkin.



The top card is about 3 x 4 inches, and the bottom is 4.25" square.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Limitless Labels
paper: PTI vintage cream, SU really rust, chocolate chip
ink: really rust, chocolate chip
accessories: sponge, dimensionals, marker, ribbon, square punch, scallop square punch

Extreme Make Over

This week's CAS challenge is to take a card you've made before and make it over CAS style. I did make over a couple of my cards, but taking my CAS style and making it CAS-er is sort of hard. By freaky coincidence, I spent a lot of time last weekend making over sumptuously embellished cards from two magazines. Then, this morning, I checked Joan B's blog Paperlicious, and she has posted a fabulously simple make over.

Make overs are totally in the air, and for once I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of trends in the stamping world. I don't expect this giddy feeling to last, but I'm enjoying it while it does.

The first card make over I'm going to share comes from Card Creations Volume 7 and was made by the totally amazing Sherry Wright, whose name pops up in the credits for beautiful cards in practically every magazine I open. Her We Are Thankful card is a beautiful design that I just had to CAS-ify. Notice how perfect it is...she even has a faint text background on the distressed piece under the ribbon to echo the text on the focal point circle. Brilliant!

To CAS-ify a card, I do the following:
1. Eliminate layers.
2. Eliminate embellishments.
3. Eliminate patterns.
4. Simplify colors.
5. Simplify textures.
Basically, I strip everything but the key elements necessary to communicate the message in an interesting way. Sounds simple, right? NOT! But it IS fun.

I love the wreath around Sherry's text circle and realized that my new leaf punch would do the trick without time-consuming fussy cutting. I also love how the glittery branch directs the eye to the sentiment, and thought about using the branch from PTI's Beautiful Blooms (I LOVE that set!) in place of Sherry's glittery branch, but eventually chickened out. When you only have a focal point and a sentiment on a card, does the viewer's eye need to be directed? I'm not sure, but I do know my make over card is totally me. It's minimalist, it's cream-on-cream, it's crisp. But it could never have happened without the inspiration of Sherry's lovely card.



If you want more detailed instructions, read on. First, I stamped the text style background from PTI on a scrap of vintage cream cardstock in chocolate chip, and then punched out that circle (making sure I included the word gratitude in the text) and a slightly larger matte of really rust. I punched six leaf branches from really rust and attached them to the back of the matte using a glue pen. It took a bit of fiddling to get them lined up right, but it was worth the effort. Next, I cut a square card from vintage cream (I think it's 5.5 inches, but it may be 5...can't remember) and used a craft knife to slit the fold where I wanted the ribbon to go through. I tied the ribbon using the one-hole knot technique, hoping the knot would be smaller...it's still huge. Oh well. I stamped the sentiment twice using a stamp positioner to get the two colors (you could use markers, though). Then, I attached the medallion with a glue dot to the knot.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Text Style, Hero Arts Autumn
cardstock: PTI vintage cream, SU really rust
ink: SU really rust, chocolate chip
accessories: ribbon, leaf punch, circle punches, glue dots, stamp positioner

Fall Elegance: Balance and Harmony Happen...Sometimes (edited)

Card #1

Card #2


Fall Elegance is truly a magnificent set to work with. Those swirly leaves and vines are so pretty and yet crisp (like fall, really) and the pumpkins make my knees weak. I'd marry this set if polygamy was legal.

Today's cards, though similar in many ways, show how color and balance can make or break a card. I made Card #1 first and kept it out in my craft room for days just staring at it and smiling a lot. It has everything I love in a card: lots of white space; clear, crisp lines; lots of right angles on a grid with hints of asymmetry to liven things up; rich, smooth colors; beautiful images. See how the swirl in the sentiment block sort of flows from the upper left block? That was an accident, and if I made the card over again, I'd line the swirls up better.

Creating a relationship between blocks in a grid is good design.

Card #2 isn't exactly bad, but it's not as strong a design as #1 for two reasons. First, the shapes are floating on the background rather than grounded by a matte. They wouldn't look so floaty, I think, if the card base had a good relationship with the blocks. What do I mean by that? Well, there's no kraft on the blocks, and there's no color from the blocks in the kraft. Sometimes, that can work by creating a nice contrast on a very simple card, but these blocks are stamped with busy patterns that beg for unity with the base. A cream, pumpkin, or chocolate base would have worked much better than kraft.

Why don't I think of these things until everything is stuck down on a card?

The second reason Card #2 doesn't work quite so well as Card #1 is that the blocks aren't quite as balanced. The pumpkin block has just a little too much white space compared to the other two blocks. A swirl moving from the pumpkin block to the swirl block would fix that. The word block, on the other hand, is a lovely balance to the busier blocks and draws attention to the sentiment nicely.

That said, I really like the four rounded corners and the placement of the blocks on Card #2.

So there you have the musings of a highly trained literary critic applying her skills to cards. We English majors are so versatile!

[Edited to add] Brenda asked about the size of Card #1. It's a 5" square, and the small squares were punched with a Creative Memories 1.5" punch. Card #2 is the standard 4.25x5.5". Hope that helps!

First Fruits Kraft Card

Y'all know I love squares, but sometimes, I want to make something other than a grid with them. Here, I lined the squares up, popped them, and put them over ribbon. The kraft paper worked much better as a backdrop to these rich and warm colors than vintage cream or white would have done.

Simplicity Tip: Usually, I tie knots in ribbon by punching a hole in the cardstock and following LeAnne's directions HERE. But in this case, I needed the tails of the knot to lie vertically, which would mean a big, bulky double knot. Ick. So I attached the ribbon to the card flat, then took a smaller piece, slid it under the flat ribbon, and tied a knot. The folks at Hero Arts do this a lot.

A huge cyber-hug to whoever tweeted about me on Hero Arts' Twitter group. I got lots of hits from that, as well as few new subscribers, and I really do appreciate the nod!

Next week, I will post a few make-over cards to demonstrate how you can get clean-and-simple inspiration from totally over-the-top cards. This idea came to me as I flipped through the new Holiday Cards and More issue from PaperCrafts. The issue has plenty of CAS cards in it, but I figured I could really get my money's worth if I started actually looking at the highly embellished cards. Boy howdy, I was right!

Supplies
stamps: First Fruits (PTI)
paper: SU chocolate chip, pumpkin, ruby red; PTI kraft
ink: SU chocolate, pumpkin, ruby
accessories: ribbon, CM square punch, dimensionals

Fall Elegance Meets Clean and Simple

I ordered PTI's Fall Elegance early last week, and Monday I started making cards with it. After just a few hours, I realized I had used every single image in the set...with little effort on any of the cards except one of them. OH. MY. GOSH. I am totally in love. Here are the one-layer cards that came from my initial flurry of activity. This set is going to get LOTS of use!


The first card I made was the first idea that popped into my head. The colors are split pea and burgundy (VersaColor). I cut out and popped the leaf. Happy sigh.


Our next card looks deceptively simple, but it's not at all what I wanted. Placement of the leaves is critical, and I dorked it up. The burgundy leaf on the far right is a smidge too close to the sentiment. I had intended to put rhinestones between the leaves, but if I had, the smidge would have looked really bad. So I left the card totally plain, and the difference isn't nearly so obvious.


The lattice stamp in this set had me baffled at first, so I stamped it out repeatedly vertically and horizontally on scrap paper. It looks fabulous either way. For this card, I cut out all the leaves and simply glued them down after experimenting with placement for a bit. Thought about popping them, which would look great, I think, but finally decided to go for flat and easy to mail.


The border on this card was created using posti-its to mask, stippling Memories wheat ink, then stamping the leaves in various Versacolor inks. My original plan was to draw lines with a gold pen down the edges of the border, but I decided against it. Not sure why, but the simpler approach just made me happy. I used my scallop scissors (how wrongly maligned those things are!) and snipped the corners off the word pieces to give an overall softer, more finished effect.


Finally, my favorite of the lot. This card took three tries to get right, mainly because I stamped the "a season of" crooked (the very last thing I did!) on the first card, and then botched the masking of the tall pumpkin on the second. Arrgghhhh. Third time turned out just like I wanted. I popped the short pumpkin, masked the tall one to stamp the vine coming from behind it, and used my gridded acrylic block to finally get the sentiment right. (I did stamp that FIRST on this card; I try to learn from my mistakes....)

Hope you enjoyed these CAS and OLC cards! I have a few more cards from this flurry of Fall Elegance to post later. They aren't OLC's, but they are very simple, nevertheless.

Supplies
stamps: Fall Elegance
cardstock: PTI vintage cream
inks: various VersaColor and Colorbox pigment inks
accessories: dimensionals

CAS DT Color Challenge

Of all my cards for the CAS DT challenge, this one is my personal favorite. It's certainly the simplest!

The color challenge Jen issued for the Clean and Simple Design Team is such a timely one: shades of brown with a hint of red. Perfect for fall cards. I had PTI's First Fruits set on my desk and stared at it for a few minutes until inspiration hit. I had made yesterday's layout challenge card, which has more on it than is typical for me, and I wanted to do something one-layered with no embellishments. Just 'cause I can.

This popped into my head and turned out (for once) EXACTLY as I had imagined, only the colors are even better in real life than they were in my head because I used Versacolor instead of StampinUp. Anyone else a bit weary of SU's browns? Gotta get that new suede color, I suppose.

I love the idea of blessings falling like leaves from Heaven. Some days, I want to rake them all up in a big pile and fling my body into them with childlike abandon. Other days, I have PMS and they are just a messy annoyance. Go figure.

Simplicity Tip: When using clear stamps, I find the creamier inks like Versacolor, Versamagic, and Brilliance usually give better impressions than more fluid inks like SU classic. I am not dissing SU, by the way, because I LOVE their matchy-matchy stuff, and as dye inks go, SU is definitely the best. But all inks have their limitations. Just sayin'.

Supplies
stamps: PTI First Fruits
paper: PTI white
ink: Versacolor
accessories: not a blessed one!

Fall Whimsy

The leaf and acorn stamps on these cards are from an old retired set from StampinUp called Fall Whimsy. I love this set, but it's sort of hard to work into my style, and the jury's out on how I feel about these two cards. I thought I'd share my thoughts on them anyway.

First up, the leaves. I adore the ruler-drawn boxes (bet you knew that already) but I'm not sure it works with this sort of loose line drawing. It works great on this card with the classic line flower from PTI's Friends 'til the End set, though. Here, I started with the one large leaf on the left, stamped the sentiment (hero arts) and drew the lines. Wow, it looked boring. So I masked the lines and started randomly stamping more leaves. I really can't decide if the contrast between the straight lines/right angles and leafy curves works or not. What do you think? You can be honest and not hurt my feelings.



I love this little acorn. I think its jaunty dots and feathery looking leaf make the image so appealing to me. It's a HAPPY acorn. The sentiment is, I think, too big for the card, and a smaller script autumn would make for better balance. The scallop circle is just a bit too far left, don't you think? I tried scooting it a bit more right but then autumn was squished. A possible fix would be to put the same design on a long, thin card, rather than the standard to make the proportions work out better.

If you like the images, the colors, and such on these two cards, the design flaws might not bother you at all. I see cards all the time on blogs that have design flaws but, for whatever reason, I simply ADORE them anyway. There's just no accounting for taste, is there?

A few months ago...

I made these cards while trying to use all the stamps in PTI's Fruitful set. It's a very fun set to work with (except the pears, which you can read about HERE).

This strawberry card would be better if I had just stamped the big strawberry on the card rather than cut it out and glue it. But I cut it out, by golly, and it was getting USED. This would make a great card to mass-produce for gift sets, don't you think? It's a pain cutting out that little strawberry, though, so maybe not, if you're lazy like I am.



An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And aren't you impressed with my rockin' and rollin'? Sometimes that technique just doesn't work for me, but this time, well, it ROCKS.



This may be the first time I've used a scalloped shape for my favorite white-on-white layering. Can't remember. But it's so pretty and screamed for a few embossed lines and a bit of bling.

Thanks for visiting!

A Seasons Set for CAS Lovers and a Little Give-Away

I have a number of sets from Hero Arts that spotlight the seasons. I bought these sets years ago (they were among my first stamp purchases, actually), but I hardly use them except on the occasional scrapbook page. They're just hard to make cards out of, for some weird reason. Until now. This set of four cards makes my heart twitter in an ecstasy of Clean and Simple perfection. It's so easy, why did I never think of it before?

Each uses the season stamp, rocked and rolled in layers with several colors to represent that season. I got the idea from a spectrum ink pad I have. It's just good for autumn, though. So I improvised with various chalk inks instead. I "embellished" with another small stamp that reflected the season (butterfly, flower, leaf, snowflake) stamped just once to fit into the spectrum of the season stamp. And I was done. Oh, my.

Go, me!








So, now for the little give-away. Leave a comment telling me which season is your personal favorite and why. I'll send one random lucky person the set of four cards! Plus a little "something something" just as a surprise because I am oh so grateful that so many people visit my little blog. And I thank you.

Submission deadline is Tuesday, June 2, 2009, at 11:48pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time...a random time for a random drawing.

More CAS14 Cards

Here are a few more cards for the CAS14 Rock and Roll Challenge. It's a fun one, so I encourage you to check it out!





This card is a bit different for me, but it turned out really nice, mainly because of that scruptious gemstone brad. I adore those things, and with a little scrap of ribbon tucked into it, it's such a simple way to dress up a card. (Sorry for the strange angle of the card...definitely not done on purpose!)



This card is quite different (at least in stamp style) from what I normally make, even though it's a one-layer card. When I first started stamping seven years ago, I loved natural-looking images. Now, I lean more toward stylized or geometric images (like Papertrey's), so this was a trip back in time for me. I love how it turned out and may start using some more of these older stamps in a CAS way.



Isn't this a cheery card? Summer sun is a powerful, eye-watering color if used in large doses, but with a lot of white around it, it's just so happy! The bling makes this card, I think.

So which one of these three cards is your favorite? Inquiring minds want to know.

Supplies: I'm lazy today. If you really want to know more, check out my gallery at SCS. Thanks!