Before and After: Color Contrast

Sometimes the mess in your craft space can lead to inspiration. This apricot appeal card base was already cut and lying on my table, as was the Think Big #7 set from Papertrey that came with my order on Monday. I looked in my orange embellishment drawer and saw a package of Hero Arts paper flowers...and this card was born.

Before

It's not the best card I've ever made. In fact, the more I looked at it, the less appealing that apricot was. At first, the lack of a mat bothered me, which made me wonder why sometimes mats look better and sometimes they don't. Which made me think of color contrast.

In the card above, the apricot isn't dark enough to provide adequate contrast to the white panel...there's simply not a stong enough break in color. Plus the giant orange brad in the center of the flower doesn't quite match the pumpkin pie ink or the flowers and just stands out like SU's ugly only orange color.

Which explains why the card above does not work and the card below does.

After

I wish I had a button dark enough to match the pumpkin pie exactly, but alas, I had to use a lighter shade. Please repeat after me: "I will not go out and buy more buttons. I will not go out and buy more buttons. I will not go out and buy more buttons."

Thank you.

At least the button is not that dreadful only orange color of the brad! Anyway, the flowers look a tad washed out in the picture but aren't in real life. I wish the flowers hadn't jumped into my cart a few months ago (it was a moment of weakness and they were on sale!). Fact is, I don't really enjoy using paper flowers...I just like looking at them, especially when other stampers use them so wonderfully. But they work for me on this card, so it wasn't a total waste of money.

Have a lovely weekend!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Think Big #7
ink: SU pumpkin pie
paper: SU apricot appeal, pumpkin pie; PTI white
accessories: Hero Arts paper flowers, giant brad, button, white DMC floss, glue dots

Inspired by Lindsay Amrhein and a Link to a Lattice Tutorial

This adorable kraft-base card by Lindsay Amrhein appears in the latest issue of Card Creations, which is my favorite issue EVER. It's loaded with tons of clean and simple inspiration.

Lindsay paper pieced her sweet bowl of cherries using turquoise and red designer papers, and I loved those colors against the kraft.

I kept the colors (though my turquoise is a lighter aqua) and rather than piecing, I opted for the much easier punching. At first, I was going to punch circles for the flower centers, but then I remembered these giant brads, so I used them instead. The three brads form a visual triangle around the sentiment, and the top large flower and bottom small flower are popped up on dimensionals. Lindsay rounded all four corners, which makes sense given the curves of her focal point, but I felt the pointy flowers on my version needed at least some pointy corners. Rounding the opposite corners gives a nice dynamic feel to an otherwise static design.

Scor-Pal Tutorial: For those of you who asked for a tutorial on yesterday's embossing, please thank blog reader Susan who linked to an awesome Gina K tutorial on the subject. Gina's tutorial shows a much tighter lattice than the one on my baby card, for which the lines were scored at one-inch intervals. I used a Scor-Pal (12") rather than the smaller Scor-Buddy. Also, my card is one layer, so I began with a 4.25" x 11" card base and scored at 3.5 and 5.5 inches...the 5.5" score was the fold for the card, and the 3.5" score, which is covered by ribbon on my card, gave me a guide for scoring the lattice on the lower two-thirds of the card.

For those of you who aren't using your Scor-Pal for more than folding cards, DON'T WORRY. That's what I use it for 99% of the time, too. It's worth every penny even if that's all you ever do with it!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ink's Green Thumb
paper: Mark's Finest Kraft, PTI's polka dot paper
ink: Memento
accessories: brads, dimensionals, Corner Chomper

Inspiration: A Fable

Once upon a time, there was a blogger who decided to spend an entire week talking about inspiration and asking her readers to share their feelings about inspiration, all the while giving away stuff to inspire people. Our blogger loves to give stuff away. It makes people so happy!

She shared good stuff about inspiration on her blog, and her readers shared even better stuff. For instance, she learned that many people both enjoy using and are inspired by patterned paper, although she herself usually ends up cutting it into little pieces and throwing it away in frustration. She has even been known to swear--just a bit--over lovely mangled sheets of Basic Gray.

But no matter.

The blogger loves that the world is made up of people who love different things. If everyone preferred apple pie for dessert, for instance, there might not be enough for her. She is happy to eat apple pie and let the patterned paper lovers have all the patterned paper they want without sharing any with her.

When the week of inspiration was over, our blogger felt very good about bringing all these different people together to share and discuss the one thing they most certainly all agreed on, which is that papercrafting is fun. Although she suspects a lot of them like apple pie, too.

So Friday, when our blogger needed to get to work making cards for the next week's blogging fun (what a surprise she had in store for her readers!), she sat down at her craft desk and started to work. After two hours, she realized that she had made six cards that were all crap.

Well, perhaps she was being a bit hard on her efforts, but truly, after a week of writing about inspiration like she knew what she was talking about, she had to admit that she was...uninspired.

Years ago, she would have beaten herself up as a total failure at life, the universe, and everything for something as negligible as two wasted hours. But not this time. Experience had taught her how silly such melodramatic over-reactions were. Instead, she grabbed a stamping magazine and her notebook and a pen, and she sat at her kitchen table to drink a Mike's Hard Pomegranite Lemonade and study the latest issue of Take Ten, while her husband sipped his beer and studied a new triathlon magazine called Lava. When she observed his magazine, she made no comment but totally understood the title as a reference to the location of the Ironman World Championships at Kona.

She then realized she knew entirely too much about triathlon and needed to focus on her Take Ten if she was to knock herself out of her slump, while at the same time noting that the layout of Lava might possibly, one day, provide inspiration for a card. But her husband was reading it and didn't want to share, so that would have to wait.

She sipped her Mike's and jotted a few notes and saw about fifty cards using a similar idea that she'd seen a thousand times before when inspiration struck! She got all tingly--and not just because of the Mike's--because a card popped right into her head, a card she was excited about, was willing to waste any amount of paper to create even though it would require doing things to paper that she doesn't normally do to paper. She didn't care! She immediately ran right up to her craft room to create her brilliantly brainstormed art!

This is NOT that card.

In fact, this card bears absolutely no resemblance to the miraculous card inspired by Mike's and Take Ten. This is, in fact, a card she made over a week ago with a left-over punched butterfly that accidentally got tossed on a piece of sahara sand cardstock. She liked the look of the black, white, and sand, but thought it needed something with umph. So she searched her red embellishments drawer and found this flower-shaped bling and thought, "What the heck?"

And it was good.

You'll just have to wait until next week's Mysterious Five Days of Fun to see what Mike's Hard Pomegranite Lemonade and Take Ten--and a little patience--inspired her to create. She and Mary Dawn have been conspiring again, and seriously, you will love the results.

At least, she hopes you will.

Trying a Trend

I had to try the whole doily trend for myself, just because I happened to be on the cake decorating aisle at Michael's and saw--SURPRISE--little doilies. They seemed like a good idea at the time.


This card doesn't really scream LateBlossom style, but I like it anyway. It uses an old PSX thank you stamp and some of my considerable stash of light blue pearls that have languished for too long. I do think the sentiment would look better if it were stamped in navy or dark gray rather than black, though. The black seems a tad stark.

How-To Tips: I used a circle of white cardstock to give some support under the center of the doily, which is really quite flimsy. Since I didn't glue down the lacy edges of the doily, it sort of curls off the card...an effect that I really like. The ribbon helps anchor the doily on the card; without it, the doily seemed sort of floaty. The card is 5" square, which fits into some standard square envies I picked up at Marco's.

It's more than one layer, so not appropriate for an OLW challenge, but I challenge you to look for opportunities to try trendy things outside your comfort zone whenever you can, especially when it doesn't cost much to do so. I'm not going to be slapping a doily on any ol' thing in the future, but it certainly was fun to play with them!

Supplies
stamps: PSX
ink: black
paper: SU bashful blue, white
accessories: small doily, light blue half-pearls, circle cutter, ribbon

Turning a New Leaf Meets Big Glittery Brads

Just a quick post because the back-to-school rush, combined with a new puppy, is KILLING me. Well, not literally. But back-to-school and Daisy are sucking up every minute of my spare time.

So here's a card with big glittery brads that have languished in my hoard for the better part of a year and my favorite PTI set.

I don't really like the colors here (seems a bit drab to me), but they were dictated by the brads. Wouldn't red glittery brads or pink glittery brads or even white glittery brads be happier looking? Well, I don't have those colors. I have green. And now I have three fewer.

At least I've got that going for me.

Supplies
stamps: PTI
ink: can't remember, probably VersaMagic
paper: PTI ripe avocado, something else, and white
accessories: big glittery brads (Michael's) dimensionals, threading water punch

White Makes Bright Colors Pop!

Whew. All that colored cardstock on yesterday's post made me crave some white. Here's one of the many white-based cards I made after challenging myself (and wow what a challenge!) to use colored cardstock. It was like coming home. It feels so right. Ahhhhh.


How-To Tips: The best way to line up clear border stamps is to use a gridded acrylic block. After stamping all the borders, I realized I'd left a bit too much white on the bottom (it looked a tad unbalanced) so I trimmed about 5/8" off the bottom of a standard 5.5" x 4.25" card. Otherwise, this card is simplicity itself!

Design Thoughts: The awesome thing about white cardstock is that you can use spots of very bright color without making your eyes water. (Just try looking at a piece of yo-yo yellow cardstock by itself and you'll see what I mean.) Bright colors, used sparingly, pop right off of white cardstock.

Also, sprinkling bling is a fun way to liven-up a rather static design. I added three bits of each color of bling, trying to space them out randomly without leaving bare patches or creating unsightly clusters. The result is much more interesting and cheerful. I rounded the bottom corners because they asked me nicely.

Doesn't your cardstock talk to you? No? Well, you must not be talking to it. Open up a dialog, listen carefully, and great things will happen.

Yes, I live in my rubber room. Why do you ask?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Memento
paper: PTI
accessories: corner rounder, bling

Where Am I?

Do you ever have that feeling that you're headed in twenty different directions all at one time, wondering what your name is and how in the world you'll ever find out because there's JUST TOO MUCH OTHER STUFF TO THINK ABOUT? Add to that the fact your dog died, and you'll understand how I feel right now.

Weird, huh? I need to push the STOP button, rewind and regroup. Fortunately, for this blog, at least, I have a bazillion cards already photographed and ready to post. But as for getting organized enough to do the two tutorials I want to post, well...let's just say my directions at the moment would read something like instructions translated from Chinese to English by a ten-year-old whose native language is Swahili.

This, too, shall pass. I thank you for your patience in the meantime.

One cause for my distraction and confusion is all the new product doing a Chippendale strip-tease before my eyes. Papertrey's newest release (OH MY GOSH!), the new StampinUp catalog (which I am still drooling over daily and have yet to order from because I can't make up my mind about anything right now), all the Mark's Finest Papers goodness that is already in my possession just waiting to be played with. Memory Box, A Muse, and Clear and Simple Stamps joined those first three on stage as well. Life is too short to do them all.

Do them all. Egads, I'm such a stampin' slut!

Anyway, to calm myself during the sneak peeks from Papertrey, I pulled out stamps of the office supply/school/book themes that I already have and played. Today's cards are two of the results. Please note the use of paper clips. I want extra credit for using supplies that have languished in my collection for far too long.


I didn't like the sentiment on the first card when I made it...it seemed a bit too busy for me at the time. So I went simpler with the second, and changed the color scheme to something happy and upbeat and friendly. Plus, I used a big brad: extra-extra credit, don't you think?


In retrospect, I like them both and wonder why I ever felt that first sentiment was too busy. Whatever.

I hope y'all enjoyed the MFP blog hop as much as I did! I've had a few people say they really don't like sneak peeks and find it frustrating to see stamps used long before there's a chance to buy them. I'd love to hear more opinions on this issue. My plan for now is to wait until about ten days before the August release to post peeks of the August stamps. That way, it won't be too long a wait until you can purchase them. But what are your feelings on this?

Supplies
stamps: SU Office Accoutrement, Hero Arts sentiments
ink: Memento (except the SU real red)
paper: PTI
accessories: flower and heart punches, brad, paper clips, dimensionals

Berry Christmas, Take Two

The poinsettia stamp from Berry Christmas is lovely. So clean and simple. I wanted to experiment a bit with the center of it, so I made the large, 5" square card using some really cool half beads that twinkletoe sent me a while back. They have this amazing, metallic-y gold/red thing going on that I thought would be perfect with the poinsettia. I was right. Totally a wow embellishment.

CAS Design Tip: To kick a CAS card up a notch, use one really cool embellishment in a very simple way. Here, I used three small half beads in each poinsettia, keeping placement the same in all three for visual simplicity. That way, they don't draw too much attention to themselves but still pack a punch. Does that make sense? I hope so.

I kept wondering if I should do something in the upper left corner to balance the sentiment and played around with ribbon tabs, which didn't work because the tab stood out too much. She was like a prima donna demanding far too much attention for herself. I finally decided to leave it alone and really like the way it turned out.

The smaller 3" gift card uses a cut-out poinsettia and yellow rhinestones placed over the stamped center (the set comes with a small stamp for the center of the flower). Remember, I wanted to use EVERY image stamp in the set. I don't really like covering the stamp center with rhinestones, though. I know, shocking! But it really looked better just stamped in summer sun. Also, cutting out this flower was less fun than I expected, so I'll likely not be doing that very often. The bigger card was easier, quicker, and turned out better IMHO anyway.

Supplies
stamps: SU Berry Christmas; PTI Signature Christmas; unknown Merry Christmas
ink: SU real red, summer sun; Palette noir
cardstock: PTI white
accessories: half beads, rhinestones, dimensional

Dotted Tree Thanks

Just a quick card for you until I get back into my stamping room!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (tree), PTI (sentiment)
ink: marigold morning, chocolate chip
paper: PTI cream, SU marigold morning, chocolate chip
accessories: ring clip (SU), ribbon, dimensionals, rhinestones

A Card that Makes Me Happy!

Oh, my! This card snapped me out of a mojo funk on Tuesday when I was trying to come up with something for the CAS25 challenge. I'd made three or four cards that were very, very forgettable when this one popped out. It's sufficiently different from the challenge sketch that I didn't upload it to that gallery (and besides, my cards that I finally did load to that gallery also made me really happy). But still, this one is worthy of note.

It's a 4.25-inch square card that uses a Hero Arts clear stamp set. Usually, I'm highly bothered by grammar errors on stamps (there should be a comma bewteen "hello" and "friend") but I'll let this one slide. This is such a harmonious card, perfect for sending to a friend who is stressing out.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
cardstock: PTI white
ink: Palette chocolate, SU always artichoke, old olive markers
accessories: dimensionals, "cloud" deco scissors, Hero Arts olive rhinestones, ribbon

CAS25 Sketch Challenge

This week's CAS challenge is a sketch challenge based on this card by Kristie Lee...one of my favorite CAS stampers!

My mojo was not firing yesterday AT ALL until after everyone was in bed and I took one little nugget of inspiration from Ann, who said she planned on using Primas with the sketch. Hmm. I have a BUNCH of Maya Road velvet flowers purchased from PTI that have been hanging in my hoard for, oh, forever. I also have brads of every color and size. So here is the result of opening up my hoard and *gasp* USING some of it.













Thanks, Ann, for helping me not be a hoarder.

Supplies
cardstock: PTI white
stamps: PTI Polka Dot Basics, Paper Tray
ink: SU only orange, green galore, real red, Versacolor orchid, Palette Noir
accessories: ribbon, velvet ribbon, dimensionals, brads, velvet flowers

Happy Hello

I made the grid with PTI's retro backgrounds set, stamped the turquoise with their text backgrounds, and used PTI white buttons. All the paper is from StampinUp, and the sentiment is from Hero Arts. My three favorite stamp companies all on one card...ahhhhhh, joy!

Have a glorious Sunday!

Graphically Speaking Inspiration: Going Dotty

As I said in this post, the newest issue of PaperCrafts magazine has an article "Graphically Speaking," full of lovely CAS inspiration. The PaperCrafts blog Moxie Fab World conveniently shows all three cards I used for inspiration here; just scroll down...you can't miss them amidst the more heavily embellished cards.

First up, I used the Thank You Dots card by Angie Hagist. I changed the color (vanilla instead of white, earthtone matte brads rather than shiny brights) and scale, since I don't have tiny brads like Angie used. I prefer her color choices (so crisp and fun!), but my birthday is around Thanksgiving, hence my autumnal take on the card. I used my SU! Mat Pack piercing template to pre-pierce the holes for my brads...that's how I got them so straight. Yeay, me!



The second card uses the Circle Graphics Thanks card by Kimberly Crawford. I don't have the cool die cut she used, but improvised with PTI's Polka Dot Basics. First I stamped the open circle border and then filled in with the individual solid circle. Turned out pretty well (even if a few solid circles aren't quite centered), and what a fun, flat card to mail!



The two cards above interpret their inspiration pieces pretty literally, with very little change at all in the designs. The last card today is more "creative" on my part. I loved the spectrum circles on Heidi Van Laar's G Thanks Card, and merged that idea with Angie Hagist's design, shifted off center to the lower right of a horizontal card rather than vertical. I used versacolor cubes to ink the dots on the PTI Polka Dot border stamp (very carefully, LOL!) and stamped them all at once. No worries about messing up the line. This could be scaled up for bigger dots quite nicely, I think.




A few days ago, I realized that I'm down to one package of PTI white and, after hyperventilating a bit, ran to my computer to order four packs, you know, so I don't RUN OUT! It was the first time I didn't get free shipping on a PTI order. It felt so strange ordering just what I needed and (grrrr) paying for shipping. For full confession, I would have met the minimum if only they'd had the Button Bits set in stock.

How can I feel so sad when I was so financially responsible? Sigh.

More Papertrey Tea for Two Cards and a Mailing Tip

I made the card above for my friend Liz, who was recovering from surgery. I sent her a care package of earl grey tea and chocolates along with the card. The sentiment seemed particularly appropriate!

I rounded the corners of the stamped panel and matte slightly using scallop-edge scissors. These give a slight curve that looks nice but isn't quite as pronounced as a regular corner rounder.

Simplicity Tip: Some simple stampers refuse to make lumpy-bumpy cards because of the problems with mailing them...risk of damage or expense of bubble envelopes or extra postage. I tend to make easy-to-mail cards most of the time, but I do enjoy going three dimensional, too. And let's face it, PTI's vintage buttons are FABULOUS! So I send lumpy-bumpy cards to people in packages (as with this one) or hand-deliver them, and use flatter cards for mailing. Best of both worlds.

This card is fine for mailing, although I will put a bit of packaging tape on the envelope over the gemstones. I keep a bunch of 17-cent stamps on hand for slightly lumpy cards.

Supplies for kraft card
stamps: PTI Tea for Two
cardstock: PTI kraft, SU cameo coral, vanilla
ink: versamagic pink grapefruit, bark
accessories: dimensionals, buttons (PTI), craft floss

Supplies for teal and white card
stamps: PTI Tea for Two, Spiral Bouquet (flourish for steam), Polka Dot Basics; Hero Arts Tea clear set (sentiment)
cardstock: PTI white. ink: versamagic turquoise gem, aquatic splash. accessories: gemstones, dimensionals, corner rounder, ribbon

Another CAS21 Card

Here's another card for CAS21, Make It Sparkle. I love punching white shapes and putting them on white. It's subtle and sometimes hard to photograph, though. Here, I paired the white on white with SU's taken with teal and some sparkly teal brads. I pressure embossed lines to frame the flowers, but they are hard to see in the photo.

This card is soothing yet cheerful, so I added a "get well" sentiment.

Happy Independence Day, America!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Tea for Two
cardstock: PTI white, SU taken with teal
ink: taken with teal
accessories: flower punch, brads, scorpal

Simple Set with Amber Bling

In my effort to use every image stamp in my collection, I've had to stretch myself to use the odd little pieces in the Papertrey sets which I had hitherto avoided. This set of cards uses the little stamps from Everyday Blessings to make borders for the various sentiments in that set. The gemstones are amber colored and look so nice with the Hint of Pesto ink. I used the grid acrylic block from PTI to line everything up for the repeat stamping.

Simplicity Tip: When repeat stamping like this, it's hard to line stuff up so the repeats look even at both ends. Look at the borders of the first two cards to see what I mean: the first is uneven, the second is even on the card and looks better. To do this easily, just cut the card down to fit the stamping AFTER you stamp the border. Don't stamp the sentiment before cutting, as this will throw off the balance of the card. (Ask how I know this....) These cards are various sizes to accommodate the repeats evenly. Of course, you only need this tip if you are AR/OC like me. Otherwise, don't worry about repeat stamping being even. Really, it doesn't matter to normal people.










Supplies

cardstock: PTI white
stamps: PTI Everyday Blessings
ink: Versamagic Hint of Pesto and dark brown
accessories: gemstones

Father's Day Card

I want it noted that I ACTUALLY USED a piece of Hodgepodge Hardware on this Father's Day card for my wonderful husband. JulieHRR laughed at me in the SCS forum a while back (a l-o-n-g while back, LOL!) when I stated I would eventually use my Hodgepodge and wasn't really hoarding it. I think this is proof I was right.

Sort of.

Supplies
stamps: PTI Pond Life
cardstock: PTI natural; SU artichoke, night of navy
ink: SU artichoke, night of navy, chocolate chip, close to cocoa
accessories: Hodgepodge Hardware, ribbon

Ask and It Will Be Given to You

This very simple card showcases one of my favorite embellishments at the moment: Hero Arts half-pearls. They come in several soft, pretty colors, including this pale green. So pretty! Several companies make pearls like these, and while I adore rhinestones, the pearls are so subtle and lovely.

The only oddity here is that the card is A6 size (6.25 X 4.5) rather than standard. The sentiment needed more space to breathe.

Supplies:
cardstock - PTI white
stamps - Hero Arts (background); sentiment ?
ink - SU wild wasabi, Palette noir
accessories - dimensionals, Hero Arts light green half pearls

CAS15 Playing with Color

This challenge--to use black and white and one bold bright--ROCKS! When I went to my embellishment drawers (organized by color) to see what fun bold bright stuff I had, I discovered turquoise, hot pink, and bright purple gemstone flowers. Perfect! I only posted the turquoise version at SCS, but here are the other two as well. Which is your favorite color? I love them all!

Supplies
Cardstock: Papertrey White
Stamps: Hero Arts
Ink: Palette Noir
Accessories: gemstone flowers

Wedding Thank You

This card was made possible by the kindness and crochet talents of kstamper. She sent me a packet of her very own crocheted flowers, and I finally parted with three of them to make this card, which was actually inspired by this card kstamper herself posted on SCS.

Thank you, Karen, for such a wonderful, inspiring gift!

For the card, I scored two lines across the bottom to create a border (hard to see in photo, lovely irl!). The sentiment is embossed in silver to match the frames of the pearl brads at the center of the flowers.

Supplies: crocheted flowers by Karen, aka kstamper; PTI white cs; Scorpal; pearl brads; sentiment by Anna Griffin; silver colorbox pigment ink; silver embossing powder.