Monogram Card #2 Revisited

One of my husband's Air Force flight instructors once said, in a lovely Southern drawl, "It was a good idea that shouldn't have seen the light of day." That's how I'm starting to feel about the butterfly monogram card.

I tried popping the monogram up. Yuck...although to be fair, this might work if you positioned the butterflies specifically to do this. On my card, though, there were too many butterflies crowded under the popped monogram and it looked BAD. I'm just too lazy to try again. Sigh.

I tried using a giant SU monogram (Headline Alphabet) and it definitely made the monogram the center of attention, but it was, alas, too big. Sigh again.

Then I tried a tiny change to the original card, which I think is a little better.

I stamped and cut out a blue butterfly and positioned it a little below the monogram. I think it does draw more attention to the monogram, but I still think there are just too many butterflies. Oh, and I can't take the ribbon off this card because I used the stay-put ribbon technique so there's a big, ugly hole hidden under the knot.

I'm starting to hate this card, which is a shame, because it's really not that bad. Sigh.

Then, I saw Harriet's variation on the card, put her idea together with the gist of Monogram Card #3, and Bob's your uncle:



What does "Bob's your uncle" really mean? I don't know, but it seemed suitable here. I am finally happy with my butterfly monogram card. It's random in the same tidy way as Monogram #3, the monogram stands out sufficiently, and, well, who DOESN'T like bling?

Thanks, Harriet, for the inspiration!

Monogram Card #3, My Favorite

YES! This card makes me so, so happy on every level and in every way!!! It's simple and flat and very clean, and it allowed me to use some of the many alphabet stamp sets I hoard. It's modern and fun and simple.

Did I already say simple? Sorry, but simple is important on a blog called Simplicity.

The idea for this card came to me in a flash of inspiration. I was thinking about Ali Edwards, and how she uses her initials graphically on her scrapbook pages and blog. I thought about her love of type, of my printer's type tray that's leaning on my craft room wall awaiting some inspiration for altering because Ali did one, and all the little slots in it for holding different sized letters. Then I thought of how many stamp alphabets I have (around 40...it's an obsession) and how rarely I have used them since I've made a grand total of 4 scrapbook pages in the last year.

And suddenly, I saw this card in my head. It turned out exactly like I wanted. Happy sigh.

Design-wise, there is a lot I like in this. Clean white space (that happens to be green but whatever) balances the busy letters confined to a tidy matted strip. The repeated curvy S shapes contrast nicely with the straight lines of the stamped panel, matte, and card. Curves love angles.

I don't know why. They just do.

The biggest S is brown, like the matte, and all the others are shades of green that give an illusion of dimension to a really flat card. Since they are all the same letter, it's not visually chaotic. Your eye quickly "gets" that they are all the same and just enjoys the movement.

Well, I hope your eye enjoys it. Mine sure does.

I'm still ruminating on Monogram Card #2. Has anyone else played with that idea? I'm thinking the monograms need to be bigger (not a problem for Alpha Stamp Girl!) or maybe even chipboard for dimension. That card looks a bit flat to me (and to some of you). We'll come back to that one for sure.

Monogram Card #2 and a Dare

With this monogram card, I wanted to use the CAS34 color challenge, which I had not done yet. I used both my initials in brown, then stamped the butterflies all around in pink, green, and blue. The first version of this card used larger butterflies, which completely overwhelmed the monogram, so I redid it with smaller butterflies, and now the monogram stands out a bit more as the focal point.

This is different, certainly, from standard monogram cards. Something seems a bit off, though I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps fewer butterflies spaced wider apart? Or a slightly larger alphabet? White ribbon rather than the blue? (I wanted pink but didn't have the right shade.)

No matter its flaws, this card made me happy anyway just because I made something so out of the ordinary (for me, at least). I think this is a really good idea whose full potential has yet to be met. I'm not done fiddling with it, and if you give it a go, please share a link to your version.

I double-dog dare you!

Supplies
stamps: PTI Trajan alphabet, Leave Memories unmounted rubber Spring Garden set
ink: various VersaColor
paper: PTI white
accessories: ribbon

And the winner of Scrapbooking Purge is....

Lucky number 13! Lauralee! She wrote:

Anonymous said...
I love to play with paper and must admit that I am hoarding scrapbooking supplies! Quick, make a reality show of it!!!Thanks for the chance to win some great new materials. You are enabling me and I love it.Lauralee

Congratulations, Lauralee! Send me an email at susanraihala at woh dot rr dot com with your snail-mail address and I'll send out your goodies ASAP!

Monogram Card #1

Kind reader Amy Kilbreath asked that I show some monogram cards. Way back when PTI released their monogram sets, I ordered both fonts and the Monogram borders set. I spent some time trying to make cards with them and got frustrated, and they've pretty much sat unused ever since. For World Cardmaking Day, I thought I'd give monogram cards another try. I'll show three--each very, very different--this week.

First up is a formal, girly monogram in pink and brown. The swirl is from PTI's Silent Night, which I originally bought just for the religious sentiments (hard to find these days). That swirl, though, has served me well and been very useful.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love PTI?

The card design is a bit unbalanced (too heavy on the left), but I don't care. The colors are lighter IRL than in the photo, so it's not really as noticeable when the card is in hand. I toyed with the idea of adding another swirl running off the bottom toward the right, but stopped myself. Wish I could tell you some brilliant design theory to back up my choice, but honestly, it was probably a combination of fear of screwing the whole card up and laziness.

Just keepin' it real.

It was an okay card until I added the pearls, which really make it special for me. Notice I put three larger pearls and two tiny ones around the swirl. Odd numbers generally work better in a design, and this is definitely a case of four being too few and six being too many.

Simplicity Tip: To add self-adhesive rhinestones and pearls to a piece, I use a craft knife to cut the bling off the adhesive strip and then lift it with the tip of the knife and place it where I want. BE CAREFUL! I haven't cut myself doing this yet, but it's just a matter of time. My tetanus shot is current so I am ready when it happens.

I like the square border with notched corners, which looks so elegantly clean. I cut it out by hand using small Cutterbee scissors. These are my favorite scissors for detailed cutting.

I hope this is what you wanted, Amy. If not, there are two more very different cards coming up in the next few days, so stay tuned!

Supplies
stamps: PTI
paper: PTI vintage cream
inks: Versacolor old rose, brown
accessories: half-pearls, dimensionals

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

I hope you all have a chance to get crafty today and celebrate this wonderful hobby of ours!

Here's my mother's Christmas card this year. She doesn't check out my stamping blog, so it's safe to show you. *wink*



It's a 5" x 7" card to accommodate the four stockings. I stamped each, cut them out, and made a mantle to hang them from using my ScorPal. Everything is popped up, and the little something special is the small gemstone brads that attach the stockings to the mantle.

To keep it simple yet visually interesting, I alternated the red and green parts of each stocking. The color continuity keeps the card simple, but by alternating the red/green and changing the patterns of the four stockings, the card is more visually interesting.

I adore stamp sets like Stocking Prints. There are lots of patterns that provide variations on a pretty basic shape. This gives wonderful flexibility when designing a card.

Have a great cardmaking day!

Supplies
stamps: PTI Stocking Prints, Signature Christmas
ink: VersaColor green and cardinal, Palette Noir
paper: PTI white
accessories: small gemstone brads, dimensionals, corner rounder

Mark It on Your Calendar! She Used a Colored Card Base!

Bwwaaa-haaaa-haaa! I feel like all I've done lately is OLCs and white-on-white layering. As you saw in the pictures of my paper storage, I have lots of colored cardstock, so I decided to use a bit of it on this card.

CAS Design Tip: Contrast today's card with the first card on this post. The single ornament is lost in too much white space on the earlier post. The scale is wrong, and to fix it in that case, I added another ornament, which filled the space better. Another solution is to eliminate the expanse of white by using a smaller panel and mounting it on colored cardstock, as with today's card. Easy peasy. Keep this in mind for smaller images that need a little tighter focus than an OLC allows for.

I can't tell you the number of times I set out to make an OLC and end up with a colored base. It's all part of feeling my way toward a finished card. My process is rarely straightforward. I stamp something, stare at it for a while, stare at supplies for a while, decide to try something, decide that didn't work, or maybe it did, think a bit, do something else...etc. Eventually, I realize it's done (Woohoo!) or it didn't work at all (salvage the pieces and start over). I used to get frustrated and mad at myself when a card didn't work out; now I laugh, learn, and move on.

It's just paper, after all.

Art is messy, nonlinear, loose, and most of all, FUN! It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out because I'm just a teeny, tiny bit AR/OCD (ha!), and loose and nonlinear and messy aren't in my character. But then, I am starting to believe that the most important part of growing up is not taking myself so seriously. It feels pretty good.

Supplies
stamps: SU Tree Trimmings, PTI Signature Christmas
ink: Palette Noir, Versacolor Atlantic
paper: PTI white, SU brocade blue
accessories: silver metallic pen, dimensionals, silver half-bead