Farewell, 2010

Farewell, 2010. You are a great friend, and I can't believe you're leaving us already. You weren't long enough, but this card sure is.

Yes, it's a long card with LOTS of white space. But I wanted to see how this fabulous sentiment and little dragonfly would look huddled in one corner of a long card. The long ascender for the d creates a strong vertical border to the sentiment, and I wondered how it would look in a lot of horizontal white space.

I like it. It's bold and graphic and courageously empty. But I wish those adorable Hero Arts brown gemstones came one size smaller. That one is just a bit too big for that poor little dragonfly. Maybe he's a rapper dragonfly with a taste for big bling. Or Lady Gaga.

May your New Year's Eve celebrations be blingy and festive. Or, you could just celebrate like we do: go out on the 30th and eat Bang Bang Shrimp in relative peace, then on the 31st, stay home, watch a movie, go to bed at 10:00, wake up on New Year's morning, and say, "Happy New Year!" You don't have to worry so much about drunks on the road that way.

Except that last night we went home behind a drunk driving 15 miles below the speed limit who crossed the center line occasionally. At least he was in front of us where we could keep an eye on him.

Please be safe.

Oh, and have a happy New Year!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts
ink: VersaMagic
paper: PTI vintage cream
accessories: Hero Arts brown gemstone

Growing Green in One Subtle Layer

This time of year, after the glitz and glitter of Christmas, tends to be subtle for me. I made a set of simple, one-layer cards using all the images in StampinUp's Growing Green set. Here are two of the cards:

My goal was to create a long, loose border on the left third of the card to echo the elongated ascender on the h of the sentiment, which is from Hero Arts. The idea is to offer, visually, tall thanks. I was totally hooked on Baja Breeze and River Rock as a combo...very soothing and peaceful. But I think this would look awesome in bright colors, too.

My resolution from two years ago to use every image stamp I own has been so much fun. I'm not quite done, but I am focusing more and more on new acquisitions...most of the old stuff has been used already. I've even started putting new stamps in a basket to hold them until I use them. It's so fun to dive into that basket, make a bunch of stuff, and then add the stamps to my collection. It feels much more responsible than my previous method of hiding new stuff in my stash.

Do you have any tricks you use to USE your stuff?

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.?

Of Thank You Notes and Reorganization

Now that Christmas is over, it's time to think about thank you notes. Today, the boys and I will write a bunch of them. Some I've made over the last year are Christmas-themed, but those I've made in the last few weeks are not. Like this one, which uses a lamp from the Hero Arts Decorative Lamp set.

I can't remember exactly what green ink I used (maybe VersaMagic Tea Leaves...a dreamy green!), but the purply color is Boysenberry VersaColor, which is almost a dead ringer for SU's razzleberry. I wanted a table to ground the lamp but didn't want the bulk of a knot or bow added to what is already a double-dimensional card, so I wrapped SU dotted razzleberry ribbon flat around a popped panel. The lines of the grosgrain mimic the lines in the lamp shade, which is, of course, popped up. The card is 4.25" square, the sentiment is from PTI's anniversary set Round and Round, and the raised panel is 3" square.

Blithering about Reorganization...

I read Joan B's description of getting her supplies organized into her new Scrapbox on her blog here. This, combined with a revived confessional thread on SCS about people having too many supplies and a new thread by a woman who is putting herself on a stamp-supply spending freeze, and I felt uncontrollably motivated to reorganize my craft room. You see, my room's been looking cluttered lately, and my AR/OC self is feeling weighted down by that. I want to start the new year with a clean, tidy, organized room.

I spent about three hours yesterday going through stuff, condensing, and I'm not quite finished. You see, two years ago, when I resolved to use every image stamp I own (still ongoing and a very good resolution!), I also resolved not to buy any craft supplies I didn't really need. I focused my buying on replacing consummables I loved (self-adhesive gemstones, especially, and PTI white cardstock) and the occasional punch, as well as project-specific supplies. For stamps, I limited my spending to birthday and Christmas money, which, given the generosity of my family, has been more than sufficient.

As I used up some supplies, I didn't replace them. Ribbon, for instance. Two years ago, I used ribbon on virtually every card I made, so I bought it gleefully. (Unfortunately, now I don't use ribbon on cards nearly as often...though obviously judging from today's card, it's still a player.) Back then, I had 9 glass jars and two photo boxes full of ribbon. I mean FULL. Yesterday, without purging any ribbon at all, I eliminated the two photoboxes. The jars are still fairly full, but that's what I call progress.

My plan is to use up as much of my ribbon stash as possible and then start buying silk ribbon, which seems so much more sensible for cards as it results in flatter bows and knots. Unfortunately, until I use up most of what I have, I must resist the temptation.

I also have given away or donated a bunch of stuff in my quarterly purges. The result of all this fiscal responsibility was loose storage...drawers that were half-full and boxes that had just a few things left in them. Hence, the need to condense. Plus, the room had just become cluttered and messy, with random things stuffed in odd places.

It's already much improved, and I only have about an hour of work left. Obviously, any 12' x 10' room requiring over four hours to reorganize represents a serious mental illness. Okay, well, a mild one, at least. It also shows how incredibly blessed I am to have easy access to supplies and the means to purchase such a hoard without resorting to credit cards. It helps to have a husband with even more expensive hobbies so I need not feel guilty about all this stuff.

For two years, I've been heading in the right direction toward balancing possession and usefulness, and that's a resolution it seems I can stick to.

What are your crafting resolutions this year?

Before and After: The Evolution of a Valentine

I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas!

I thought it would be fun to show how a few of my cards evolve and the thought process behind that evolution. So here's a before-and-after post on a simple Valentine.

To start, I pulled out this set from Hero Arts, which I bought for my birthday back in November. Doesn't it just scream VALENTINE?!?!?! Okay, not so much. But the simple little envelope struck me as the perfect image for a Valentine, especially when paired with a 3D heart, also from Hero Arts.

BEFORE
My first instinct is usually to go utterly minimalist with cards. I ask myself the following question: What is the LEAST I can do to communicate my message interestingly?

For this, I thought making a one-layer with just the envelope image and heart sticker would be perfect. I was boringly wrong.

Sure, this communicates the message (a love letter) but it isn't, shall we say, very interesting. I find it fascinating how unpredictable the outcome will be when I start a card so simply. Sometimes, at this point in a design, that wow factor is there, sometimes it isn't. This time, it isn't, and I couldn't tell you why if you held a heat gun to my head. I just know boring when I see it!

AFTER
One solution to a boring CAS card is to pop something up. Adding just a touch of dimension may be all it needs to become visually interesting.

In this case, I also added a sentiment because all that uninterrupted white space around my love letter seemed rather blah and made it look like it was floating. I might have chosen to put the envelope on a red card base or even pink, but adding the one-line, red sentiment creates a bit of a visual triangle, with the sentiment as the base and heart at the peak. Visual triangles add stability and balance to a design, and here, the triangle keeps the envelope from floating around in white space. It also mirrors the upside down triangle of the envelope flap so nicely, doesn't it?

Another possible solution would have been to stamp wings behind the letter, and perhaps angle the envelope rather than make it straight. Again, that would create a visual triangle, but I've never been a huge fan of wings on inanimate objects, especially since the feminine products sprouted wings. Just my quirk. If you like wings, go for it. It might work. But I make no guarantees.


Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (envelope), StampinUp (sentiment, Three Little Words)
ink: Memento black, StampinUp real red
paper: PTI white
accessories: heart sticker (Hero Arts), dimensional

Peacock Make-Over

As most of you agreed, the ledge I put on THIS CARD to give the peacock something to stand on was kind of lame. Okay, really lame. So I remade the card, sans ledge. I like this MUCH better.

Not much else to say about this, so let's talk about the new Hero Arts catalog. Happy sigh. I'm loving it and have started a wish list that is sort of scary. It'll get whittled down over the next month, but oh my gosh it's so much fun!

Also, I ordered the catalog bundle (with the cling set called My Type) through Hero's website, but simonsaysstamp.com filled the order. They sent a $5 coupon for an order placed before the 30th, which is nice, and a pack of dark green rhinestones as a gift. Must say I'm impressed.

And no, they didn't pay me to say that.

I won't be posting again until after Christmas to focus on my boys and the furry fiend furry golden sunshine.

Christmas blessings to one and all!