Before and After: Color and Scale

It's really amazing how color and scale can affect a card...especially a clean and simple card where there is no place to hide! If you make a card that doesn't seem quite right, ask yourself if a simple change in color or scale (or both, in this case!) might make a difference.

Before

This card has two problems. 1) The green (Memento Pear Tart...yummmm!) is too light to stand up to the orange rhinestones. 2) The rhinestones are just too, too big.

After

To fix it, I switched to Old Olive ink from StampinUp (which sadly doesn't stamp as crisply with the PTI stamps sometimes), and found some tiny rhinestones to mix in with the small ones.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Way to Go, Kiddo; Birthday Basics
ink: Memento pear tart; SU close to cocoa, old olive
paper: PTI white
accessories: Rhinestones, scallop scissors to round the corners of the card

Snail's Pace

I spent an excessive amount of time Sunday stamping. Very little productive came out of that time, but perhaps my mojo is returning, if only at a snail's pace:

Today's card uses the Papertrey set called Way to Go, Kiddo. I used the Martha Stewart grass border punch to create, well, the grass. I know you don't need to be told that. Sorry. Just call me MOTO: Master Of The Obvious.

I like Lady Blingsalot better, though.

Also, I'm too chicken to put eyes on the snail, but that hardly matters since a snail's eyes in the real world are on the ends of its tentacles. Which means I'm spared the necessity of adding dots for eyes and having them look dreadful, which they would because before I learned snails' eyes are on their tentacles, I practiced. The results were not pretty.

Sometimes, Mother Nature really helps us stampers out. Thanks, Mother Nature. But we have to talk about this whole perimenopause thing, because I'm soooo not enjoying it.


Supplies
stamps:   Papertrey Way to Go, Kiddo
ink: memento canteloup, SU close to cocoa
paper: PTI white, spring moss
accessories: Martha Stewart grass border punch, dimensionals, rhinestones

Mojo Holiday

My mojo has gone on holiday without me. Darn it. Just a month ago, I was doing double posts to share my mojo overdrive. Now, I got nothin'. The stampin' mojo will return, I'm sure. But in the meantime, I decided to shamelessly exploit my golden retriever, who is really much cuter than any card I've ever made.



Darth Daisy Gives You the Evil Eye



Darth Daisy: "Say what?"



Gravity...got...my...lip...!!!



Daddy Walked My Paws Off

One-Layer Wednesday 42: I've Got the Music in Me

Hello! Jennifer has given us a really fun challenge: music! Check out the challenge on her blog here.

My first card looks better in real life. For some reason, the red bling doesn't show up as well on the photo (and I took five or six photos!). Oh well, it's still cool. The note is from All Night Media and the word note is from Papertrey's Paper Tray set. I contemplated adding an a before the word note, but ultimately, I really liked the single word. I rounded the corners with scallop scissors.

I couldn't stop with one card, though. Last week's Christmas challenge got me a very early start on this year's cards. Since I make about 200 or so Christmas cards and rarely make duplicates of a design, this is a good thing.

Using Stuff: Colored Vellum

Today's card is flawed, but I have several reasons for showing it anyway. Well, reasons other than it's absolutely the only card I have photographed and ready to show you. It was this or nothing.

But today's card taught me several things. First, be careful what ink you use when you use colored pencils. I used Memento ink for this and when I was about half-way through coloring, I was shocked to find it smeared. Oh my. Not expecting that. Has anyone else had this problem?

Second, the light pink prisma colored pencil does not work well. This was my first time using it, and I now understand why people have complained about Prisma pencils. It wouldn't smooth out with a blender pencil at all, so the pink areas look sort of diseased. Perhaps using odorless mineral spirits would work, but I will not buy them. Sigh.

Third, blue vellum makes AWESOME water. I have had this sheet of blue vellum for at least eight years. You read that right: eight years. As part of my resolution to use or ditch old supplies, I decided to try it with the Martha Stewart wave border punch and see what happened. I LOVE this and will likely use the entire gawgeous sheet making ocean cards. But I won't use that pink prisma again.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (whale is from Oceans of Joy, sentiment is from a discontinued WM set)
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey white, blue vellum
accessories: Prisma color pencils

Recovery

StampinUp's Thoughts and Prayers is such a pretty set...and enormously useful to us cardmakers. Get well soon just seems so bossy and boring sometimes, especially for people who have prolonged illnesses, multiple procedures, etc. This set has this wonderful sentiment to add some variety to the whole get well greeting.

I started with the embossed lines to make a ground for the tree, which is stamped in Memento's Pear Tart (yummy!) and using a stamp positioner. Pearls complete the soft yet still cheery card.

Sadly, I have nothing pithy or witty or amusing to say about this card. I just really like it.

Remember to keep an eye out for the OLW42 on Jennifer's Blog. I can't wait to find out what fun she's cooked up for us this week!

My younger son's room is the most pathetic in the house, and I'm determined to fix that this week with fresh paint, new bedding, new curtains, and some art. I spent a big chunk of Tuesday shopping for a new bedspread. Who knew it would be so hard to find boy bedding that wasn't too juvenile, too dark, or too sophisticated? Seriously, this is a huge gap in the bed linen world! I finally settled for a set from Target. It's colorful. It has lots of blue. And he loved it, squealing with delight and blissfully shouting, "Thank you soooo much, Mommy!" Awesome.

Setting Makes a Difference

Unfortunately, I am in need of a few sympathy cards, so I pulled out my soft pinks and browns. I chose a curved stem from Stem Silhouettes and nestled a small sentiment from Papertrey's Mixed Messages inside the curve. I love how the stem seems to be giving a hug to the words.

As much as I love white-on-white layering, sometimes it seems...lacking. That's the case here. I think this version is just so subtle that it's, well, boring.

So I decided to try a layer of Papertrey's sweet blush cardstock as a matte. That's definitely better. The stamped panel seems so much more anchored visually to the card.

But then I wondered if it wouldn't look even better and more balanced on a sweet blush card base with a close to cocoa matte.

Ding, ding, ding!!!!! We have a winner!!!!! Still clean and simple, but definitely the way to go with this particular combination of images and color.

If only the card weren't for such a sad occasion. *sigh*

Supplies
stamps: SU Stem Silhouettes, Papertrey Mixed Messages
ink: VersaColor cinnamon and umber
paper: Papertrey white, sweet blush; SU close to cocoa
accessories: dimensionals