Final Grunge

Of course, I couldn't let Grunge Me go back into the stash without using it to make my favorite layout of all time, with a tiny variation on sentiment placement. Offsetting such a small sentiment draws more attention to it and keeps it from getting utterly lost on the card.

Oh happy paint spatters! Oh happy, tidy squares!

Tomorrow, I'll start posting some cards using AMuse's Marvelous Marigolds set. So fun!

Don't forget to check out Cheryl's blog on Wednesday for this week's One-Layer Wednesday challenge!!!! 

Hmmm, today's post is all about egregious exclamation points.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me and some other set for the sentiment that I can't remember
ink: VersaColor
paper: Papertrey
accessories: dimensionals, 3/4" square punch

Two Little Tabs

Hoping this Monday morning that all my friends and readers in the Northeast are warm and safe! Snows like that are beautiful IF you don't have to go out in them and you don't lose power.

The little tabs on today's card come from Papertrey's Grunge Me. You might remember that I used the stamp in a similar fashion on this card to add some order to the chaos.

No chaos here...just a very clean birthday card for a guy. I do wish I had a better sentiment for this sort of thing, but this large sentiment from Papertrey was the the best I could find in my stash.

Methinks I need to work on my stash a bit.

What have you bought recently that has you excited? Now that I know we're not going to owe Uncle Sam gobs of money, I feel the need to do a little fiscal stimulation of my own and could use some suggestions.

It's only right to do my part to help the economy, right?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: none

Funky Grunge

Papertrey's Grunge Me set has a small curve of circles that has always been hard for me to incorporate into designs...until I thought of this:

Eeeep! Love it! The alignment was a bit tricky, but I drew a light pencil line down the side of the card and stamped so the tiniest circle and the biggest circle both hit the line, flipping the stamp for each repetition. The different sizes of bling are scattered randomly (although the two closest to the sentiment were placed to draw the eye there), and there are five of them...a nice, odd number for design. The two corners are rounded to bring the whole design together and because it looked weird to have pointy corners on the right.

Take a look at your stash and see if any little stamps might make an interesting border like this one!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me, Birthday Basics
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: pencil, straight edge, eraser, rhinestones, corner rounder

Build-A-Flower and a Cool Marker Tip

Today's card uses the petal-shaped frame from Grunge Me (Papertrey) to create a fun, graphic flower.

If I'd used fairy vomit, I could have used this card for the OLW126 challenge, but alas, hot pink and gray appear frequently on my cards.

And yes, getting the petals all lined up perfectly was hard and required a magic wand gridded acrylic block and holding my breath.

Today's Cool Tip
Did you know that alcohol markers (Copics, Bics, Sharpies) can be blended on bling? I have been experimenting with matching my rhinestones to ink better, and in the process discovered that if, say, your bling is a true red but you need a purplish red, all you have to do is add some purple or blue over it. If you go too far, simply add red to correct. Repeat until you turn into Goldilocks and get it juuuust right. This works equally well starting from scratch with a clear rhinestone.

Blending. It's not just for paper!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: rhinestone, Bic gray marker

One-Layer Wednesday 126--Neglected Color

First of all, I'm so happy to have an even-numbered challenge again! The last two odd-numbered ones had me twitching.

Second, we all have neglected colors in our ink collections, colors we just don't use often...whether we dislike them, don't know what to do with them, or simply forget about them. So this week, pull out a color or colors that need some love and use them to make a card of any theme.

Here's my card, which uses Brilliance Pearlescent Olive, which I really truly hated at first, but now love and just forget about.

One of our other OLW hostesses, who shall remain nameless (Cheryl oops, Ardyth!), asked if I was going to use Orchid Opulence, which I once referred to as Fairy Vomit. Thank goodness I got rid of it all and have nothing even close to use.


OLW126 Rules

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single layer of card stock folded in half. No other layers of card stock allowed.

2. Make a card using a neglected color in your ink collection. You may choose any theme you wish, but remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Upload your card somewhere online and link to it using the InLinkz button on the sidebar of Simplicity. If linking to a blog post, remember to link to the specific post, not the blog's main page.

Please note...the InLinkz button will not go live until Wednesday mid-morning.

4. The most important rule of all...HAVE FUN!!!!!!

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me, Modern Basics
ink: Brilliance Pearlescent poppy and olive
paper: PTI
accessories: rhinestones, Bic markers (to color the rhinestones to match the poppy ink)

Grunging in a Different Direction

Papertrey's Grunge Me set is incredibly versatile. The last two cards I posted using it were grunge...with splatter stamps and chaos abounding. Today, we're going to rein that chaos in and go totally graphic, clean, and simple.

The colors make this card pop happily, as does the random placement of bling. I like how the rectangular shape of the dots sorta kinda resembles a birthday cake shape. It's subtle, but fun!

And lest anyone think that this sort of card is easy because it has so little on it, know that I messed it up the first time when I stamped the birthday a bit too low and unbalanced the whole design. I contemplated trying again and figured the best thing to do was to draw pencil lines 1/8" above and below the dots. Then, I lined up the words using the pencil lines. This worked because both the top and bottom of the words are flat and thus easy to line up...wouldn't work so well with a cursive font or a sentiment with ascenders and descenders on the letters.

On another note, Carol Cel asked where I learned about trapped white space and other design stuff. I was privileged to work with two fabulous graphic design artists at Micron Technology in Boise, ID. Randy and Liz took words I'd edited as Writer/Editor and made them look good on brochures, newsletters, data books, powerpoint presentations, and web sites. I soaked up their knowledge whenever I could, and then when I read Cathy Zielski's two books on scrapbook design, it all sort of came together. Took years of practice before I could actually apply what I learned to what I create, though.

Sometimes, being a tad obsessive is a good thing!


Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me, Birthday Basics
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: ruler, pencil, gridded acrylic block, rhinestones

Grunge Me, Continued

Wednesday's OLW card launched my revisit with Grunge Me, a fun little set from Papertrey. It contains an excellent assortment of graphic shapes and images that are just so much fun to combine!

Today's card uses a similar messy vibe as Wednesday's, but with an extra layer to add some order to the chaos and lots of hot pink for a cheerful, feminine touch.

The hot pink baker's twine (Doodlebug) puts a veritable lid on the chaos, although the very light pink swirl peeks up to draw attention (in a subtle way) to the sentiment. I love the movement and whimsy of this card, all contained in a broad, oh-so-white frame.

Thanks for all the thanks you've given for the trapped-white-space post. Glad it was so helpful to so many of you.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Grunge Me, Birthday Basics
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey
accessories: baker's twine (Doodlebug), dimensionals