Perfect Balance

As I explained in yesterday's post, I often struggle with integrating shabby chic/vintage/artsy style elements into my CAS style. While I enjoyed making yesterday's cards, they were a bit, um, much for me.

I love white space and visual simplicity, right? Putting ten or so cut-out words on trees feels...excessive.

Right after I made those two tree cards, I made this card, which uses some lovely, soft blues. This card feels so much like me I giggled out loud when I finished it!

The hearts all have crazy swirls, but they are the same heart shape, repeated in a nice, tidy row.

The words are cut out and elevated...to the same height as the big heart and in a vertical row below it.

Angles love curves. Check.

And the words. Oh, my. The meaning fits right in with the crazy swirls and the hearts.

What's not to love? Soft, vintage-y colors, crisp, linear design, great curves, a few meaningful words treated in an artsy style, and plenty of white space.

That's what I call perfect balance.


Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Heart Prints, Simple Alphabet
ink: Fresh Ink Island; Memento Luxe Teal Zeal; Memento Black, Teal Zeal
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: heart punch, dimensionals

Stretching

Many thanks for your comments on this post. I've decided to send the kraft version to my nephew, mainly because Bev emailed me and told me that "males usually prefer dull, ugly cards." *snort*

And now on to other things....

One consequence of being super clean and simple is that I regularly feel the creative urge to stretch myself, get out of my comfort zone, and try new things...or at least revisit things I've tried long, long ago. CAS--like anything you do a lot--can get boring, and it's helpful to shake things up a bit.

Additionally: I love the visual impact of the current issue of Somerset Life:

The shabby chic, vintage, artsy style, however, doesn't reconcile easily with clean and simple. I've spent years experimenting, playing around with ideas garnered from those layered, textured styles. Mostly, I fail. Which is fine. It's all a learning process.

One mistake I've made over and over again...trying to absorb too much of at once. So as I explored the visual loveliness of this magazine issue, I looked for little things, tiny details that I could adapt to my style. One such detail that appeals to my CAS sensibilities is using individual words cut out closely. It inspired my use of them on this post.

It's a good one. For today's cards, I went busier than usual, with lots of words acting like leaves on the Mighty Oak tree from Papertrey.

The green version came first, and I liked everything except the color. The overall effect is rather drab in real life (the photo actually looks better!). So I made another with more words and PINK!

Love the colors, but now I think there are too many words...just a bit too busy. But the sentiment works better, the colors work better, and it makes me happy!

Do you ever try to stretch your creative self, even if just to put a toe outside your nice, little box of style? What inspires you to do so, or what keeps you from trying?

Supplies
stamps: SU Amazing to Zany, Hero Arts
ink: various
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: dimensionals, Cutterbee scissors

More with Stickles

NOTE: I put the wrong ink color on my previous post. The correct ink is Brilliance Pearlescent RUST. Amazing the things that pop into your mind right after you wake up in the morning! I've edited the post to reflect the change. The metallic marker IS copper, though. The two match nicely, don't they?

ANOTHER NOTE: I've updated and rewritten parts of my Product Talk tab with new information. If you're looking for discussion of ink, card stock, or stamps, check it out.

On this post, I painted Stickles over water-resistant colored ink, but my first attempt with painting Stickles used an outline stamp. Check it out!

To get this effect, I used almost no water (wet the brush and wiped it on a paper towel), so the Stickles went down thicker. The sketchy style of this old Hampton Arts stamp works perfectly with the loose and "messy" style of the painted Stickles.

Supplies
stamps: Hampton Arts (flower), Papertrey Mega Mixed Messages
ink: Memento black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Stickles, dimensionals, Corner Chomper

Kraft or White? You Be the Judge--Edited

I needed to make a birthday card for our nephew the diesel engine mechanic, so out came the Time set from Uniko. I made a kraft card and then wondered if it would look better (to my eye) in white. You be the judge:

I (of course) prefer the white (the crisp contrast is just my style!). But that Cosmic Copper Brilliance Pearlescent Rust ink looks great on both papers. Check out these two close-ups:

These two cards allowed me to use up some old, old, old brads, too. I don't have any rusty ones, which would have looked stunning, but made do with good, ordinary brown...just like the sentiment. Brads are one of those embellishments that rarely get used but are nice to have around in neutral colors.

If you're new to stamping and haven't used brads, you should know these two tips:

1. Poke a hole with a push pin where you want the brad to go. Positioning it is much easier.

2. Never, ever, ever--under any circumstances--use brads on a one-layer card. It leaves unsightly brad butts showing.

Someone (*cough*Leslie*) said "butt" wasn't the proper term. They are "legs." Well, showing Brad's spread legs inside a card is even worse than showing his butt. Don't do it.

And don't blame me for the image in your head. It's Leslie's fault.

Let's circle back to kraft or white. Which do you like best? Why?

Supplies
stamps: Uniko
ink: Brilliance
paper: Papertrey kraft and white
accessories: brads, dimensionals, copper metallic marker (Pentel, I think; and yes, working that rounded corner was a bear), metal ruler

An Experiment with Stickles

Have you noticed how Stickles is really thick and dense and gives awesome coverage? I did, and now I want to get rid of all my loose glitter. I hate using it. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Don't tell me not to be a hater. Haters gonna hate. And I hate loose glitter.

It's messy.  I get it everywhere I don't want it (my face, the dog's nose, my cup of coffee), but it flakes off everywhere I do want it. Unless I use lots of liquid glue, and then, why not just use Stickles?

Are you following me? You don't have to agree, just hear me squawking freedom.

Thank you.

Well, have you ever wondered if you could use Stickles for projects in which you wanted just a bit of glitter, or maybe just a schmear of glitter?

I have, so I decided to experiment by mixing Stickles with a bit of water and brushing it onto a card with a cheap paintbrush. The results were very satisfying!

I chose three very old Hero Arts watercolor flower stamps and colored them with Memento markers...because Memento ink is water-resistant when dry. I didn't want the ink smearing messily while I painted over it with the Stickles. After coloring on the stamp with the markers, I spritzed several squirts of water onto the stamp for a watercolor effect. Love this technique!

The photo doesn't show the effect very well, so here's a close-up:

Cool, eh?  I think so! Below are two more cards and close-ups.

This last one had an interesting twist. The orange Stickles seems a little different from the others. The glue in which the glitter is suspended is actually orange, not clear. So the white areas inside the petals turned orange...a fortunate effect in this case, I think! Also, I added a bit of extra yellow glitter right out of the bottle to the center of this flower because the "painted" glitter didn't define the center very well, especially after the white spaces turned orange.

The soft schmear of glitter over the watercolor images looks fabulous. It would look stunning over PTI's Watercolor Wonders set...which will be my next experiment with it!

And I totally want credit for trying something new. I haven't seen this anywhere, although it seems so obvious now that someone else MUST have tried it before. Great minds think alike...whoever they are.

Remember to use a cheap brush when painting glue...that $30 sable brush does not deserve to be mistreated, okay? Also, only use water-resistant or water-proof ink for this technique, or you'll likely make a mess.

And I'm getting rid of the loose glitter, so there shouldn't be any more messes in my craft space.

Right?

("She's delusional.")

I heard that.

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts, SU Amazing to Zany
ink: Memento
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: paint brush, Stickles, cup of water, post-it notes for a makeshift palette for the Stickles, dimensionals

When Inspiration Goes Awry

I love the card by the highly talented Rosemary Dennis on the cover of the winter issue of Take Ten.

That layout is so clean and simple and perfect! I decided to do a rather straightforward CASE of this card, using a single tree stamp in place of the three flowers, and I failed miserably. The sentiment I stamped in brown made me realize that a large part of what makes Rosemary's card work is the color placement...the hot pink sentiment, ground, and focal-point flower/heart unify the card so beautifully. My version lost all unity because I went with a green ground. I wanted to use lime with pink...go figure. It ruined Rosemary's design.

So I chopped off the top of the stamped panel just below the sentiment, turned the design into a square card, and stamped a different sentiment in the sweet spot.

Size: 4.25" square

Not a bad save, actually. I have Rosemary's card, however, to thank for it, because I never would have started without her lovely inspiration.

This example goes to show that as you adapt and modify an inspiring design, strange things can happen. Don't let that deter you. Tweak, edit, cut off, cover up. Let your changes take your design in a little different direction. It's okay. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't. But IT'S ONLY PAPER.

Can I hear an Amen?

Supplies
stamps: Trendy Tree Tops, Faux Ribbon (Papertrey)
ink: quick-dry pigment/chalk (VersaMagic, Fresh Ink, Memento Luxe)
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestone, dimensionals

Recovering Nicely with a Little Sparkle

Today's card demonstrates the principle of recovering nicely from a screw-up. It also teaches the need to make sure your product's shelf life hasn't been exceeded.

First, the card.

A few things to note...the card has colored card stock (wait a minute!) but only a narrow strip to highlight the border punch, which itself mimics the scallop of the gingham icing on the cupcake. Cool, eh? Also, that cupcake is floating around in white space and I just don't care.

Now, I wanted a nice, shiny cherry on top of the cupcake, but my product (a tiny, unopened tube of free sample of Diamond Glaze) was tucked away in the unfinished area of my basement in a drawer labeled "Surplus Adhesive."

People who buy too much on sale need such drawers, right?

Anyway, this sample tube had been in storage since, oh, the Triassic period, and when I cut off the tip, it seemed a little thick. But did I test it on a scrap of paper? Oh, no. Stoopid. It was totally goopy and stiff and wouldn't smooth out on the cherry for anything.

I set the card aside to let the mess dry. Once it was, I pulled out my nice, fresh red Stickles and spread it over the lumpy, bumpy Diamond Glaze. The results are acceptable, if not ideal.

A little sparkle can fix a lot of mistakes.


Supplies
stamps: Clearly Besotted
ink: Hero Arts
paper: Papertrey Ink white, SU real red
accessories: Diamond Glaze, Stickles, SU scallop border punch