Ghostly Matchbox

For sheer fun, this is my favorite matchbox to come out of my matchbox-making frenzy:

Bwaaahaaahaa!

Have a wonderful weekend. We will be at the Special Olympics bowling tournament to watch Jack bowl. What joy!!


Supplies
stamps: PTI Simple Alphabet
ink: Memento black
paper: Neenah 80lb solar white
accessories: googlie eyes, glue, matchbox (tutorial to come soon!)

Clean-and-Simple Matchboxes

As best I can recall, it's been a while since I played around with making matchboxes. And by "a while," I mean about 12 years.

Wow.

Back then, I didn't have a style yet and can't remember what the few matchboxes I made looked like, but they certainly didn't have this level of minimalist satisfaction.

Button flowers in spring colors

GinaK Hello Sunshine stamp with
large yellow rhinestone

Apple punched in SU real red,
garden green, and chocolate chip

Martha snowflake punched in SU ballet
blue and bling

What an excellent way to use thicker embellishments! What a fun way to use up those embellishments that I really, really, really don't enjoy using on cards!

I'm having lots of fun with this shape, so we'll see a few more in days to come. If you're interested, I'll do a photo tutorial!

Supplies
paper: 80lb Neenah solar white

For the Love of Color

Sometimes, a color combination strikes me as particularly fabulous, and I just have to play with it. Often, however, I struggle to make a card that truly lets the colors shine. After a few futile attempts with today's color combo, I fell back on an old favorite: punched squares. Given the inspiration piece, this isn't entirely unexpected, but it's sort of sad how much paper had to be wasted before this happened.

Look at these yummy colors!!!!

I also love the handwritten sentiment stamp...so loose and curvy with the rigid straight lines of the squares. Yay for contrast!

Here's the inspiration piece.

Source

Note that I changed the colors a bit. I don't have an adequate mustard-y ink or a blue in quite that shade. But after pulling out my closest Hero Arts inks, I was very happy with the results. Note that the pumpkin pie and pool inks are opposites on the color wheel, and combined with two neutrals (wet cement and soft charcoal), they really are quite stunning.

I'm going to play with this concept for some more color combos: take complementary colors and add two neutrals. I wonder how it would work with others.

And let this be a lesson. If you don't have the exact colors to match, go with what's closest in your stash. It's OKAY not to be precise...better to play than not, and you might find a happy new color combo!

Supplies
stamps: Clear and Simple Thinking of You limited edition
ink: Hero Arts
paper: Papertrey
accessories: 3/4" square punch, dimensionals

Ways of Making Waves

This adorable little set from Clearly Besotted called to me on my last order from Ellen Hutson. But that fun whale needs "grounding," so I experimented with several different ways to make waves.

By far the most complicated was this sponged background. I made the template with negative pieces punched from a wave border punch (Fiskars) and a bunch of post-it notes. It was unpleasantly complicated, although the effect is certainly wavy. It would have been much easier to use wavy deco scissors and a piece of copy paper to make the template, though.

After going to so much trouble with the sponging, I decided to see what stamps I could use more easily. Obviously, this wave stamp from an old A Muse set does the trick. The whale was masked with a post-it.

For the two cards above, the design is the same. The whale is tilted up and looking at the sentiment. Note that the larger sentiment on the first card looks better. The "thanks a ton" sentiment is just a tad too small and would work better on a smaller, raised panel with the whale and waves...but that whale is pretty dang big, so such an arrangement would be tough on a standard 4.25" x 5.5" card.

I redesigned, went with some funky colors, and made a third card, this one using a Hero Arts discontinued squiggly-line clear stamp (from an old friendship-themed set) for the wave and the same whale mask I'd made for the second card.

Note that the whale is level in the water rather than angled up. As you can see, there just wasn't room for the sentiment up where the whale's gaze would lead to it.

Also note that each of the three cards has a tiny gem to make the whale's eye stand out. The first two cards use black gems, but the pink whale has a gray eye and gray ink for the sentiment as well. That tiny detail makes a whale of a difference on all three cards.

You see what I did there? Sure you do.

There are three ways to make waves: sponging; stamping with an actual real, live wave stamp; and improvising with a wavy line stamp. Honestly, I think I like the third one best!

What about you?

Supplies
stamps: Clearly Besotted, Hero Arts, A Muse
ink: Memento Luxe, Impress Fresh Ink
paper: Papertrey
accessories: rhinestones, dimensionals, Fiskar's wave border punch, post-its, corner rounder

Another Pinterest Inspiration

I loved the packaging of this tea, especially the large box in the top photo:

Source

So I pulled out a flowery branch stamp from Stampabilities and went to work:

6.5" x 3.5"

Say hello to my sister's birthday card! Just plain white on white didn't sing, so I added a silver marker border around the raised panel.

This card fits into long, narrow envelopes I bought at Marco's Paper on sale. I love having the option for something different from standard A2 cards (4.25" x 5.5"). Sometimes, you just need to break out of the A2 box.

Don't forget about the One-Layer Simplicity Challenge: You Blend! I hope you'll play along with us.

Supplies
stamps: Stampabilities, Papertrey Ink
ink: Memento Luxe Espresso Truffle
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: dimensionals, silver metallic marker, half pearls in pink

Getting Inspired...Evolution of an Idea

I hit an odd wall last week creatively speaking, and Pinterest came to the rescue. After perusing the package design pins and pinning some goodness, I poked around my Pure Inspiration board and played around. This pin, which I'd pinned a while back, struck me as particularly fabulous:

Source

As I tried to make it work for me, I found that having both Memento Luxe tuxedo black and espresso truffle inks made a huge difference.

First Effort: Meh

Two problems with this card. 1) The shell stamp is a bit too transparent and lets the text show through too much. Note that the inspiration focal images are dense enough to stand out better on the text background. My shell...not so much. 2) Both the focal point and text are stamped with tuxedo black, which further keeps the shell from standing out.

Second Effort: Better

I like this one much better (not least because there's so much glorious white space!), but it's not really in keeping with the inspiration photos because of that. Both the butterfly and text are stamped in espresso truffle, and while the photo editing made the butterfly look darker, it's not in real life.

BTW, there's a misspelling on this thanks stamp from Hero Arts, and I made sure the body of the butterfly covers it up. Yes, I was an English major.

Third Time's the Charm:

Not only is the third card truer to the gorgeous inspiration photos, the balance of inks is perfect. The text is still strong in espresso truffle, but the butterfly stands out perfectly in tuxedo black.

So the moral of the story...you can never have enough colors of ink. Nev. Er.



Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts (Dictionary Greetings, Antique Engravings)
ink: Memento Luxe tuxedo black, espresso truffle
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: dimensionals

OLS13: You Blend!

February's One-Layer Simplicity Challenge is "You Blend!" You blend colors, that is! Use any product or technique you want for blending colors...watercolors, markers and a water spritzer, spectrum ink pads, alcohol markers, chalks, watercolor crayons, colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits or a blender pencil...whatever you want! Just blend those colors.

My card takes the easy way (bet that surprises you!) and uses a Kaleidacolor ink pad for a fun, citrus-y blend!

To create the blend, I simply tapped the stamps on the ink pad repeatedly while moving the stamp about a quarter inch with each tap...back and forth, forth and back. Then I accented the blended colors with a clear Wink of Stella brush pen, just for fun.

Because a little shimmer makes everything prettier.

I hope you'll click on over to the OLS Challenge blog! Remember, the challenge lasts until midnight on the 24th of each month, and you are welcome to enter multiple times throughout the month.

Supplies
stamps: Modern Basics (Papertrey)
ink: Kaleidacolor
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Wink of Stella clear brush pen, rhinestone