Monochromatic Blue

This week's Monday challenge over at www.stamptv.com is to create a monochromatic card. Since my Father-in-law's birthday is coming up I decided to go with a simple layout in blue.

This layout would have been almost impossible without using my new Stamp-a-ma-jig. To see what this is and how it works, look here (origin: http://www.stamptv.com/)



The circle image is from Elegant Elements and the sentiment from Garden Silhouettes

Card gift box

This is the first time I'm making anything like this and it wasn't too difficult!! I did all of it over the course of an afternoon/evening.

It was for the current www.stamptv.com Friday challenge where we had to CASE another design member's cards/projects. And this time around we looked at Carolina's!

Here's MY gift cards and drawer box set:

And this is what hers looked like (so beautiful!!):

Now for the what and where:
All the Barn Red cardstock is Bazzil.

To make the drawer box, I followed the same instructions as Carolina and you can see it here (there's also a video!): http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/drawerbox/

The flower I made by following instructions I saw in a CARDS magazine issue (JULY 2011). I used some of the Bazzil Barn Red cardstock for the bottom base circle. I then cut out 8 circles (SAME size as base!) from double-sided dp (7-Gypsies). You can only do one layer for which you will cut out only 4 circles but I wanted some height on mine. You can of course decide how big or small you want your flower to be depending on the size of the circles.
Fold each circle in half. Then half again. Use sticky dots/double-sided tape to tape this second fold down on the bottom fold.
Glue each quarter on top of the base to cover it. Since I made a double layer, I glued the next layer on top of the first, overlapping where the first quarters' ends met.
Use your fingers to gently fold up the open ends.
Stick a flower or any other embellishment of choice in the middle.  You can even glue a circle with a sentiment in the middle.

Close-up!

I made 6 cards: 3 x Happy Birthday, 2 x Get better soon and 1 x Praying for you.  These sentiments were from Fanciful Tags. The flower bunch from Enjoy the Sunshine.

Practise makes perfect

I'm almost too shy to put this first card pic here but I wanted to show that practise does make (almost) perfect. But also that it's worthwhile watching what experts have created and also take note of their techniques. The first card here is one of the first I've made (I think I deleted the very first one because it was just shameful :D).

(Once again blogger is throwing this on its side, sorry)

So what's wrong with this? First of all, it lacks depth. Doesn't it look a bit "empty"? Depth is achieved by layering. If you look at samples of experts' cards you will see that they often use 2 layers on top of the basic card stock to mount the focal image on.

Examples:

Giovana who created the card above is one of my favorite GinaK designers on http://www.stamptv.com/ . Her style is very much what I'm working towards achieving. Do yourself a favour and visit her website. Your eyes are in for a treat.

By using two layers like this, you immediately give depth and interest to your card. It functions as a way of "setting the scene" so to speak.

If your main paper is quite busy you often just need one 'framing' layer behind it to make it "pop".

 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQTc0ez9_yM_xpMYjE3Gri_4Pk682C_5myUUkaFMFLXtrFL_5iuayoA8ypTWav9rwUE34BIoO97qsO9QOKZiXjdmpiwV7DBo_lr-jEH_TcPa7vtqIhOZh53e3q3-q7kZQDOUSj5S5tJ0/s1600/Elegant-Elements.jpg

Theresa Momber who created the card above is an absolute artist when it comes to shading. Check out her website for fantastic instructions.

What about CAS?

All this layering is of course not always necessary if you are going for a "CAS" look (Clean and Simple).

With CAS your composition of image, sentiment and embellishment is key. The whole point is to leave it clear and uncluttered.

This card of mine is a good example:

For brilliant layout ideas see:

Clean and Simple

CardPositioningSystems

I'm particularly happy with the cards I made for the May http://www.stamptv.com/ challenges. (http://redcardcorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/cards-for-may-challenges.html) They show an improvement even if only in my eyes.

Visit GinaK's http://www.stamptv.com/ website for lots of opportunity to learn.