I am finding that there are a lot of card challenges in blog-land. They are great starting spots for inspiration. The one I chose to work with yesterday is on a blog titled "Color Throwdown", and they had a rather difficult combination in my opinion. Here are their chosen colors:
And here is the inside:
This card will go to a dear friend who has a listening ear like no one else I know.
~La
I pulled out the colors, except crumb cake which I do not own. I substituted Simply Suede because it's the closest thing I have. It occurred to me that this color combination might appear in Asian things and, since I have an Asian stamp set I've been itching to use, this might be the perfect time.
My original plan was to make a clean and simple card, so I stamped the girls and the Chinese lanterns onto one piece of white cardstock. After coloring the girls dresses with markers I stamped the lanterns onto various Asian papers that I've purchased here in Taiwan, and embossed them in gold. (The main reason for the embossing was so that I could see the images to cut. The papers are so busy that I didn't think I would be able to see regular ink!) I then cut out MANY lanterns before choosing which ones I liked best for this card. I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker, which was a life saver for attaching these little pieces!
After stamping, coloring, embossing and assembling, I decided it was time to add some background. Here things went horribly wrong. I created masks for the girls and the lanterns but when I stamped the background images everything just looked like a muddy mess. So I had to cut again. I cannot say how many times I cut lanterns yesterday, between embossed images for paper pieces, masks and then cutting the whole thing off of the original piece I am rather tired of Chinese lanterns!
It was necessary to rethink the background, so I turned to an extremely talented blogger, Michelle Zindorf, for inspiration. (See here if you're interested.) Try as I might, I cannot brayer on color like she does. I always end up with a hard edge. So I just look to her for guidance on colors and then I sponge them on. I wanted a look of glowing light around the lanterns and I knew Michelle would have the inspiration I needed. So here is my card:
My original plan was to make a clean and simple card, so I stamped the girls and the Chinese lanterns onto one piece of white cardstock. After coloring the girls dresses with markers I stamped the lanterns onto various Asian papers that I've purchased here in Taiwan, and embossed them in gold. (The main reason for the embossing was so that I could see the images to cut. The papers are so busy that I didn't think I would be able to see regular ink!) I then cut out MANY lanterns before choosing which ones I liked best for this card. I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker, which was a life saver for attaching these little pieces!
After stamping, coloring, embossing and assembling, I decided it was time to add some background. Here things went horribly wrong. I created masks for the girls and the lanterns but when I stamped the background images everything just looked like a muddy mess. So I had to cut again. I cannot say how many times I cut lanterns yesterday, between embossed images for paper pieces, masks and then cutting the whole thing off of the original piece I am rather tired of Chinese lanterns!
It was necessary to rethink the background, so I turned to an extremely talented blogger, Michelle Zindorf, for inspiration. (See here if you're interested.) Try as I might, I cannot brayer on color like she does. I always end up with a hard edge. So I just look to her for guidance on colors and then I sponge them on. I wanted a look of glowing light around the lanterns and I knew Michelle would have the inspiration I needed. So here is my card:
And here is the inside:
This card will go to a dear friend who has a listening ear like no one else I know.
~La
I love this card. The stamps of the little girls are adorable. The lanterns are so pretty. Thanks for sharing your wonderful creation...
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