As promised, I am going to show how a lot of my cards and other projects come together. I don't think I have ever sat down and just made a card/project. It usually takes some time for me. I see an idea (another card!) or decide I want to use a certain stamp set/paper/embellishment. I then have to make a rough copy. I learned to do this after wasting countless amounts of "good' paper! Computer or copy paper is what I usually use. Or I use some of the stock of old paper I have (have you noticed that paper "goes out of style"?!?!). This card started with my daughter's teacher asking that I make two thank you cards for the upcoming marine biology trip. She had a stamp set for me to use, Fishy Friends. I wanted to make a sea life scene, and remembered that the stair step style card is a good way to show off multiple images. I stamped a few of all the images on some copy paper and cut them out. Then I grabbed a piece of "out of style" paper and created my stair step. This took a few attempts, as I wanted to have the finished size fit in a 5 x 5 envelope. I also thought about the text for the card. My first idea was to print or stamp it directly on the card. But it made it look a little too "flat". So I found a font I liked, printed the text and played around with placement. It still needed something, so I hand cut a few reeds. Here is my rough idea (the blurred out image is my daughter's school name, internet safety!):
I now had the right number of fishy and knew the placement. I stamped them on my Whisper White card stock, colored with pencils and cut them out:
You can see that I played around a bit with the colors in the empty areas of the paper. Coloring isn't my strong point...but I am fairly happy with what I came up with! Next was the dilemma of the text. I had just watched a tutorial on making a fabulous wood grain (JanTink), but I didn't have the right stamp to do it. Since it was such a small area, I thought about those little wood signs that are made for fish bowls and such. I got a piece of Very Vanilla card stock and just started laying color on it. I used a background stamp and jumbo wheel just to add texture. I then ran it through my computer, using the font I had already picked:
So now I had most of my elements. For the base of the card I used some non-SU blue paper I had. It had a slightly distressed look along with an interesting subtle pattern. The reeds and and the "signs" are hand cut. Here is how it turned out:
The crab is holding up the "thank you". I fashioned a kind of kick stand for the back, so it can be set on a desk.
So, that's a glimpse in to how I create a card. I hope it helps you in laying out some steps for when you are making your own creations!!
My next post will be showing the make-and-take class that will be in October. I am making up Halloween favor boxes. The fee will be based on how many you would like to make. More to come on this later~ thanks for stopping by~