Today So Far...

As promised/threatened, here is another post for today.  I want to show off the two cards I have made so far today!  I'm pretty pleased with both.

First is a card I made to undertake two different Monday challenges: the Clean and Simple challenge, which called for using letters in our cards; and the Try a New Technique challenge.  The Try a New Technique challenge had an option of doing two different things, picking one or the other or using both.  I picked "the other."  This is the "see through image"--basically an image is stamped and then a shape is cut out around it so that the stamped image touches the sides of the frame but the rest is cut away.  I chose to use the combined challenges to make my second Christmas/holiday card for June:

I started with a plain white card and cut a piece of Fancy Pants designer paper to fit, leaving a 1/8" or so border.  I found a square stamp in my collection with a wood mount the right size to make a window around my image and traced it in light pencil, then stamped the ornaments image (Imaginisce) in light green ink.  Next I took my Xacto knife and cut out the square, going around the ornaments so that they "hang" from the top edge.  I cut a square of light green paper just a bit larger than the window and attached it to the white card, then used foam tape to mount the pink designer paper on top of it.  I added the letter stickers to spell out "joy" at the bottom.  Finally I decided that it was a little plain even for a clean and simple card, so I outlined the window with silver glitter glue, and decorated the ornaments with stick-on rhinestones (Martha Stewart).  I am so happy to be playing with some less traditional Christmas colors for a bit!

I also tackled this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

I was going through my scrap boxes to decide on papers to use--I knew I wanted a really vibrant mix of patterns for this card, and once again I found myself drawn to my current obsession, turquoise blue and orange.  I picked out some partially used sheets and found some embellishments to go with, and got to work.  Here is the finished project:

I stuck to the sketch pretty closely.  Again I started with a white card and covered it with some background paper.  I inked the edges using Colorbox cocoa.  I decided to use black under the layering pieces so that I could pile on patterns and have them set off from each other.  When I cut the black pieces out I made them a little bit long on the bottom side, and punched the bottom edge with my Fiskars "threading water" border punch.  I attached the longer layer first and then added the square layer with foam tape.

I read an interview today in a Cards magazine back issue from last June, and the artist interviewed (Michelle Phillipi) said something that was still rumbling around my head as I worked--she said she comes from the "more is more" school of thought on layers and embellishments, and one of her tips is to add embellishments to embellishments, so I tried that here.  For the focal image I layered a paper flower on the bottom, then stacked a turquoise felt flower, and a smaller paper flower (all paper flowers by Studio 18, in the dollar bins at Michaels; the felt flower and rhinestone flower are from a Chatterbox Artsylicious set).  At this point I put a brad through them to hold them together, and then glued the rhinestone flower to the top of the brad with a glue dot.  I used a couple more glue dots to attach the flower to the card.  Then I added some orange ribbon across the top and covered the knot with the smallest of the paper flowers and layered an orange button and a turquoise blue pearl bead.  Sometimes more is more!  I normally would have stopped with the brad on the big flower and the button on the small flower but adding one more thing made it look better, I have to agree with Michelle!

Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your day!