Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Sunflower Card



Did you ever have one of those days...when nothing worked quite the way you thought it would? Today was like that for me. I had great ambitions for all the things I would get done - too many ambitions it turns out! I dealt with a lot of errands and house "stuff" (laundry, etc.) and then I thought I'd make a "quick" card.



I wanted to use this cut from the "A Child's Year" cartridge - another great design that has nothing to do with silhouettes of children (the variety and versatility of this cartridge is truly wonderful!). I inked the edges of the card - in part to disguise those score tick marks (which I will delete in Design Studio as soon as this cartridge is added to the program). I am not an inker, I just don't usually do it, and this became painfully obvious as I worked on the card. It looked "OK" when I had just done the edges but then I decided I wanted to emphasize the cut outs in the front of the card



I tried using a dauber for the first time - clearly this wasn't the right tool (or I was not using it properly). While I had an interesting stencil pattern left on the scrap beneath the card - the top was not a "thing of beauty" - in fact, quite the opposite.



But I carried on - attempting to make the best of my blotchy inking! I put adhesive on the three flower areas so I could adhere the one and one-half inch circles I had punched to back them.



Here the circles are in position. Then I added the backing paper to fill in the leaf and stems. These were both Debbie Mumm papers from a stack I got at Joann Fabrics. My card was cut at 5.5 inches to make a standard A2 card and the backing paper was 4 3/4 x 3 3/4 inches.



Here is a photo of the card at this point - I thought it loooked terrible with my messy inking and no dimension - so I thought I'd try adding some buttons to the centers.



(Slight digression here...I love buttons and have collected them since childhood. When we lived in England I always looked for old buttons at the car boot sales and secondhand shops. I have tins and tins of them!)



I settled on some rounded "flower" shaped orangey-yellow buttons, looked around for some string to tie through them and then "auditioned" them on the card. I still didn't like the result.



I remembered the perfect little cutouts of the flowers on the face of the card and decided to try those.



Here is the card with just the cut out flowers - with the petals folded up and placed at a slight turn from the cut in the base.



I then decided to "go big or go home" and add the buttons too - maybe that would be enough to distract attention from the inking!



The flowers really "popped" once I had the cutouts and the buttons layered.



Here is the card that I ended up with - my "quick" little project ended up taking waay too long and keeping me up too late even though I am normally a night owl. (and I am definitely going to read up on and ask my friends about inking techniques!)

3 comments:

  1. Well, it was definitely not a quick card.. it sure is a pretty card. I enjoy you showing your steps. I just may try using the DS to cut out some kind of pattern for a card. hummm cool ideal Did you inspire me or what!! Thanks Diane.
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Diane, I love this card! Even though they are flowers, the colors you chose are wonderful for our upcoming fall and autumn! This would make a beautiful Thanksgiving card. I love the buttons.. a nice touch! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. How come my mistakes don't turn out to be great looking like yours???? Have also loved watching your new storage shelve being built....hope when you get it in and filled that you will share with pictures of the entire room....so I can be jeolous !!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. I love to hear from the people who read my blog. I moderate all comments to keep spam off the blog without making you decode the squiggly letters so your comment may not appear immediately.