Saturday, January 21, 2012

Sending You Birthday Wishes

This card is a CASE of one by Debby Hughes. She's the queen of Clean and Simple, and her card was stunning I thought.


My take followed her's fairly closely in general design, but as you can see, it's a bit heavier (okay, a lot heavier!) and I added a monochromatic mat to the top layer that adds additional weight to the design. Not that heavier is what I had in mind, but just the way it turned out. Of course, big thighs run in the family, so I suppose it's not surprising, but I digress.

I didn't have the same woodgrain stamp she used, so I cut out a circle from a scrap piece of paper, and stamped a textued design through it to make the backdrop for the leaf.  I thought the leaf was a bit dead looking, so I added texture to it, but on reflection, another texture may have been better--this poor leaf looks like it has a fungus!  The button copies Debbie's idea.  By the way, the color of the leaf, the texture circle, and the background mat is Iced Spruce distress ink, one of the winter special colors for this year. I simply colored white card stock via DTP, and cut out the leaf and mat as needed.  The leaf was swiped with Canvas ink.  It's a shame the I wasn't able to capture the color better. It's really a beautiful gray green.

CAS is harder than it looks, and anyone who can do it well is, in my mind, a creative genius.  It's so easy to add to much, get heavy handed, and otherwise just over do it. But I love the style when it's done right, so I'll keep practicing. And in the meantime, I'll keep drooling over Debbie's work and CASEing her like crazy!

So, do you have a mentor who's style you'd like to emmulate? I'd love to hear about it--so leave a comment and a link if you can.  See you soon!

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for explaining the steps in making this card. I think it's gorgeous because of the color and the texture! The leaf with fungus comment made me LOL. :)

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  2. Great case from Debby, I love the new Tim Holtz colors, too and you used Iced Spruce very effectively here. Very creative with the background circle. I couldn't agree with you more that CAS is difficult to pull off. I really struggle with when to stop in my own card-making. This is a terrific example. I also laughed at the leaf with fungus comment! :-)

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  3. I think it's perfectly appropriate to have fungus infested leaves, being from the Northwest! And you're right...CAS is so hard to do...I always think of Jackie Kennedy (who was not a stamper, to my knowledge), but she said to take off the last accessory you add to an outfit before going out. So when I think something needs "just one more touch" I don't adhere it, then take it off! That sounds deranged, doesn't it?

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