"Mother" card rescue

Step One: Snack – I had just eaten dinner, so no snack. :)

Step two: Choose a card – Last year I created this fancy digi-stamp (available here) for my Sunday School students to use when making their Mother’s day cards. For some reason, this one printed off-center (waaayyy off center). But, since I needed a demo card to use with my students, I colored this one. I knew it was redeemable so in the rescue bin it went.

Step three: Research – The problem was obvious, so what I needed was a layout. I decided to do a tent card (a portrait layout with a top fold). I’ve seen quite a few tent cards recently, and concluded it would provide a better emphasis for the stamp since it will take up more of the side to side layout, making the image seem bigger.

Step Four: Color palette, paper and glitz - I went with yellow because that is my mother’s favorite color and is the main color in the image.  I knew I wanted a double mat so I grabbed a solid color for under the image and other paper that had related colors from the image. I actually pulled three papers, one with flowers, one with spots, and the striped paper that I eventually chose. For glitz, I chose a butterfly stamp and some jewels/pearls.

 

Step five: Design- For this card it took the longest. I started by cutting out the image, the laying out all of my options until I was satisfied with the combination. In the end I chose the striped paper because it contrasted with the horizontal layout of the image, while emphasizing the top fold of the card. But, the stripes were too much alone, so I placed the embossed paper over the bottom in place of a ribbon, and made note to ink that paper to match the palette

Step six: Assembly – I started by using my colored pencils to improve the crayon coloring. (I added shading, more color intensity, and more accuracy in color placement.

I added weight to each of the layers by inking the edges (vintage photo) and the whole of the embossed white strip (mostly mustard), then glued each of them down. Next I stamped the butterflies on another sheet, hand colored and cut them, then added them to the card with dimensional adhesive. Then I added the jewels and pearls.

Last, inside I added inking and stamped on the flourishes.

Finished!  

 

 

Note: The next day when I looked at the card, I realized the bottom seemed like an afterthought since all the action was around the image. I moved the smaller butterfly down to connect the embossed strip to the rest of the card.

FINISHED!

Supplies list:

·         White card base

·         Striped scrapbook paper

·         Yellow with white distress spots scrapbook paper

·         White card stock scrap

·         Leaf embossing folder

·         “mother” image available here 

·         Floral flourishes stamp (Inkadoo I believe)

·         Butterflies stamp (Dollar tree – 5 or so years ago)

·         Jewel and pearl stickers

·         Inks: Ranger distress ink in vintage photo and Mostly Mustard by Stampin’ Up

·         Colored pencils, scissors, glue, acrylic stamp blocks