Clean and Simple card 7

This is another "mostly white" card. I've seen many people make beautiful cards in the class gallery with embossed white cardstock, so I wanted to try that.

I stamped the peacock panel a while ago, and never got around to doing anything with it. Then I remembered that I had a peacock print embossing folder in my collection, so that was that. When putting it together, though, I thought it needed some color, so I inked up the edges of the peacock panel. The panel is raised on pop-dots.

Here is another shot. I hope you can see the embossing better.

Well, maybe not. :( The class is over, but the forums and the gallery are still active for a few days, so I'm planning to try some other things. The next class is, One Stamp, Three Ways.

Clean and Simple Card 6

For this card I tried to combine two lessons in one, "Simple Embellishments" and "Plain White Cards." There is a fancy, store-bought embellishment on this card -- a domed, glittered Sticko leaf sticker --but only one. That's simple, right?

And there is clearly plenty of empty white space. I stamped the other leaf and colored it in with alcohol markers -- Bic Marks-It. I can't bring myself to buy any Copic markers, they are just too god-damned expensive for what is basically a toy for me. People who teach papercrafting or are on design teams, sure, but for me this is just a hobby.

I can see how some people would be afraid of so much white space, but I like it. It is dramatic. However, it was really hard not to slap some crystal Stickles or Perfect Pearls over that second leaf. That would defeat the whole point of "simple embellishments," though. So I stopped myself.

The sentiment reads "Wish you were here," and the two leaves symbolize the two people whom the card giver wishes were together instead of apart. Here's another view:

Clean and Simple cards 4 and 5

For my next projects from the "Clean and Simple" class I tried Jennifer McGuire's watercolor technique with Distress Inks. Here are the cards:

**Frowns** I must have chosen the wrong Distress Inks, as everyone else's look so much more vibrant than my own. You'd think it was my crap-ass photography, but no, they look like that in real life. Not thrilled with these cards.

I had bad luck with this card from the get-go. My clear embossing powder I used for the emboss resist had red specks in it. Don't know how that happened; I try to be careful about mixing powders. Should have used white. My paper trimmer kept chewing up the paper; I had to break down and swap out the blade. Now I look at it and see the left-hand spiral is not centered properly, and this was my second attempt. Sentiment off-center. Bah!

This card replicates Jennifer's chain of vertical circles, but with blocks. Saw another class member try this, and liked it. I used the "Hello" sentiment to echo the vertical expanse of the color blocks.

Not sure about the rhinestones but it's a done deal now. I didn't have any white pearls like Jennifer used, so I used what I had. Was surprised I had rhinestones to complement all of the colors. But how can I not have any white pearl embellishments? This will have to be remedied.

For the ink application, I used the felt pads for the Ranger blending tool instead of the foam ones. I liked their ragged edges more, although they do have a smaller footprint on the card. I also used my Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls spray, instead of Pearl, just because. It gave a nice gold sheen to the color blocks -- you can't really see it here.

Well, that's that. This technique was pretty messy, ended up with ink all over my hands. Am looking forward to trying the "simple embellishments" and "plain white" cards now! :)

Card 3

Here is a card using the tone-on-tone layering technique from day 3 of the class. I'm pretty pleased with it. It is simple and clean. I wanted to keep it low key, it's a card for a sick friend.

I silver heat-embossed the sentiment. Here are a couple tips I gleaned, if you haven't tried this technique yet:

• Use color-core cardstock, or you'll mostly just see white on the sides of the layers.
• Glue down the top layer last, so it doesn't get all gluey and dirty as you glue down layer after layer. Take it from me!

I am enjoying the class. I am learning that there is a whole world of card bloggers and cardmaking websites out there, with contests, giveaways and challenges that I never knew about. I'm glad that we have permanent access to the class materials, because all the techniques and projects are a lot to take in.

Card Class, Day 2

Here is a project from day 2 of my card-making class. The lesson was to make One-Layer Cards -- ink and stamps only, no extra layers of paper, no embellishments. And to use a "triangle" layout that would guide the reader's eyes around the page.

The instructor's card was very dramatic, with large flowers, leading off the page. My stamps aren't as large, so I thought stamping off the edges would just make them look unbalanced. Was I right? Who can say? I can try it again that way, tomorrow. One-Layer Cards are easy to make.

I won't be able to keep this pace up for the duration of the class -- two weeks -- but for now it's fun, and uploading these pictures has been far easier than I expected. I bought my husband a good new camera for Christmas -- a Canon Powershot -- so that helps.

First Card

I am so excited, here is the first card I made from the Clean & Simple class! The idea was, don't be afraid of empty space.

I am a terrible photographer, always have been. The sentiment says "Congratulations." In the end, I think the craft button embellishments are a little too big and overpower the sentiment somewhat. But I was afraid too big a sentiment would overpower the whole card. I guess I could have mocked it up beforehand, see what worked better, but I was too excited to make a card and upload it and got carried away. Something to keep in mind.

The card is ordinary white cardstock. The patterned paper os from the "Abrianna" series by K & Company. The sentiment stamp is by Studio G. The glitter craft buttons are from Dressitup.com.

Here in this shot you can see a little how the glitter in the paper echoes the glitter craft buttons:

The sketch, or basic layout, of the card features three circles to represent three embellishments or design elements in a row. When I saw them I thought of the glitter craft buttons I got last time I went to Michael's, and I really wanted to use them. So that's where this card started.

I think the color scheme at least came out really well.

Card 2

Here is the most recent card I made before starting the class. It did not turn out as nicely as i hoped, but I had this layout in my head for a long time, and I'm glad to get it out and be able to move on to other things:

You can't see it really in this shot, but that flourish in the lower right is a punch-out, and on the inside I glued a strip of colored cardstock from the same paper as the flowers, to show through. Here is another shot, kind of crappy but you can see the paper strip:

By the way, the class is called "Clean and Simple cardmaking," taught at the website OnlineCardClasses.com , taught by Jennifer McGuire, Kristina Werner, and Julie Ebersole. It is only 25 dollars and you can still sign up, I think, if you are interested.

I have been papercrafting for about two years and I love it. It is something concrete and beautiful that I produce. I have to create something, even as small as a greeting card, or I feel my life is a waste.

I haven't used this blog for a while. But I'm taking this online class on papercrafting, and they want us to upload images of our work, and I already have K2.0 in place, so why not use it? So here is one of the cards I have made:

The card is ordinary cream, Recollections cardstock from Michael's, and I believe the other colored paper is from DCVW -- a Neutrals square Mat Stack. The stamps are from Hero Arts, and the textured panel in the middle is made with hot glue, stamped into with Peeled Paint Distress Ink and finished with copper Perfect Pearls once it dried. Oh, when the hot glue was dry it was an irregular circle, of course, and I trimmed it down into a nice square and then used the Perfect Pearls.

So that is my card. I have never taken a photo of my cards before, nor uploaded a photo to the Internet, except from my phone, so we will see how this goes.