Thank Fall

The current challenge at the Card Concept is a photo challenge with the theme of "thank fall". Clever huh- "thank fall"? I love it- so fun. Besides I need ideas for my Thanksgiving cards and the theme and photo inspired me. 

I have only three challenges left on the Wild card team at the Card Concept and for the last three we get to pick our styles. Naturally, I drift towards the CAS categories.

One of my oft used techniques is to stamp or place images over top of a text stamp. It just creates such an interesting CAS look. For this card I had to go back to my older but well inked stamps. The text stamp from Hero Arts "Dictionary Greetings, I use ALL the time for this technique. I was pleasantly surprised to still see you could buy this set of stamps. I highly recommend it! The pumpkins are from A Muse. Looks like this set is only available on e-bay. The branch is StampinUp- unknown set.

Here is another look for the same idea using a new stamp from Great Impressions.

I wasn't as happy with this. I shoulda used four pumpkins instead of three. They look too squashed in. What do you think?

This works with this week's challenge at Just Us Girls so I am entering it there also.

Please join us this week at the Card Concept with your interpretation of this weeks challenge!

Shabby days

Ooooooohhhhhhhh, I have been in heaven this past week. It seems that the color of choice this week has been green at various challenges and ya all know that my heart goes pitter pat when I see green.

This week's  photo challenge at The Card Concept is a very clean and graphic design. I am sure Ardyth was doing a happy dance when she saw this photo. She is one of the clean and graphic gals at The Card Concept. I can honestly say, I was not doing the happy dance! As a wild card designer, I was challenged to create a shabby chic card with this CAG photo. Hang on- me!! Shabby Chic!!! Say it aint so! Shabby chic will probably be the hardest style for me to do.

I went online to study up on shabby chic. What I noticed is that most shabby chick cards have two similar elements- doilies and ribbons and they are grunged up a bit- in a girly kinda way- not a Tim Holtz way (not there is anything wrong with Tim!!).

I just happen to have some doilies tucked away and I was even able to find them! They were stark white, which was not gonna work. I colored them with my copic markers.  I distress the edge of the card with scissors which just tore the card, but I left it go. I even got into the paper piercing trend, to mimic the head board in the photo. This addition ties the card together for me. Ribbon seemed like it would be to much, so I just added some butchers twine.

 There's a story for you- I asked my DH to pick me up some butchers twine at Kitchen Kapers to tie a roast with and he comes home with this HUGE roll of twine. I will never cook enough roasts in my life time to put a dent in this roll!

I digress- back to the card. The card felt like it was missing something with the doilies alone. I added flower embellishment and the sentiment. There you have it- A very clean and simple shabby chic card!

I hope you will play along with us this week at The Card Concept and challenge yourself to a style that is outside your comfort zone.

Wild Cards at the Card Concept

Hey Everyone- exciting news, I have been selected to be on the Wild Card team at The Card Concept. The Card Concept is a challenge blog similar to the House of Cards. They post an inspiration and the designers create a card based on the inspiration photo and a certain style.  The Wild Card team is a group of designers who will create a card in a different style for each challenge.

Now most of you know that I am CAS gal, so I thought this team would be great to make me think outside my box and try those different styles that can be so intimidating. Basically,  I am gonna show you if I can do them, so can you!

So without further ado, the present challenge is to create a wedding card based on this awesome photo.

For my first challenge I was assigned to make a classy and elegant card. Wait! Hold the presses, classy and elegant?!!? All I can say is the idea of wedding and classy and elegant are like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together.

To start my process, I checked out the definition of what a classy and elegant card is. Classy and Elegant means: polished, shiny finish, sparkling embellishments, sophisticated sentiments, regal, sweeping, dramatic, monochromatic, layered textures, awe and impress.

I began by pulling stamps out and I went with Papertrey Inks- Love and Marriage and then I began to play with the definition of classy and elegant in front of me.

The base of my card was an embossed folder- a very old one from Cuttlebug. After it was embossed, I took a Copic and lightly colored the raised areas of the panel. Coloring the raised areas with a copic marker totally accents the embossed areas to create a classy and elegant feel.

I had an idea of where I was going. I knew I wanted the heart within the heart, so I started playing with combinations.

I finally decided I liked the die cut and popped heart. My hubby thought the blue and chartreuse heart was to much and I had to agree. I swapped it out for a more subtle green.

I completed this card and I was really pleased with it. After a few days though, it just didn't seem dramatic enough. So I remade the card with a more regal blue base. It felt right.

Which one seems more in keeping with a classy and elegant style? Did I miss the mark?

I hope that one of you might step outside your box and try a different style and share it with us for this challenge at The Card Concept.