Thanks Card - pattern mixing

Happy Saturday!  With the Fourth of July falling in the middle of the week next Wednesday, a lot of people are taking the entire week for vacation.  If you have travel plans, I hope you have a great time.

This is another quick and simple card I made using one of the My Mind's Eye card bases that I found at Marshall's.  I decided to get a bit adventurous and use only patterned papers and ribbon to make the card. 

 

I started with the plaid card that you can see in the center of this photo.  The cards were from the Lost and Found collection.

I didn't have any papers from the Lost and Found collection but I did have this pad of 6 x 6 paper - Jack and Jill from the Quite Contrary collection.  Some of the papers in this pad are similar to the colors of some of the card bases.

I selected several papers from the pad that had a similar color palette.  I cut the mat layer at 5 1/4 x 4 inches from the busiest patterned paper.  I created the "Thanks" sentiment in the Silhouette Studio software by combining two fonts, welding the word and making a shadow mat so it would stand out against the busy background.  I chose the bold red stripe for the mat to provide a high contrast with the background and used a tone on tone pattern for the word "Thanks."

I inked the edges of the mat layer with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and added this piece of yellow chevron rbbon, taping it to the back of the layer before I adhered it to the base.  The stripes in the ribbon just happened to be about the same width as the stripes in the red paper.

 I also inked the edges of the sentiment shadow and added lots of foam dots to raise it on the card front.

With so many patterns on the card, I decided not to add any additional embellishments.  What do you think?  Is it too busy?  t was fun to try something a bit different for me and it was very hard not to add some solid colors!

It is very easy to use any font on your computer to create welded words in the Silhouette software.  I'll show you the fonts and how I combined them and shadowed the sentiment in another post.

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Fabulous Friend Card

The shine of the cardstock, the metallic printed sentiment and the addition of a bit of bling make this a pretty card to send to a friend - a fabulous friend!

 I used a simple leaf design from the basic shapes included in the Silhouette Studio software to make the medallion of the front of the card.  The shapes are listed in alphabetical order, so you'll need to scroll down a bit to find it in your library.  If you can't find it, try going into Preferences under the File menu and choose "advanced" from the list on the left.  Then click on the bar that says "Restore the initial 51 designs" and click OK.  You may need to restart to have all of the shapes show up in the library.

After I added the shape to my mat, I used the "mirror right" command under the replicate menu to create a mirror image and then moved the second image over a bit to overlap the lowest leaf and wleded the two shapes together.  Then I selected the new shape and chose "mirror below" from the replicate menu, moved the image up to overlap the leaves and welded the two sets of leaves to create the shape on the right.  I released the compound path and eliminated the central opening - then grouped all of the pieces and made a compound path.

The Offset command in the software makes it very quick and easy to create a shadow or mat for the new shape.  You can set the width of the offset, making it narrower or wider to suit your project.

Next I used the dimension boxes to set the height and width in the scale menu.  I sized the grouped shapes and then ungrouped them for cutting.  To get a good visual idea of the way the card will look, I added two rectangles to the mat - one sized at 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches to represent and A2 card and one sized at 5 1/4 x 4 inches to represent a mat layer on the card.  (I didn't end up using a mat for this card).  I moved these shapes off the virtual mat before cutting the two medallion pieces.

I used one of the My Mind's Eye card bases with a very subtle yellow stripe.  The shadow of the leaf medallion is cut from blue Core'dinations cardstock and the branches are cut from Core'dinations Gemstone cardstock.  The sentiment oval is from Craftwork Cards and the gems are from Creative Charms.

The mat layer is actually a medium dark blue - not as dark as it looks in the photos.  The texture and the sheen of the Core'dinations Gemstone cardstock always make a card look special. 

You can see the subtle yellow stripe in the card base a bit better in this photo. 

 I could have cut a small sentiment (I originally was going to make this a "thanks" card), but I realized the the oval shape in the center was a near perfect match for these oval card sentiments from Craftwork Cards so I added the sentiment, raised with foam dots.

Once again, if you can't find these sentiment cuts, you could make an assortment with stamps and embossing to have ready for cards.  The metallic gold printing adds another level of sparkle to the card.

For the finishing touch, I added some light blue gem stickers in three graduated sizes to accent the leaf design.  The end result is a fast but elegant card.

If you have any questions about making the design, please leave a comment and I'll try to explain more clearly.  The same principles can be used with a Cricut design - I have made many new shapes over the years by welding Cricut images together.  The "mirror" function is not included in the Cricut software so you will need to flip and rotate the design to create a similar shape.  

If you want your image to have a shadow layer, you will have to choose a shape on a Cricut cartridge that has a shadow function.  From the very first version of Design Studio and through the updates, the Gypsy and the Craftroom, crafters have been asking for a variable width one click shadow option but it has not been added to any of the programs.

We are expected to start a new heat wave this weekend -but it isn't as hot here as it is in some parts of the country.  I hope that none of you have been affected by the terrible fires in Colorado.  We have family in the area and so far they are fine but the conditions are so dry that things can change very quickly.


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Card Bargain (another shopping find)

I was in the shopping plaza with a Marshall's store not long ago and, of course, I had to pop in to check and see if there were any crafting bargains.  Over the years I have found many unexpected surprises in the stationery section.  They often have Martha Stewart items and several brands of paper stacks.

I spotted this box of cards and envelopes from My Mind's Eye.  There are fifty cards, five each of ten designs, in the box.

The price was an extremely affordable $5.99 - regular Marshall's price and not marked down yet.

At $5.99 for 50 cards and envelopes, the cost per card and envelope set is 12 cents.  The envelopes I usually buy at Staples are $11.49 for 100 - so this seems like getting the cards for free!

The cards are printed on both sides - I considered these the front sides.  The cardstock is a nice weight and the inside of the card is a coordinating color.

The backs of the cards are mostly more subdued solids with a few exceptions.

I've been making some cards using these handy bases.  It's pretty simple to add a few cuts, some bling and a sentiment.  I'll share the details on this design tomorrow.

If you are on the email feed, there are probably two posts on this email.  I am on "summer hours" and have been busy sorting out a lot of things that I need to do before I go to see my Dad again.

Thanks for all of the interesting feedback about the Cricut vs. Cameo (or other machines) decision.  I am holding on to most of my Cricut items for now and do continue to use them - but not as frequently as in the past.  I have some cartridges that I have never opened that I might sell (of course as soon as I would sell one, I would find a use for it!).

If you missed the discussion - you can see lots of comments on THIS POST.

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