Cards That Pop!

  

Black makes colors really pop, there's no doubt about it. It's why we go to the classic 'little black dress' for special occasions...it makes the wearer stand out and you can add that one stand-out piece of jewelery, belt, purse that makes a statement. Recently, I had made some bold cards with flowers and bugs on a light background. One morning, I woke up with the vision of a similar card with a black background so I played around with this idea. Having recently used Color-Core cardstock and enjoyed it; I opted to use it again. I just love the visual texture it creates when you sand it.Here's the assembly line...


Lot's of punching flowers, hand-cutting centers(I didn't like the look of 'perfect', round centers!), and
die-cutting stems.

Stems were glued onto black cardstock and ribbon threaded across before gluing that onto the actual card. A Xyron sticker-maker was used for the stems. TIP:  A cuticle tool works REALLY good on intricate shapes, to rub around those edges so that you don't have bits of glue hanging off or areas it didn't stick well. Just trace around the shape!

 
Many evenings were spent sanding all the flowers and centers. I watched a British comedy series called 'Black Books' during this time, that I rented from the library...which btw is TOO FUNNY!!!! I've got all my family watching it now!

And.........another evening of adding glitter glue embellishments.

 What was just a matter of me hurrying through making a mock up of my plan...not gluing my flowers down quite...turned out to be a Happy Accident! I found that I loved being able to bend the petals up off the card a bit for some dimension.

And that's that! Thanks for stopping by! These can also be found on my Etsy shop in 4-packs if you don't feel like going to the trouble of making some yourself!

Mini Composition

I don't know about you, but I just love things in mini.

 Everything seems more charming in mini...babies, kittens, tea sets and even these mini composition books!Plus I'm sort of on a roll with covering all kinds of notepads and notebooks lately. Muslin, canvas, and burlap all seem to be textures that I love for a base. Plus, they are pretty neutral palettes to begin with.      

 
I simply stamped French script as a background and then added a flower stamp.

 In keeping with the theme, I then machine-stitched French lace onto the canvas.

 Last, I hand-sewed a button onto each and glued them down. And VOILA! Just a nice little notebook to carry in with you. These will be available on my Etsy shop.