The Card Concept: Be Inspired!

Hey all! Welcome to my little space in the blog-o-sphere. It's Kristie here and I have a few cards to share with you for The Card Concept challenge for this week. Check out the inspiration below:

My challenge for this week was to create a Clean and Simple card with the above picture for inspiration. The first things that stand out are obviously, the white on white tone, the BIG chartreuse flower print and my favourite element; the stitched head board. I Just love it!  So here is what I came up with after a few different tries:

Now I say a few different tries, because I did make a few cards for this challenge. I for some reason, really thought of myself as a CAS designer. But it took me a few tries and some reading of the "styles" to come up with something I felt fit and even then, I had to ask some people if this card did actually qualify as a CAS card!

But... lets not get ahead of ourselves. Before we get into ALL that, let me show you what I did for this card. As I said, I LOVE the stitching on the headboard and knew I wanted that element in my card design. Lucky for us there is a plethora of stitching die cuts on the market that help give this great look without having to wield a needle! Whew! 

I used a die cut from Lawn Fawn to cut some water-colour paper and then embossed my flower images in white. I then took a blend of green, yellow and white water-colour and did a 'simple' wash over the entire area (I say simple because if you are like me, even a watercolor wash takes some time and concentration and becomes not so simple when you freak out about where you want colour and where you want water-- aaawww Freak Out!)

So once I had that, it was really simple to just add a sentiment and pop it up onto a card base. The only trouble was what to do with those pesky holes! I didn't want to run ribbon through it because it became way too bulky, thus killing any CAS qualities I felt like this card actually had (which after the watercoloring fiasco, seemed like very few) So I opted for some embroidery floss twirled around the holes a few time. Not the most simple execution but hopefully still a CAS look.

Ok, so that was card creation #3. Let me introduce you to cards 1 and 2. And I'll tell you why I didn't chose them to be my final card for today's challenge, (as you sit there and think I'm crazy!)

Here was the first card I made:

Now I LOVE this card. I think its super awesome. So awesome in fact that I made a whole set of them! They were SO simple to make. Stitched die cut, pop of colour, great big sentiment all white on white. What's not to love? And really, they were so simple! BUT, and that's a big BUT...

It was only after seeing some designs from a different category that these cards seemed too Clean and Graphic to me. (Not to be confused with Clean and Simple.) I re-read the styles and while most of this card design fit CAS (easy to recreate, lots of space, limited layers) the features of the Clean and Graphic seemed pretty spot on too (bare boned, no frills, message conveyed quickly). I mean, that's all I see is a BIG message and no frills! Anyway, I love them, and maybe that means I am more apt to be a Clean and Graphic designer, but I was not going to be deterred. 

I was determined to create a spot on CAS card... And card #2 was born:

So honestly, you want to know why I didn't pick this card?? GAG... that's why. I just thought it turned out TOTALLY ugly. I just dislike it for so many reasons, I just could not, in good conscience post this as my final card. It's just too UGH-ly for words. I even tried so hard to put in my stitching element on the right hand side of the card, and it just looks like I stepped on it with spiky shoes or something. I mean, just really don't like it. And the colour? What's up with the muddy colour?!

SO!That is why I made card #3. Which I adore and had such a great time making (you can see I chose some brighter more fun greens and yellows for this one... the last card was too pukey!) But does it officially classify? I will let you be the judge.

And there you have it! The epic long explanation of why I made three cards instead of my required one and what I learned in the process. I LOVE graphic. I LOVE simple and I can't necessarily differentiate between the two! HA!

I hope you try out the challenge this week over at The Card Concept. I would love to hear how it goes for you. Are you drawn to more than one style? Or do they all blend together? So drop me a comment if you have time. Which card do you like best? I'm excited to see how you navigate the challenge!

Thanks so much for joining me and taking the time to get all the way to the bottom here, which is a LONG way from the top ; )

Hope you have a great day!

xoxo

k