Just finished making a big pile of these notecards, and I simply can't get enough of this Butterfly Basics! I am going to be SOOOOO sad if that stamp set doesn't make it into the upcoming catalog! Thankfully, we demonstrators will get to see the new catalog early tomorrow morning, so I don't have too many more hours to speculate and worry, lol.
As I was selecting colors for this design I knew I would use a green, of course, and I wanted 2 other bright colors as well. So I started by pulling out Mossy Meadow for my green, and then grabbed that super-yummy Blackberry Bliss as long as I was in the 2014-2016 In Colors section anyway. Daffodil Delight, which was already on my work table, seemed handy for the remaining 3rd color.
When I work with 3 different colors I usually think in terms of "large", "medium" and "small" volumes of the colors. So I decided for this card my "large" volume would be Mossy Meadow, "medium" would be Daffodil Delight, and the splash of "small" would be done in Blackberry Bliss.
I started by playing around a bit with 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation stamping for the fern images….. working to get the angles (and rhythm) arranged in a way that would be quick and effective for the couple dozen I was just about to crank out. So that part went down first – on the entire pile of notecards. (Actually, when I'm cranking out a big bunch of cards just alike, I prefer to work assembly-line style, doing the same step on each card. That gets me in a rhythm and eliminates putting tools down and picking them back up again. Because every time you open or close an ink pad, or pick up or put down a stamp, time is ticking by.)
Next came that whimsical and unexpected stripe of Blackberry Bliss parallel to the bottom edge, and then a grouping of 3 images to help balance the weight of the dark ferns. The first part of that grouping, the word "HI", is from Sophisticated Serifs, another Occasions Catalog stamp set I surely hope also transitions into the upcoming catalog because I've found a lot of uses for THAT, too!
To get the letters even with one other I started by laying them down on the grid surface of my paper trimmer, the same way I demonstrated here. Once they seemed properly aligned, I just set my acrylic block straight down on top of them (with its lower edge also aligned with the grid) to pick them up as a unit. Of course I tested them on my grid paper before proceeding, and ended up adjusting the "I" slightly before calling it perfect. But from there on I was able to stamp the two letters together as one image. For placement, I just eye-balled it and aimed for about 1/3 of the way up, and 1/3 of the way in from the left. (Rule of thirds.) Figured that was generally close enough to be acceptable.
The remaining two images of the grouping of 3 also came from Butterfly Basics, with the butterfly being stamped onto scrap Whisper White cardstock and punched out with the Bitty Butterfly punch. A few random thumps of Daffodil Delight applied with that fascinating background stamp from the same set pulled the images together, and a couple of rhinestones on the butterfly finished it all off.
NOW to get these addressed and into the mail!
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