Here is another image from Shady Tree Studio's Just Believe -- Mr. Santa. (By the way, this card was Mike's favorite of the ones I'm posting this week..).
The patterned papers are again from Cosmo Cricket Winter Mitten. I don't by a lot of patterned paper, especially holiday paper. But I saw Debbie Olson use this paper and I fell in love with it and found it when I was in Minnesota a few weeks ago.
Card Construction Details:
1. Took out paper and tried to find Copics that matched. Do not have any green close and read Debbie's hint to add neutrals on top of your Copics if you need a closer match. In this case, I used a gray Copic on top of the red and also on top of the tiny green holly leaves. You can see in the picture above that where I used the gray also lifted up some of the red. Took the same gray Copic and edged the white rectangle panel.
2. Once I figured out my colors, colored Santa and then, using a Spellbinders rectangle die, cut him out. Too wide, so used another Debbie trick and cut out the left side to narrow the rectangle. That women is a genius. Here is a pic of how to do it.
3. Stacked the pieces of patterned paper and ran them through the Big Shot with a Spellbinders rectangle scallop die. By doing them all at once, made sure the scallops would line up.
4. Die cut the bottom of the card as well and adhered everything.
5. Lined envelope (used Papetrey's Envelope Liner Die).
Mood When Done = Festive
Design Tip: one of the things I did during my blog break this summer was read a bunch on graphic design. I was frustrated with what I was making and thought I would just give it up. But, instead I found myself trying to learn more about desgin. I don't find it intuitive, so I browsed the internet and got a lot of books out of the library. From time to time I'll share what I am trying to learn (I'm continuing to read and practice.) I'm not a professional and someone with real graphic design training might laugh at this. But I find it helpful...
Yesterday I talked briefly about the "grid" and how you can place things at certain points and have it be visually pleasing.
Today's card uses those grid points -- the 4 corners of Santa's mat is on the grid. But it also demonstrates another design principle. It is a "near symmetrical" design -- one where you can drawn a line down the center veritically and each side is almost identical. True symettry would be identical on each side (and is rarely found in nature).
Since the image of Santa is different on the left and right, and the background paper is not symettrical, this card is an example of near symettry. When I'm stumped, this is also a easy way to plan a card, especially one where I want to highlight a larger image, or if I'm looking for a calm feeling.
Here are some examples of the principle of symmetry I've found on other blogs:
Claire Brennan's Jar With a Tag -- only the handle keeps it from true symettry. And there is nothing boring about this!
Nichole Heady's Two Hannukah cards -- I checked Nichole's blog because her cards are often symettrical in design.
Maile Belle's Congratulations card -- each side is near identical (only the word Congratulations keeps it from true symmetry
Enjoy!
