So Glad We’re Friends – The Card Concept 37

by Shannon Jaramillo // June 10, 2015 // 6 Comments

It’s Wednesday and time for another delightful challenge from The Card Concept!:

Isn’t the inspiration photo delightful? I adore it! I was so inspired by the blended colors and the white details. I’m also inspired by the obvious subject matter, but having made several butterfly cards recently, I decided to use flowers instead…I know, that’s quite a shock to you! (If you follow my blog at all, my choice of flowers is not really very shocking at all, lol)

I must apologize to you and admit that I quite forgot my design category when designing this card. I was so wrapped up in the blended colors that everything else quite flew right out of my head! But aren’t the flowers wonderful? They’re from a never before used set called Scribble Flowers by MFT Stamps. I had so much fun playing with color combinations for this card. I used a simple ‘rock and roll’ technique to create them. I stamped my flowers in their main color and then cleaned the stamp off. I then inked the stamp up again in the second color, but this time I rolled the stamp through the ink, inking up only the outside edge of the stamp and then applied it on top of my stamped image. It didn’t need to be perfect as I knew I would use the scribble die to add detail to the top.

I cut a frame out using MFT Stamps Rectangle Frames and popped it up onto a pattern paper background. I stamped the flower stems and leaves in a soft color so that I could add my sentiment in the same bright ink as I used on the largest flower. I added the blooms to the stems using Stampin’ Dimensionals. I love the effect the layering gives the card. I HAD to add a few dots of color to finish the card off.

Everything except the dots falls under the ‘clean and graphic’ definition, I’m a rebel so the dots are staying…sorry!

Please be inspired by the designs from the rest of The Card Concept design team, they are soooo talented!

Wishing you joy and blessings!

Products Used:

Cardstock: Stamper’s Select White by Papertrey Ink

Pattern Paper: Simple Life by Echo Park

Ink: Audrey Blue & Green Apple; Cotton Candy & Doll Pink; Sunshine & Orange Peel by Simon Says Stamp for the flowers and Cobblestone by SSS for the stems and leaves. The sentiment is stamped in Doll Pink.

Stamps: Circle Scribble Flowers and Peaceful Flowers (sentiment) by MFT Stamps

Dies: Circle Scribble Flower, Stitched Rectangle Frames by MFT Stamps and Envelope Liner Die by Stampin’ Up!

Tools: MISTI by My Sweet Petunia

Embellishments: Epoxy Dots by Queen & Co.

Thanks for Teacher – The Card Concept 36

by Shannon Jaramillo // May 27, 2015 // 8 Comments

Happy Hump Day!! Do you have as much trouble as I do getting out of bed? Ugh. For me, this is the WORST day of the week for wanting to just pull the covers back over my head! But now…I have something to look forward to so who knows, it may become one of my favorite days of the week now! It could happen! lol

I’m excited to share that I have joined the design team over at The Card Concept. It’s a challenge blog with a fun twist! Each challenge showcases different design styles and provides examples of each style and then challenges you to make a card within the parameters of one of the styles! How fun! I rarely design that way, I just make whatever happens to float my boat that day! This is going to be a FUN challenge!

Here is the design concept photo this week:

Isn’t it yummy?? What about this photo inspires you most? I barely even noticed the fact that they were cupcakes and to go with a birthday theme, or to pull out the gray in the counter top. All I saw were the bright, graphic lines of the straws and cupcake liners. Which is probably not a coincidence, as I am a designer for the Clean and Graphic design! Please click on the link for a description of the styles.

I know I’ve blathered on quite a bit…so here’s the card I was inspired to create:

Isn’t this pattern stamp amazing?? And the MISTI makes it so easy to line it up and create a repeat. The stamp set also has lots of options to fill the design with, I chose a bold pattern, but used it only only the smaller sections of the pattern, I wanted to leave lots of white space.

I then accented it with an adorable little apple and fun sentiment. This card is a wonderful thank you to that teacher who always puts out that extra effort! And guess why I chose the ink color??? It’s a bit different than the inspiration photo, but I couldn’t resist it as it is called GREEN APPLE!!!! Hahahahahaha, I’m falling all over myself at how cute that is 🙂

So…did I fulfill the definition of Clean and Graphic? Let’s see…

clean lines (check)
simple treatment of text (check)
no frills (does this mean no Wink of Stella???)
bare boned (I think so?)
message is communicated quickly (check)

Please feel free to tell me how you think I did with the style guidelines…and I hope you think this is fun too and decide to play along! Please do hop over and see the lovely cards by the rest of The Card Concept‘s design team and let me know which style you think matches you the best! Or, trying stepping out of your box and try a different design style! It’s all up to you!! Have fun!

Wishing you joy and blessings!

Products Used:

Cardstock: Stamper’s Select White by Papertrey Ink

Pattern Paper: Joyous by Authentique (for envelope)

Ink: Green Apple by Simon Says Stamp and Tuxedo Black by Memento Ink

Stamps: An Apple A Day & Teacher’s Pet by Clearly Besotted Stamps; Quilt Prints by Wplus9

Dies: Apple Die by Clearly Besotted Stamps and Envelope Liner Die by Stampin’ Up!

Tools: MISTI by My Sweet Petunia

Embellishments: None

Frilly & Fabulous – CC35, CAS(E) this Sketch 123, CYCI70

by Shannon Jaramillo // May 19, 2015 // 19 Comments

Good morning! I hope your week is going well! I had a long crafting day this past weekend that allowed me to play along with some challenges. Yay!! I was determined to play with this new stamp set from Lil ‘Inkers called Modern Mehndi. My first thought was to stamp it in black and then color it in with Copic markers, but…yuck!! It just looked awful and I was so disappointed. After moving on and working on another project, it occurred to me that perhaps the stamps were meant to be stamped in color rather than in black so I tried that and am SO pleased with the result!!

I tried using a very pretty pattern paper on the card, but everything overwhelmed the flowers so I reverted back to clean and simple white, and those flowers sure do pop off the paper!! It’s not visible in the photo but I gently applied a coating of Wink of Stella to the flowers and flourishes to make them sparkle. It’s so pretty in real life!!

This card was inspired by three challenges: The Card Concept , CAS(E) this Sketch and the always fun Can You Case It. (Lots of “C”s going on there!) I love working with challenges to keep my perspective fresh and build new skills!

Thank you so much for visiting today, please do stop by again to see what I am up to!

Wishing you joy and blessings!

Products Used:

Cardstock: Stamper’s Select White by Papertrey Ink

Pattern Paper: Color Wash by Pink Paislee

Ink: Blushing Bride, Crisp Cantaloupe and So Saffron by Stampin’ Up!

Stamps: Modern Mehndi by Lil ‘Inkers

Dies: Modern Mehndi by Lil ‘Inkers and Envelope Liner Die by Stampin’ Up!

Tools: None

Embellishments: Wink of Stella