Sunday, June 30, 2013

America: my home sweet home

Hi, everyone.

It's been an interesting OWH week. The Midweek Challenge was to create a CAS card. Music to my ears! (The first time I came across the CAS-ual Fridays blog, well I felt like Steve Martin's character in The Jerk hearing his kind of music for the first time.)

Then came today's multi-layered sketch. There are times when I really struggle with multiple layers. Don't get me wrong, it is a great sketch -- and Kathryn's sample card is fabulous. But, it just isn't my kind of sketch. So, please accept my apologies in advance for taking quite a few liberties with this one.

So, let's say that today's Any Hero Card had its beginnings in OWH Sketch #179.

dp: My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market
sentiment: Stamper's Best,  heat embossed in Distress Ink black walnut
inking in Distress Ink black walnut; garage sale brads

I've had this paper for a while, but hadn't used it. My thinking was that the softer colors might make it easier to work with the multiple layers. Unfortunately, I still had issues with the four-layer layout.

I made a couple of other changes to the sketch. The second change was scoring the right hand side of the sentiment strip, and then sponging this smaller section with black walnut using Stampin' Up! daubers. I chose to do this instead of adding another element/paper. (Just can't get that CAS out of my system no matter how hard I try!) The third change was the placement of the three small circles in the upper left corner of the sketch. I chose to place them under the sentiment strip to bring more attention to the sentiment.

To better pop elements, I inked edges in black walnut. And, I double matted the star paper on 2 layers of the same color paper.

Oh, one more thing, the brad in the top left corner was placed to cover a stamping smudge -- which led to the bottom right brad -- which led to the three smaller brads. Guess we've all been there, done that. :)

Parting Thoughts

We're getting some much needed rain. Not good for the pool, but good for the grass and flowers. (Hubby just called it a million dollar rain! He's a very happy camper right now.)

Have a great week! Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!

8 comments:

Diane said...

Love the changes you made to the sketch and LOVE that your brads are to cover an ooops---- fabulous save!

JoAnn Ross said...

That's a perfect card for the week leading into the 4th of July! I really like how you tweaked the sketch to make it work for you, which is wonderful!

I miss the Friday CAS blog, but writing deadlines and life has cut into my cardmaking time, so something had to give. I hope to come back to it soon.

I'm sort of in the middle between pure CAS and this sketch. I love playing with pretty paper (although, having worked in advertising, I do know that White Space is Your Friend!), but I don't tend to do embellishments, so I make simple matted paper cards, as a rule. Thanks for sharing!

BobbisTreasure said...

I struggled with this sketch also. Three patterns I can do, four made it really hard! I love the soft colors, and your take on the sketch.

Unknown said...

Great card, as they less is more. More layers would have distracted from your details, very nice job! TFS!

WhoMom said...

Really cute card. The pastels really help give the card character and the brads are great.
Lyn

Joan K said...

I love the muted colors - It's nontraditional for a patriotic card, but very effective. I agree that 4 layers of pp is a stretch; I think matting makes it doable, but it is still a true challenge for me!

Cynthia T said...

Beautiful Job! The muted colors in this design are so darn pretty and the brads turned out to be a blessing after all (!)

Marlene Diefendorf said...

Sybrina your card is so stunning! Love the muted colors, patterns, and the brown you chose for matting. You've shown everyone how to take a sketch and make it you own. Thanks so much for playing!