Inspire Me Monday: A Card Set Walk-Through

Happy Monday before Christmas Power Poppy friends! It’s Christine bringing you some sunshine on the shortest day of the year.   Are the holiday preparations moving forward madly in your house?  We are getting to the homestretch with ours with a full-day fudge production line on the weekend and some shopping today.  All my preparations are very late this year due to a broken leg, so today when it came to my tutorial, I was at a bit of a loss for what to show you!  My creativity, like my leg is a little un-exercised!   I did need to create a set of cards for a gift exchange with friends, so for the sake of practicality, I thought I’d walk you through the design process, and maybe it will inspire you!  

I began with the lovely Camellias digital set, tilted them on my screen so I could fit 6 on a page of XPress It Blending cardstock.  I love this cardstock for digis because it’s light and prints from my printer beautifully, and it’s great to colour with.  

Next I gave the blooms some bright yellow colour with Y11, Y13, Y14, and Y17 Copic Markers.  I particularly like this yellow combination because the Y11 is quite light and the Y17 quite saturated, giving you good contrast between light and dark.  

Next, I added some rich green to the leaves and buds with YG91, YG93, YG95, YG99.  From the pictures I’ve seen of camellias, the leaves are a lovely glossy green colour.  After I took this picture, I spent some time fussy-cutting out each set of set of blossoms so I could give the final cards some dimension.  

Then I gathered some supplies I wanted to use in common on each card.  I don’t think that camellias grow on lattices, but I sure wanted to make them look like that on the card, so I pulled out this Spellbinders Lattice die, some yellow gingham ribbon and the contrast of black accents in cardstock and this pretty damask washi tape.  

When I work with really detailed dies, I add a piece of wax-paper beneath the cardstock on the die so that the details of the die slip through well.  It’s so frustrating having a detailed die, stay in the die!  So this way after some really good passes through my Big Shot, the lattices come out easily.  

Next I knew I wanted to create a “window” for the flowers and the background of the lattice behind.  

And here’s the final set of cards.  I attached the lattice right against the cardbase, then popped up the black frame, with the camellias tucked behind the windowed design.   To make the set simply elegant and yet tied together, I added washi tape to the bottom of the cards and also to the envelopes.  

Each card has it’s own sentiment from the lovely Dynamic Duos:  Peonies and Tulips.  It’s one of my favourite sets from Power Poppy for it’s variety of sentiments.   Then I’ve added a double bow in gingham, a button and twine, as well as a smattering of faceted black gems to add interest to the black cardstock.  

You can just see a bit of the inside the design  where I added a strip of black washi tape to tie all the parts together.  

One last closeup of the details of the design and thes gorgeous camellia flowers!  At our gift exchange this present was traded for at least 3 times.  I gotta admit, that sure makes a girl feel good :)  

Thanks for joining me on this card set walk-through!  Blessings to each of you this season.  I hope that you have some time to reflect, to hope and to spend time with someone you love.