CARDMAKING: From CONCEPT to REALITY Article 3

Good morning once again, my friends,

I hope that you’re all having a fine week!

So far in my CARDMAKING: From CONCEPT to REALITY series, I’ve shared a couple of examples of my personal cardmaking experience….one card design that evolved from a poem and one that evolved from a floral design on a duvet cover. In today’s article, I’m going to share another of my cardmaking experiences, and this one, believe it or not, was inspired by a child’s hair barette!

Now, I do have to confess that I never would have come up with this card idea, had I not been participating in a card challenge with some of my cardmaking friends…The topic of that challenge was “Make a card using a ‘found object.’” (And NO, the challenge topic wasn't my idea!)

Not having a clue as to what I’d come up with for that particular challenge, I started searching the house for a ‘found’ item, anything that I thought I could possibly work into a card design, and wahlah......I found a colorful little barette with tiny rhinestone sparkles, in one of my many “junk collection” dishes I have scattered about. I had no idea where the barette came from, but I suspect it may have been a Christmas “stocking stuffer” purchase for one of my nieces years ago, that never made it to the stocking!

At any rate, I thought the color combination of fushia and aqua were striking, and so I set about looking through my mega stacks of cardstock and patterned paper to see what might coordinate well with this little barrette. And to my delight, I found a lovely pieced of embossed cardstock (by K and Company, as I recall) that had the PERFECT color combination in a beautiful floral design.

Then I searched through my textured Bazzill (I always have lots and lots of Bazzill on hand for just the right cardmaking occasion), and selected a coordinating shade of turquoise blue for the card design background. I’d just purchased some sheets of that color in the Bazzill “Bling” line, which has a lovely shimmer.

I also was able to find just the right shade of deep pink mulberry paper to coordinate with the color scheme. I fringed the edges of the mulberry paper for a little interest and used it to create an additional border under the embossed floral paper and under the text block.

Luckily, I was also able to find two different remnants of ribbon in my ribbon stash/tin, one in deep aqua, and one in deep rose.........those worked nicely to attach through the little barrette and add another touch to the card.

Text was computer generated and printed on plain white cardstock, then I chalk shaded the edges of the text block in (you guessed it!) aqua chalk.

With a few tiny acrylic rhinestones in a coordinating shade of blue to add a bit of sparkle, I thought this turned out to be a pretty nice little birthday card. And I guess someone else thought so too, since I SOLD IT ON EBAY!

So, here's today's story of how a card made it from CONCEPT to REALITY.....and in this case, I can honestly say this little card wouldn't have come to be, if I hadn't been challenged by my cardmaking friends and if I hadn't had just the right combination of materials in my cardmaking stash! (Guess that justifies my frequent shopping trips to the local crafts and scrapbooking stores.....or DOES it??)

Until we meet again.......May you be inspired today, even by the most unlikely source.