Friday, January 8, 2010

Color Inspiration.

One of the main reasons I started blogging a year-and-a-half ago, was because my friend (and Close to My heart Upline) Yvonne, showed me a card that she had created for a color inspiration challenge over at KWernerDesign. She explained all about blogging at our unit meeting that night and challenged us to use blogs for inspiration and start our own blog to create an online presence for our business.

I was HOOKED from that point on. I started doing tons of color challenges (and other challenges too) but Color Inspiration soon became my total favorite. It was the biggest motivator to get me to create a great card with a fabulous color scheme. When Kristina decided not to do the challenges anymore, I was pretty bummed, but totally understanding...she picked several favorites from the challenge and created a mosaic that linked back to each original card....I am sure it took hours!

The challenges taught me good design and craftsmanship and helped me meet a lot of really great bloggers! I was super excited this week to notice a new color challenge...sort of a one-time-only, (that's okay! Be sure to check out her weekly card videos for ideas and inspiration, they totally rock!!!) I am at home because of the weather and I was really struggling to get some mojo going this week. This color inspiration challenge was perfect!

Here is my card for this week's challenge. I used a stamp set by hero arts and some cardstock from Close to my heart. The little Matryoshka doll is paper pieced as I was trying to incorporate all the colors from the challenge. The bird cage paper is from Hambly....I LOVE my Hambly paper!! I have to have a really good reason to use it though...I am always afraid I will use it up too quickly. Check back tomorrow for an all-Hambly mini album I am finishing up!


My goal was to create a whole stack of Valentine cards for a swap later this month so I used up the rest of the birdcage paper (and traded the mustard + saffron for brown and green on some of the cards)

Some of you had asked about the deer that I used in some of these cards. He is a felt die cut from Close to My Heart....I only had one and I was hesitant to use him, because he is so cute...So I traced him onto cardstock and now I use that as a pattern on other papers so that I can re-create that same idea over and over....

I actually had a tricky time shooting the photos for these....It was WAY too cold to do it outside (I tried, but the -10 wind kept blowing them over) and it was right at sunset...around 5:00 pm....so the sun was quite harsh and kept making bright sun streaks and shadows everywhere whenever I tried to use my usual window to take the pictures.
Wouldn't this be a cute teacher Valentine?

Those little envelopes are waaaay easy to make. I used 2X2 squares, folded them in half and then in half the other way....and then you just fold the corners into the middle and viola, a cute little square envelope. I leave one corner up for the flap...and line it with a scrap of paper.... I practiced some stitching on cards again for the one above....I sewed that ribbon to the card.

The cupcake punch is from Martha Stewart. I used a scissor edging technique....where you scrape the edge of the cardstock with your scissors to rough it up....on a lot of my cards and elements.


That pink frame in the background in some of my pictures is from T.J. Max...I went there last week and bought a huge stack of cool frames...I am trying to decide what to put in them and where to hang them....I want to create a wall of cool frames, possibly on my mantle piece....this is an idea for one of them....It totally matched the color scheme so I had to use it in my pics!

Hope you are having a great week and staying super warm!! If you are making any Valentines, I would love to see them!! I looked online and couldn't find much in the way of inspiration!

15 comments:

Karla said...

Hey Nellie,

I love the card with the tiny envelop! Good luck in the Color Inspiration Challenge!

Winter said...

WOW! Thanks for all the inspiration this morning! I love all of the cards, the pictures frames are great, and I think you did great on the pictures! Thank you for stopping by my blog and leaving a sweet comment! I don't know if you noticed, but I am having a St. Jude card drive for Valentine's Day, and I would love for you to stop by and check it out! I read that you needed some inspiration for Valentines's cards, well there are tons of talented women helping out with the drive, so I am sure you will find some inspiration! :)

Kit said...

wow superb cards and I love this colour combo :o)

Natty said...

Those cards are totally love, and the birdcage paper is perfect!

I have also admired that picture frame in my local TK Maxx store here in the UK, but they only have orange ones in my outlet... one day the perfect colour will be on sale! hehe

~amy~ said...

okay, absolutely DELISH cards...I've been carefully hoarding that very same hambly paper but may just need to whip them into cards...thanks for the inspiration!!

danni reid. said...

love, love these, the birdcages, the deer, the envelope, it's all so awesome!!

Rachel said...

Awesome cards! And that is a very cool picture frame, too. :)

Lynn said...

Love the way you have done so much with your cards..Excellent :)

Sarah said...

Ohhhh you are outdoing yourself!!! I LOVE Kristina's cards, her style is what I would love to be able to do. I LOVE the little deer and NEVER would have thought to make an outline of him...gonna go and do that now :0)

shelly said...

wow!! all your cards are so pretty!

Kara said...

CUTIE cards!

And, dang girl, you got far with that paper! :P

Unknown said...

loVe all the varieties you have going on! Thanks for sharing!

Two Happy Stampers said...

Wow, looks like you had a TON of fun with these! Fun cards! =)

Tethered2Home said...

Absolutely awesome. That Hambly is deserving of a mini album, beautiful! Amy.

Steph said...

These are all so gorgeous!