Celebrate!

Coffee of the Day - (not sure, because when this posts I am actually off camping in the woods of Pennsylvania!)

Hey there all you ribbon lovers! we are going to have a bit of a lesson in Cardmaking 101. grins!

I'm here to show you how to use your purchases from Really Reasonable Ribbons to accent the designs on your cards. don't ever feel that you have to use big fluffy bows every single time you make a card. (although you most certainly CAN!) sometimes it's fun to use the smaller things you can find in the RRR store. you'll be surprised at how well they actually highlight your focal point, be it a stamped image or sentiment, or perhaps a vintage bit of clip art.

on the card I am showing here today, the digital image of the boots and flowers from A Day for Daisies is our focal point. the doily serves as a matting piece.

I used a die from Tim Holtz to cut the sentiment, but needed something to help draw the eye to it. that is where a little piece of the Judy crochet trim came in handy. yes, I do save every little snippet of ribbon and trim! :) by stapling the piece directly under the sentiment, it draws attention in that direction. a vintage button adds a bit more interest.

next we go directly below the image to the piece of polka dot decorative paper (all papers from the Basic Grey Lemonade collection.). while the border punch helps add some fun and the scallops are similar to the other shapes on the card, the addition of the pink burlap string helps give a bit of grounding to the main image. it also adds a nice texture with the great fibers and bow.

finally we make our way around to the flowers. the colors pick up those found on the digital image but also give a great texture to the card without overwhelming it. notice that the flowers accent what is there. that is the key. when using an image of any sort, your embellishments should never over power and draw all of the attention away from your focal point. (this is especially true in scrapbooking.) believe it or not, you can have a lot of embellishments on a project that all still bring attention to the focal point. several of the designers at RRR are fabulous at doing just that. :)

what I love about the Wild Orchid Crafts flowers is how easy they are to adapt to the colors of your project. the yellow of the  Cottage Rose didn't quite match the papers, so I watercolored it a bit. I LOVE the way they take the inks! :) if you don't want to wait for it to dry naturally, just give it a quick hit with your heat gun.

buttons are all vintage, and flowers on digi have all been accented with shimmerz paint.

thanks so much for stopping by! :)

Challenges:
Paper Creator's Crafts - anything goes
Sisters of Craft - anything goes
A Gem of a Challenge - female birthday
Crafting With Friends - anything goes
QKR - lots of layers
Cardz 4 Galz - something new ('celebrate' die and pink vintage button in upper right corner are new to me)
Southern Girls - one for the girls (made for a special friend's birthday)
Through the Purple Haze - anything goes
Double Click Skittles - flower, plant, or tree
Outlawz Paper a la Mode - birthday