Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Inspired by Rosemary Dennis

Well, that's a title I've used before. Rosemary Dennis frequently publishes her work in Take Ten, and the latest issue has a fabulous card by her that jumped right off the page and into my imagination.

Take Ten, fall 2017, page 102
If you can get this issue, get it!


Isn't Rosemary's card delightful?!? I love the pinks, the verse, the sequins. What a lovely, balanced layout.

Now, I (of course) took it in a little different direction after examining my stamps and settling on a set from Clearly Besotted called Christmas Poinsettia and Papertrey's Happiest of Holidays. Remember that when you substitute stamps, you might have to tweak the design to make the end product work.




Note that my card retains the tall sentiment and the basic layout of Rosemary's card, but my choice of the holly stamp eliminated the need to create the collage effect of the inspiration piece. That holly is a busy stamp...adding any other layers of background would have created visual chaos.

It's quite busy enough, I should say.

The sentiment, with its combination of a few too many fonts, adds to the busy feel of my card. PTI's Happiest of Holidays seemed like a great purchase at the time, but I've struggled to use it successfully. It certainly works here, though.



To bring some red into the sentiment, I stamped the sentiment in red on a piece of scrap cardstock, cut the banner portion out, and popped it up over the Memento Luxe espresso truffle banner. This brightened the whole card and unified the left and right sides through color...which is often the easiest way to unify a design.

Many, many thanks to Rosemary for giving me the inspiration to make a card a touch out of my comfort zone.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Clearly Besotted Christmas Poinsettia; PTI Happiest of Holidays, Polka Dot Basics
ink: Archival leaf green; Memento Luxe espresso truffle, love letter
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: scissors, dimensionals

8 comments:

  1. love your card. i agree that the sentiment has too many fonts but breaking it up with the red makes it easier to read. great card

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  2. The red banner is just perfect in the sentiment. The holly looks wonderful, too.

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  3. So pretty, Susan. I had been thinking about combining an elaborate sentiment with a simple Christmas image, but after seeing your card, I realise I need to go looking for a more compact sentiment to get the desired effect.

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  4. Spectacular! Perfectly balanced!

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  5. Ohhhhh! I love this. You really stepped out of your comfort zone with this, but it is amazing. My craft group is doing a card class in November with the proceeds going to help fund our VBS next summer (we have a group of YOUNG people come from our Bible Camp). This design would be wonderful for that. Now I just need to find something in my stash that would work. Thanks so much for your inspiration. Hugs

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  6. Wonderful use of Rosemary's inspiration! I love both cards!

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  7. Love the card! And I agree about the # of fonts in the sentiment. Several of PTI's sets are done this way - it drives me nuts. There are some sets that I can't figure out. Give me simple and elegant.

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!