Hi everyone! It's Jackie here and it's my turn on this super fun Project Parade! To be perfectly honest, when I saw this month's project parade theme, Divine Design, I sort of panicked! I honestly did not think I had a "process" to my card making, but when I sat down and actually made my card I made a wonderful discovery....I DO HAVE A PROCESS!! LOL!When I sit down to stamp I usually have a stamp set in mind that I want to use, in this case I knew I wanted to use the new set, Just For You, and the flowers from Grateful Elegance, so I set off on the hardest part of creating a card, the sketch! I RARELY use my own sketches. I am a huge fan of sketch challenges because the hardest part is already done for you! I'm not lazy, just sketch challenged! (wink) For this card I chose Amy Rysavy's sketch from this past Friday, AMYRS72.
Once I find the sketch and have the stamping portion worked out in my head I search for colors. I keep a little notebook on my desk with different color combos I have either tried or have seen and want to try. Other times, like on my card here, I may choose colors from patterned paper that I want to use. I really love this new DP from Stampin' Up called Thoroughly Modern, so I pulled my colors from the DP. I tend to rely HEAVILY on patterned paper. I just love collections of patterned paper because it makes it much easier to combine different patterns as they are made to coordinate with each other!
Once I have the basic parts of my card done, the fun for me begins....embellishing!! I always look at my cards at this point and think "how can I make this more interesting?" There are two items I turn to almost every time to "step it up" and that is my Spellbinders Nestabilities and my Janome Sew Mini. For instance, on this card I decided to frame the sentiment circle with a Blossom Nestability. It really made the sentiment the focal point of the card and it adds such a beautiful look instead of a plain old circle. And stitching, well, stitching is subtle but adds so much to a card! The last embellishment on this card is the ribbon. Now ribbon and I have a love/hate relationship! I don't always use ribbon because I have a hard time tying it. If it doesn't look perfect to me, I just don't use it. It worked on this card, but sometimes I find it overwhelms a card, but that's just me!
Other embellishments I love to use, but did not use on this card are punches, border punches, brads, and rhinestones.
Now, before I actually commit to my layout (aka: glue it down) I put it all together to see how it looks. This is the time that I add my MOST USED product in my craft room.....DIMENSIONALS! Every card, IMO, needs dimension. This is where I decide what layers need dimesion. On this card I popped the main image/sentiment and the entire panel from Bermuda Bay up, on dimensionals.Well I hope you enjoyed taking a peek into my Divine Design Process as much as I had fun discovering it!!
We can't wait to see what you come up with for this month's Project Parade! To play along, just make a project or card that shows us your Divine Details. Verve Stamps are not required, but if you've got 'em we love to see 'em! Then just add a link to your creation to the Mr. Linky form in this post before 8PM Mountain on Saturday, August 1. Two lucky participants will win a stamp set of their choice from the Verve Store. We've also hidden another $25 gift certificate somewhere along the parade for a random commenter. So if you like what you see, be sure and give a little shout out in the comments of each post! Have fun and good luck!
