Tri-Shutter Birthday Card

I love the look of special shaped cards - but they can be challenging to decorate. I find this to be especially true for the tri-shutter card.  Sometimes, however, less is more.  In this example, several of the panels don't have much on them, but there is quite a lot to see regardless. 

The base of the card is made from a glittered cardstock, so it already has quite a bit of sparkle. I ran a border of silver metallic ribbon top and bottom that really sets it off nicely.

The focal is made with vellum.  I used a stencil and embossed it with my Big Shot before coloring the rose with gel pens and smooch ink. I love my Dove Blending pen for helping to create shading, though you can't see that well in this picture.  Mounting the vellum on white card stock that was shaped using a Spellbinder's die, and adding outline sticker corner treatments completes the focal.

A poem was printed on white paper and glued to one panel, while a short message was glued to a second panel that was matted with white.  The rose theme is carried to the upper back panel by paper piecing an outline sticker. 

For more ideas on decorating tri-shutter cards, check out this post.

Scrapbooking By The Numbers - 3

 Today we continue the series about "Scrapbooking by the Numbers" - because often the number of photos I want to put on a page helps to dictate the layout.  Today we're looking at some layouts using 3 photos and blocking techniques.  I often find with three photos that a combination of photo blocks and journaling blocks works nicely. For this first one you can see that I cropped the photos to focus on the subject.  I then arranged them into blocks - the second photo being 1/2 the size of the first and the third photo being 1/2 the size of the 2nd. A journaling block and title block taking up the rest of the space.

This page also demonstrates a couple of  fun techniques I like to use.

• Title - putting the title on a blown up part of the photo. In this case, the title is backed by a photo of the water and grasses.  
• Journaling - Because the page background was white, I felt the journaling block would look better with white writing on a dark background.  Of course, printers don't print in white, so I couldn't print onto a dark cardstock.  Instead, I created a "photo" that had a coordinating dark background (this is actually a blow-up of one of the photos - if you look closely, you can see a touch of the grasses in the upper left corner) and then added white text.  Now I can print that up just fine!

This page follows a similar blocking pattern, but the title and text are not quite as clearly blocked with the text printed directly on the background and the title overlapping the pictures. Layering an embellishment on an angle also adds some interest.

Sometimes I like to not only layer my title, but my photos as well.  You'll notice that in this case, the biggest photo is NOT the focal point, the photo that is layered on top of it is.  Layering the title on the largest photo helps to make it recede into the background.  Layering the focal photo on top of it (with a white mat) helps the focal stand out, but so does the much larger size of the lighthouse in the focal photo.

Doily Piercing Challenge

Today's card was inspired by a challenge on the Paper Wishes message board.  I had made some cards with one of the foil papier tole packs from Hot Off the Press and had this one left that I wanted to use.  The challenge was to use a doily or template as a pattern for piercing paper and using those holes for sewing a design.  My first thought was to use this heart shaped doily for a template for stitching on the pink vellum, but I quickly changed my mind.  I decided I really wanted the doily itself as a mat for the papier tole hearts.  (Stay tuned for another post that shows some stitching patterns I made from the doily for another project.)

So, I used a swirly template I got from Hot Off the Press, and a ruler to punch holes in a swirly pattern and around the edge of the vellum. I then did my stitching with metallic silver thread.  An outline sticker sentiment and some a bit of liquid pearls finished off the design on the front.

The inside was done similarly using the extra artwork that came with the papier tole as corner accents.

Focals - Size doesn't always matter

Focals, whether on a scrapbook page or a card, are usually defined by size - they are usually the largest element on the page (if not the largest picture, then at least zoomed in so the subject is the largest on the page).  However, there are exceptions. 

If you look at this page, the eye is clearly pulled first to the pink fish.  While the picture is clearly smaller than the picture it sits on top of, and while even the fish itself is smaller than the one in the middle on the bottom row of pictures, there is no question that they eye is pulled to the pink fish.  Why?  Color.  Never underestimate the power of color in your layouts.  Even the little blue fish in the bottom right color pulls the eye more than the larger fish to its left - because of the deeper color. 

Though the eye would probably gravitate to the pink fish no matter what was done on this page, there are a couple of other things that were done to help ensure its focal quality.  First, it was placed on top of the larger photo.  This helps the larger photo recede to the background.  Second, it was placed off by itself and at an angle.  All of these things support the focal point in this layout.