Happy Coffee Day

In case you couldn’t guess it, the main theme for this card was coffee. Both CASology and Addicted to CAS asked for the coffee theme, whilst The Cats Pajamas asked for beverages and Pile It On asked for food or drink, all of which seemed to go together nicely! I also decided to include Double D Challenge‘s plaid theme, Craftyhazelnut’s Patterned Paper Challenge, and use the layout from Viva la Verve‘s second October sketch.

I do not have any stamps that fit the coffee theme, so that was my first challenge. I had a go at drawing a coffee cup but it was not working at all. After a quick look on Pinterest I found a digi stamp that was pretty much exactly what I’d been imagining. The downside was that our printer is not set up yet… My solution was to get the image up on my screen at the size etc. that I wanted and then trace it onto my paper.

Once I had the coffee cup drawn out I got on with colouring it. I used my watercolour pencils and spent quite some time working on the shading trying to get it correct. I figured I would do a red mug, though it ended up more orange in tone than I’d planned. As someone who doesn’t drink coffee I did decided to check pictures to see how coffee looks in a mug, colourwise. As a result of that research I made sure the liquid in my cup was very dark brown, slightly lighter against the ceramic of the cup, rather than being nearer to black in tone.

Having finished all my colouring and set the image aside to dry I got started on my background. I searched through my snippets folder to find any plaid papers I may had. I didn’t think I had any, and was expecting to have to make my own, but in fact I found two! Husband helped me decide between them, using the coloured image as a guide because of course they needed to go well together.

I cut my plaid paper down to fit my card base with about 1cm border on each side. I actually did end up using the reverse of the second plaid paper for my die cut circles as the colours coordinated nicely. It was very convenient not to have to hunt through my stash again!

With my coffee cup image dry I fussy cut it out, then added a few little bits of white gel pen detail to help it look more 3D. I considered adding glossy accents to give some shine to the ceramic of the mug but decided against it. I was a bit unsure how it would look making all the red/orange 3D but leaving the liquid flat, and felt it was better to err on the side of caution and leave it as is.

As I was trying to work out the exact positioning of my elements I kept feeling like the circle being behind the handle of the coffee cup felt too busy. I paused in my contemplation to add my sentiment, for which I used MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink and a sentiment from a Jillibean Soup stamp set. It was very easy to line up the sentiment as I could use the lines on the patterned paper as a guide!

With my sentiment done I returned to considering the layout and eventually decided to be a bit less literal in my interpretation of the sketch. Offsetting the circle slightly, to make my three elements go diagonally rather than straight across, definitely looked much better. With that decision made I just had to adhere everything in place. I used my tape runner to adhere the plaid panel, and then Tombow Multi Mono Liquid Glue for my other elements.

I’m actually really happy with how this card turned out, which surprises me given how unsure I was about it to start with. I think the colours worked nicely together, I’m really pleased with how the cup turned out, and the layout worked well. It’s a nice autumnal card and I think it could work for a number of different occasions. I’m considering sending it to a friend who just got a new job. However, I feel this card is pushing what can be considered CAS. To me it still comes across as CAS as it isn’t super fussy, but I realise that with it having a few layers it may not reach everyone’s interpretation of CAS. In any case, this is today’s card and I look forward to hearing what you think of it!

Love,

Lady Joyful