Clean Card Designs

If you follow me anywhere that I share my creations you may have noticed that I prefer clean and simple designs. Or perhaps it would be better to say I prefer clean designs, because they’re not always simple! Today I’m sharing three cards that fall into the clean and maybe-simple category. Lots of white space, clean lines, and not too much fuss.

Card 1 – Because Kitty

The first card was the quickest to make, and I think does qualify as ‘simple’. I started with a white card base and STAMPlorations’ Kitty Slimline Stencil. My card is not a slimline one, but the stencil still works nicely on it. (If you want to see an example on a slimline card I have a Two For One Stained Glass version and a version where I layered it with another stencil.)

I used blending brushes and Distress Inks to add colour to my design. I started with Squeezed Lemonade at the top, moving into Peeled Paint, and finally Mowed Lawn at the bottom. I lifted the edge of my stencil to check how it looked and decided that the head of the cat needed a little more definition, so I added a very light amount of Spiced Marmalade around the edges.

The finishing touch was a sentiment reading “just because”, stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink. The sentiment is from a now retired stamp set of the same name, from STAMPlorations.

Challenges:

A Perfect Time To Craft – Anything Goes

Addicted To Stamps and More – Stencils

Crafty Animals – Include An Animal

Creatalicious Challenges – Anything Goes and Optional: Animals

Digi Choosday – Anything Goes

Incy Wincy Designs – Animals

STAMPlorations Never Ending Anything Goes Challenge – Anything Goes

STAMPlorations Summer Challenge – Anything Goes

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Card 2 – Hooray Shaker

My second card is definitely less simple! At least in terms of creating it. The first thing I did was search through my sequins to find some in yellow, grey and orange. This required a lot of picking sequins out of other sequin mixes, and I recruited my husband to help with that. (He did the orange.)

Next I cut two panels of white to a little smaller than my card base. One of the panels I set aside, and the second I die cut three times with MFT’s Hooray die. This die is now retired, but they have many other great options of word dies.

Shaker cards generally involve foam tape. I’ve pretty much stopped using foam tape. (I still have a small amount which I may use in the future to use it up, but I’m not buying any more.) Instead of foam tape I cut two pieces of chipboard to a smidge smaller than my white panels. On one of the pieces I used a pencil to mark the area of my three shaker wells. I then used my craft knife to cut the wells out, which took quite a while! I then used Glossy Accents to adhere the cut layer of chipboard to the uncut layer, let it sit for a moment for the glue to set, then proceeded to cut the well into the bottom layer of chipboard as well.

I adhered the chipboard shaker wells with Glossy Accents onto the full panel of white card, then added the sequins into each of the wells. I then used the Glossy Accents to adhere vellum to the back of my die cut panel, pieced in the negatives of the letters, then adhered the front of the shaker onto the shaker well. Finally I adhered the shaker onto a green card base.

Except, that wasn’t finally. When I shook the shaker, some sequins were escaping. I think some of the areas had such thin layers of Glossy Accents that they had dried too quickly and failed to properly adhere together. Luckily I was able to poke the ‘nose’ of my Glossy Accents into the couple of areas that were coming apart, squeeze some more glue inside, and then pressed them tightly together. At which point it was finished.

Challenges:

Aud Sentiments Challenge – Anything Goes with a Sentiment

Classic Design Challenge – Anything Goes

Krafty Chicks Challenge – Anything Goes

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

MFT Camp Create Day 1 – Spectacular Shakers

MFT Color Challenge – Color Palette

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Birthday Celebration

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes

Stay Crafty With Hero – Interactive Cards

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Card 3 – Monster Note

My third and final card for this post also took me a little while, mostly for the colouring of the sweet little monster. He’s such a cutie! I started by die cutting my frame from some Tonic Gold Pearl Satin Mirror card with two of the dies from Mama Elephant’s Lafayette Frame dies. I then positioned it on my card base to allow me to work out where I wanted to position my stamps.

I chose a sentiment and monster from Mama Elephant’s Monster Jam stamp set. The sentiment curves nicely into the frame, and the monster likewise fits nicely in there too. I stamped them both down with Altenew Jet Black ink. Usually I use MFT Black Hybrid ink, but as the image is so small I felt it was easier to ink up with a smaller ink pad – the MFT ink I have is fullsize, whilst the Altenew one is a cube.

I used my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers to colour the image in. I started by laying in my shadow areas on the monster with my darkest colour, then worked through from darkest to lightest in flicking motions to give the look of fur. The midtone and lightest colours have quite a difference, which usually isn’t a problem for me with this combination, but as I was flicking instead of blending it did cause a little trouble. I went back through the colours a couple of times until I felt happy with how it looked.

Monster – BT9, BT7, BT5, BT1, GT1

Horns – GT1, BT1

Pencil, Yellow – GY2, CT4, CT1

Pencil, Wood – GB4, GB2

Pencil, Metal – GB4, BO1, CT4

Pencil, Rubber – PP5, PP4

Pencil, Lead – IG6

Moving on I added some of the lightest colours I’d used on my monster onto its horns, just to give a little dimension to them. I then quickly coloured the pencil, its rubber (eraser), wood, lead and metal part (whatever that is called!)

Next I took some colouring pencils, in white as well as a dark blue and a tealy, blue-green, whatever the monster colour would be called. I used all three of the pencils to further flick in on the monster, making it look even furrier.

I had left the stamps in place in the MISTI, and in fact had left the card in place as I coloured, so I could easily restamp everything for crisper lines. This time I stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I used some of the offcuts of chipboard from card two to add some dimension behind my frame before adhering it to my card base, which completed my card.

Challenges:

CAS On Friday – Tiny Images

The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge – Coloring

The Paper Shelter Summer Break Challenge – Anything Goes

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Those are my three cards! If you like clean and simple designs, check back later to see a very clean and simple floral card I created as my DT project for this month’s HLS CAS Challenge. The card will be here – if the link doesn’t work, it’s not live yet! I’d love to know which of these three cards is your favourite. I think mine is the little monster, though I really like the shaker, too.

Love,

Charlotte E (Lady Joyful) Email thejoyfulsoulcreates@gmail.com

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