Thursday, November 22, 2007

Those Darn Corners!


I made a bunch of these yesterday, and decided to try one with this Psychadelic (sp?) paper. The Parent Sheet is huge and it makes my eyes swim! I love the colors, so I gave it a shot.

All the other ones I made (you can see them in my SCS gallery) have green in the paper, so I stamped some holly in the top corners to fill them in. THIS one, however, is just purple and yellow, and I did not think anything green would work.

As you can see, I opted for some doodling around the edge, which I liked, but those darn corners still looked bare. I ended up just using my Elegant Eggplant marker and the Paper Piercing template to make some dots.

I am not happy with the result. I thought about using brads or something, but the star at the top of the tree kinda killed that. Any other ideas? Thanks!

PS: Could the original poster please tell us how she got the picture so large? This is one of my struggles ... thanks! ;-)

UPDATE:

I have redone the card, incorporating some of the great suggestions. Please ignore the smudges ... I have a bandaid on one of my fingers, and it messes up everything I touch. I think I'll wrap my left arm in plastic before I touch any more card stock.

ANYway, the tree is on Eggplant, the next layer is Shimmer Gold, and I wrapped some gold cord in the left corner and tied it into a bow. The bow is held in place by a balled-up glue dot (now you should understand the smudges ...). That whole thing is layered on more Eggplant, then the base is Barely Banana. I gold-embossed the sentiment in the bottom right corner to balance the bow.
Am I closer?

BTW, I thought it was a better idea to update my original post than to start another one, just to keep my versions together. What do you all think about this idea?

10 comments:

Stamping Critique said...

I'm the original poster- I uploaded my picture as medium size. However when you click on a photo it will open up as a larger picture- that is actually how I looked at your card. I actually just went back and reloaded the picture as small so it would look like everyone else's.

Maureen said...

These are very cool, is there a tutorial somewhere? I don't think they need much.

My feeling is the plain card stock is to 'contrasty' (just made that word up) with the pattern paper. Have you tried darker colors for the background layers, in a light to dark progression? Drop the white, start with the creme and then use two shades of the dark color, or a plain metalic layer. I would maybe try a tone on tone background stamp to add dimension to the layers.

Also in this version, the rounded corners may not work as well with this paper, not sure, because I do like them. Have you tried the one with the little notches and maybe some silver cord threaded through.

Leslie Hanna said...

Here is a link with instructions: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179135. Once you get the idea, the basics are 4 squares, 3", 2 1/2", 2" and 1 1/2", all folded the same way, then layered.

Maureen - I like your suggestions. I actually did have the tree on the purple layer initially, but I thought it got lost. I'll revisit that. I'll give some of these a try! Thanks!

Leslie Hanna said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Heather said...

I think the tree is great- I like the non-traditional colors. It is such a strong element that I feel like it is fighting the gold star and the bright background. I agree with Maureen's ideas on a darker background.

I think more angular, rather than curved corners would better highlight the shape of the tree.

A tutorial for the tree can be seen here (among other places):
http://pixieshire.blogspot.com/2007/10/origami-tree-tutorial.html

My Paper World said...

Wow! The tree looks fantastic!

Heather said...

What a makeover! The new card design really highlights the tree!

Fab idea to add your after picture to the original post so it is all in one place! I need to upload my madeover card.

marilyn said...

I love your original card! Before I even looked at your 2nd version, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with it! Love the stitching accent too. Is that a stamp or done by hand? Very effective.

Thank you to those who shared the links for the folding instructions...

Leslie Hanna said...

Marilyn,

The stitching is not stitching, not even faux stitching, but doodling. I laid a ruler along the card stock, then drew dash-dot-dot-dash ... it's that easy! Faux stitching would have required me to poke the holes first, which sounded like work. ;-)

Thanks for the kind comments!

Maureen said...

Oh - wow - really. I love what you did to it, it looks great.