Getting new stamps is always fun and usually the ideas start to flow immediately. Sometimes, however, due to numerous reasons, the ideas don’t quite translate from what is in your head to what makes it to paper. Today’s card is an example of a card which didn’t quite work. It isn’t too bad but it misses the mark on a few levels.
The problem basically arose from sticking things down before the idea was fully formed. This meant that my clouds were too high and separate from the rest of the images. I had to put the happy birthday there to tie them back into the design. The place where the happy birthday had been meant to go was now a huge big void and the stamp which had been planned to go in the middle bottom of the card was now the wrong size. So I added the tree trunk, the snail and the butterfly and the whole thing didn’t look so bad.
The next problem was that I hadn’t found anything which looked right to mount the middle panel on. I ended up using the same colour cardstock, stamped a Penny Black rubber stamp background on it with VersaMark (a watermark stamp pad), and that seemed to do the trick. I put pop dots on the middle panel to give it a bit more oomph and the outside of the card was as done as it was getting. If I use a coloured card stock I tend to add something to the inside of the card to write on. In this case I used a white panel which I inked the edges with Distress Ink. A stamped and coloured image in the corner seemed to finish it off quite well.
Don’t ever worry if your cards don’t turn out quite like you had planned. You can always salvage parts of the card, or even just start again. It’s all part of the fun!
Happy stamping!
Happy Birthday
Materials used: Stamps – Forest Whimsy, Spring Groves, Party Posse (Paper Smooches); Scroll Tapestry 1992M (Penny Black); Distress Inks, Distress Markers, Cardstock (American Crafts) and Star Dust (Stickles).
Inside the Card:
Happy Birthday – Inside
Materials used: Stamps – Spring Groves (Paper Smooches); Staz-On Ink, Distress Markers, Cardstock (Knight Smooth).
