Cardstock Confessions

So I learned something new about my scrapping today. It's today's cardstock confession. Here it is... Idon'tthinkI'magoodcardmaker. There! I said it!

I struggled so long with my mom's mother's day card today. Literally hours! And it was just one little card. I don't know if it's the small space, or not having a photo, or what? But I realized that I'm hardly ever satisfied with the cards that I make. So I went hunting around for inspiration and some basic elements I could apply to my card making.

Now around the interweb, when one thinks of making cards, Kristina Werner instantly comes to mind. She's a graphic designer, a 2Ps Garden Girl and the host of the weekly Finally Friday & Make a Card Monday video series. Every Monday & Friday she makes a card to share via a neat little video on her blog. What better place for inspiration than Kristina, right?

So I came across some older cards she made using the Basic Grey June Bug line. She created three cards highlighting some truly great product. But what appealed to me the most, were the basic feel to the cards. These are my scraplifted versions of her beautiful cards.

I too wanted to highlight some of my own favorite products so here's my plug for them :) Beyond the basic cardstock card, I really only used 3 products and some scraps. A gorgeous sheet of double sided printed cardstock by The Girls' Paperie, it's called Travel Skirt (btw, how adorable is that?!) Seriously, this is the single greatest piece of paper that I've come across recently. Not only does it have a multi colored circle/diamond pattern on the one side, it has a fun red polka dot on the other. It had me at red polka dot!

I also wanted to showcase some of those letter stickers I'm addicted to! The first set, is a black printed chipboard Thicker by American Crafts. You really don't want to know how many sets of Thickers I have!! [......51 bah!! I don't even want to think of how much $$ that is retail!] But I use them ALL of the time. Just checked, I've tagged Thickers 41 times on this blog. I'm pretty sure it's the most used "product" in my repertoire. It's a super quick way to add dimension to your page or project.

The second set, is a smaller sticker in a really great font, the yellow Origins Micro Mono letters by Basic Grey. Now I know yellow letter stickers can seem very themey, but I've already used these so many times on so many projects; a few pages about Urijah (one with a lot of journaling), a travel page, and also these cards. And I'm only just now beginning to run out of certain letters. If you're looking for a good alpha in a versatile font that's small enough for journaling and large enough (if you need it to be) for title work, than the micro letters by Basic Grey are the way to go. I now own these in white, manilla, black and red!

So after poking around Kristina's site for awhile, and then scraplifting her cards, I wanted to share just a few of the basic elements she used to create them and essentially what I learned about her style of making cards. Now this is just from my observation, I haven't asked her about this or anything. And this also isn't by any means a comprehensive list! Just a few things I've noted.

1. Layering: the girl loves layering and boy is she good at it! It adds real dimension to her cards, especially when she "pop dots" between the layers. And because she layered her latest MACM card, she was able to thread a ribbon in and around. How cute is that?!
2. Rounded corners: if all else fails, round the corner. I think it adds a nice touch to projects and gives them a more finished look. Seems like Kristina agrees with me :)
3. Pens: faux stitching is everywhere on her cards. I love the look and homemade feeling it conjures up! And it's done simply with a white pen. Not only does she "stitch" a fair amount she also peppers in her handwriting for writing sentiments or adding a filler word here and there. If you haven't already, invest in a white pen.

So that is what I learned about cards, this day that I've admitted to not being good at card making, And now that I've gone all Julie and Julia on her, I think I might drop Kristina an e-mail. You know, now that we're on a first name basis after all ;)

Oh and I feel the need to mention this from time to time, but anything bolded and in a different color (usually red) is a link. So please click through to visit Kristina's site, the cards that I scraplifted or to purchase the awesome supplies I just mentioned.

The easy parts done. I made the cards and typed up the blog post. Now to figure what's getting sent to whom...

xxbesos

j.leija