Saturday, January 29, 2011

Gray, blue and purple?

I came accross this colour combination at Color Lab and it's one I would never have thought of using of my own accord.

The challenge was to use Bashful Blue, Perfect Plum and Basic Grey.  Now, I've had three sheets of Perfect Plum since May last year and have never used them as purple just isn't really my colour, so today it finally got to see the light of day!  I actually made two cards with it, the second one I will show you tomorrow.  The other colour I've never had a chance to use before is Basic Grey so am pleased I got a chance to try it today.

I really like the stamp set I used, Loads of Love, I used it to make some Christmas cards last year, and my daughter has taken ownership of a Valentines card I made with this set as well, now it's time to make a masculine card with it.

I also love my new Sizzlits die as I'll never run out of co-ordinating "buttons" thanks to it!

I took a series of photos as I made this card to show you how I did the checkerboard background (please excuse the rather well loved aka 'grotty' green cutting mat, after all I've had it for about 25 years..!) - here they are:

 I cut six each Bashful Blue and Basic Grey 1 1/4" squares.
 I placed them in the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder in the order they would be glued onto the base card, I was hoping to achieve a continuous pattern by doing this.
 Here they are after embossing.
 Glueing them down on the Bashful Blue base card, start with the four corners, them fill in the edges and finally the middle two.
 Here is the finalized checkerboard pattern.
 Cutting my 'button's with the Sizzlits die in Perfect Plum.  The black slivers are offcuts from other projects which I kept expressly to thread through the buttons to simulate thread.
First I coloured the pickup truck using watercolour pencils and the truck ended looking rather pink.  I slept on it and this morning I had another go at it and here is the result of my "adjustments":

 I stamped the truck image on a scrap of Perfect Plum card and with some fussy cutting I ended up with a Perfect Plum truck!  Much better I think.



What I used:

Card:  Bashful Blue, Basic Grey, Perfect Plum, watercolour paper.

Ink:  Basic Black

Stamp Sets:  Loads of Love, Teeny Tiny Sentiments

Tools and other fun stuff:  Buttons #5 Sizzlits die, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, corner rounder punch, Stampa-ma-jig, Stampin' Dimensionals, acquabrush.

5 comments:

  1. Fabulous Frances. Definitely an improvement the second time round.

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  2. I love how you did the embossed background! Great job with the watercolor/pieced truck!
    Wonderful job with the colors. Isn't it fun to try different combinations!

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  3. Great card! Love the background!! Thanks for playing along at the ColorLab this week :)

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  4. Frances,this rocks! I have this stamp set, and it has never looked as good as this. I love how you have included the 'process', your thoughts as you went along. Kind of cool to see it all evolve.

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  5. I love the background! Thanks for showing the how-to! So glad you joined us at the ColorLab Challenge this week!

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