Be Happy

Starting in October, Becca Whitham will be designing for me here at StampinBuds.com.  Below is a post that went live on her blog today at becca-expressions.blogspot.com.  Becca is a friend as well as a former CTMH consultant.  We’ve bonded over our love of stamping and Starbucks.  I’m excited to share her art with you in the coming months.

~Shannon

This week for Color My Heart we are using a monochromatic color scheme with Honey, Sunset, and Barn Red.  I stole an idea from one of our CMH challenge participants a few weeks ago who posted this card and turned it into this:

One of the great things about being on a design team where people submit their projects is seeing all the various forms of creative expression.  Since we judge the submissions, it forces me to look at projects critically in the sense that I have to determine what I like, what don’t I like, and what would I do differently.  I loved Katrina’s card and wanted to CASE it (Copy And Steal Everything). My card has a more “Clean And Simple” feel than hers because CAS happens to be my “go to” style.  I condensed the size of my image by using a smaller tree, a smaller sentiment mounted over top of the tree, cutting the image panel square, and then mounting on white rather than colored cardstock.

I embossed the tree in clear over top of a white panel.  Starting at the bottom, I used a sponge dauber to add Barn Red, moved to the middle with Sunset (using the same dauber without cleaning in between), and then Honey at the top (again with the same dauber).  Lest you think I had some grand design scheme in mind by doing it this way, let me tell you the straight up truth: I had a dauber already inked in Barn Red for another project (which is coming to you in October) and didn’t want to clean it.  I then worked backwards by inking in Honey again working at the top, added Sunset to the Honey for the middle, and Barn Red to the Sunset on the bottom again.  The sentiment (from the September promotion “#30yearsofhappy”) was stamped in Honey, fussy cut, then edged with the sponge dauber with the residual Barn Red still on it.

Speaking of things coming in October, I’m thrilled to announce that I have joined forces with my drug stamp supplier as a design team member.  I’ve known Shannon Buck for probably ten years now.  She’s the consultant I chose after I stopped being a consultant myself.  My term with her begins October 1, so you’ll start seeing projects here and on her blog at www.stampinbuds.com soon.  However, since she supplied all the stamps for this card, I wanted to give her credit.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…my absolute favorite way to create is using the CASE method but putting my own twist on it like I did with this card.  However, before I had enough confidence to put my own twist on something, I straight CASE’d from catalogs and other stampers.  If you do CASE something and put it on your own blog, remember to follow the common curtesey rules of linking back to the inspiration piece and not submitting it for publication.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll come up with this week!

Until next time,

Becca