Sunday, August 16, 2009

Clean and Simple

I've been trying do some clean and simple style cards. It's very hard for me. I LOVE the look of clean and simple and I love to see what others are doing with them but for some reason I have a very difficult time accomplishing it myself.
But I do like this one. The base is Marco's watercolor cardstock. That makes all the difference in my book. I am just not happy with the weight of regular cardstock for these kinds of minimal cards. Watercolor paper is substantial enough to use for this and it has a beautiful texture.

The colored ink blocks on this card are done simply by "stamping" a Kalidacolor rainbow ink pad onto the watercolor paper. Just leave the colors separated- don't slide them together. For this card I used the color Autumn Leaves. The little tab that slides the ink colors together is too tall to "stamp" the ink pad but you can easily remedy that by doing it on the edge of your stamping table.
After trimming the cardstock around the ink blocks, I stamped the leaf stamp from the SU set called All Natural in black.

I finished the card by tying grosgrain ribbon around the front of it. A tip for easily tying ribbon that will stay in place is to punch a hole in the card where you want your knot or bow. Now wrap the ribbon around the front of the card so both ends go around the back and then thread the ends up through the hole so they are coming through the front of the card. Make each end come up on opposite sides of the ribbon that laying across the front of the card and then tie a knot or a bow. I hope that make sense... I've been looking for a tutorial online to show you how it's done but I can't find one at the moment.

Hope you had a great weekend!

3 comments:

Jackie said...

What a great idea - I love that card! That Kaleidacolor stamp pad is one of my favorites, too, and I will be giving this a try very soon.

Anonymous said...

What a clever idea, using kaleidacolor pads like that! I have several, love them! Love your blog too!
Melody (GW)

Mary O.K. said...

Hi, Tara!

Isn't that "One Hole Bow" the best little invention ever??

I know I've seen a beautiful photo tutorial on it, but can't find the exact one I like. Here's a pretty good one, as a second choice, though:

http://tinyurl.com/ndsqqv

The other way I've had it described to me is quite different, but very effective. I ought to do a photo tutorial with this one, as I don't think I've ever seen one, just heard the description:
1. Punch single hole in cardstock.

2. Place a length of ribbon on front of CS, just below the hole. Be sure the length of the ribbon is a least twice the width of the CS, PLUS several additional inches (depends on whether you want just a plain know or an actual bow tied). Cutting the ribbon ends at a slant, leaving pointy tips, makes threading the ribbon through the hole easier later on!

3. Slide the ribbon up, over the hole.

4. Wrap the ends the ribbon length over to the edges, one toward the LEFT and the other toward the RIGHT, and around the back of the CS.

5. One at a time, push the ends of the wrapped ribbon length from the BACK of the CS to the FRONT, up through the same single hole you made. These ends, or tails, will be held apart by the ribbon running across the front of the card.

6. To keep things consistent, always have the RIGHT end/tail push up through the TOP of the hole, above the front ribbon, and the LEFT end push up through at the BOTTOM of the hole.

7. Tie a knot or bow using the two ends/tails, making sure you keep the front length of the ribbon centered between them.

WHEW! Such a simple thing sure comes out sounding complicated!


Best Wishes,
Mary
("Mary in PA" on GW)