Cards without Coloring

Learning to color with Copic markers has taught me many lessons, one of which was to allow myself to “mess around” and enjoy the creative process as much as the fruits of my labor.   I now tend to start my cards with a mental curiosity about what I might discover as I create.  Yesterday’s  CAS (Clean and Simple) challenge on Splitcoast was the source of my latest muse.  CAS cards are not in my wheelhouse, so by their very nature are a challenge for me – yet I am drawn to many of them for their beautiful simplicity.  My first trouble is all of that white space!  My fingers itch to add something to it.  I skirt around the urge by using an embossing folder on the card front.  There’s something about adding texture that suits my eye.  

Finding this stamp from Papertrey Ink's Through the Trees set, reminded me of taking walks in the woods when there is a full moon, so I envisioned trees at night for my cards.  I started by stamping on three different colors of blue paper, wondering which of the three I’d like best.  Much to my surprise, I liked them all!  After experimenting a little more with my embossing folders, I made three different looking cards. 

This is the actual card I posted  for the CAS challenge.   I used white embossing powder on SU's Not Quite Navy paper.  Drawing a line down the left side of each tree with the same color marker gave depth to the image.  I got around the white space by using an embossing border folder and mounted the white card face onto a white card back.  White on white is another way I adapt all to of the white space of my CAS cards!

I really like how this card came out.  It's both clean and simple (especially for a girl who loves to color!).

This card used SU's Night of Navy paper and a Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder.  I finished it off with a little ribbon.

You will notice that each of these cards starts to have more on it.  Even though this still seems clean, the busy background makes the card less calm to my eye.  After putting on the punched sentiment, the card begged for more - hence the bow!

The image for the third card was stamped on a denim colored patterned paper that had small open circles on it.  The embossed trees made the circles fade into the background.  As I put this card together, it needed a square of color behind the image!  By this time, I've given on up staying CAS!  In fact this card started out with a navy blue background paper (using the same embossing folder as this card and a fancy die cut right side).  The blue background paper just didn't look right, so I went with off-white.  Not only is there a bow, but the bow has a snowflake on it!  I could have added more, but my friend Maura's voice was in my head saying, "Step away from the card!"  

Thanks for checking my blog today.  I' have a busy few days coming up, so won't be posting again until the weekend.  Hope you'll stop back and see me next week!