Black, White and Silver Card for the Scrappy-Go-Lucky Blog Hop

This is the card I made for the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog hop.  We were given a theme (which you have to guess for the blog hop prizes) and a color scheme of black, white and silver.  You can get all of the details about the hop and the four great prizes (Country Life, Happy Hauntings, Rock Princess and Winter Frolic) at THIS POST on the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog.

My card is a plain white card with a strip of black cardstock anchoring the design elements.  The card was to be 4 x 6 inches (instead of the usual A2 4.25 x 5.5 inches) since Mandy plans to use these cards in a photo frame in the guest room of her home in Australia.  The black anchoring strip is 2.5 x 6 inches.

As always, I used Design Studio to plan my card and also to cut the components efficiently and make the best use of my specialty papers.  I first previewed the card as a black card with a white strip but I did not like that variation and quickly changed to the white card with a black strip.

Once again, the ability to preview in color is a great benefit in using Design Studio.  By choosing the colors for each element you can get a pretty good idea of how certain colors will work and avoid wasting paper that would be used by cutting out lots of different "audition" versions.

I cut the black strips for the cards with my paper trimmer - if you have trouble cutting straight shapes with a trimmer you could cut these rectangles at 2.5 x 6 inches with the Cricut.  To place the pieces on the card front evenly I used a clear lay out ruler (available quite inexpensively at any art supply store) and aligned the ruler at 3/4 inches along the top and placed my paper strip along the base of the ruler.

I used this branch from the Pagoda cartridge and set the size at 1 7/8 inches to fit my card nicely.

By using Design Studio, I could rotate the branches to fit more on a smaller amount of paper than I would need if I cut the branches directly from the machine.  I cut ten branches so I had an extra (I only needed to make nine cards for the swap).

The flower layers for the branches are on the shift of the branch key.  Whenever you cut layers you need to be sure to set the same value on the slider bar - this will insure that they will fit perfectly.

Once again, using Design Studio to lay out the cuts, I was able to cut all of the flowers I needed using the smallest amount of cardstock possible.

The dragonflies are also from the Pagoda cartridge sized at 2 1/4 inches.  I chose to use the dragonflies with no added layers.

Since I wasn't adding the layers, I checked weld on each group of butterflies to eliminate the interior cut lines (webbing) that help with the placement of the layers.

I moved the dragonfly pairs close together to maximize the use of my specialty cardstock.  12 sets fit conveniently on the mat so I cut a couple of extras that I will use on another project.

I cut the branches from some silver cardstock I got a long time ago from Creative Memories.  This was one of my favorite metallic papers because it had a beautiful soft shine.  I have a little bit of it that I "hoard" and use only for special cards.  I have found that the best way to get clean cuts on intricate shapes like these branches is to use multi cut 2 when I cut the mat full of shapes.  In Design Studio, multi cut is set by choosing it from the Preferences drop down menu and then selecting 2, 3 or 4 times.

Here you can see how easily I was able to lift the excess cardstock from the mat.  You do need to be careful in lifting the thin branches from the mat.

I also used multi cut 2 for the flowers.  Nearly all of them stayed on the mat when I lifted the excess cardstock.  It is important to check the offcut carefully and replace any of the flowers back into position on the mat so you will be able to add them to the branch.

The flowers and the dragonflies were cut from some American Crafts linen textured silver cardstock.  In this close view you can see the difference in texture and shine between the branch and the flowers.

I left the flower layers on the mat and flipped the sheet of cardstock to the other side of the mat to cut the dragonflies.  I then had all of my small items available on the mat and could remove them as I assembled the cards.

The easiest way to adhere the flower layers to the branch is to add a spot of adhesive to each flower position.  I use the Creative Memories Precision Point Adhesive for these tiny details.

When the adhesive has dried to clear, I picked off the tiny pieces and placed them in the appropriate spots.  The cut is designed so that the pieces fit on the branch in approximately left to right order.  Keeping the pieces on the mat makes it much easier to get them in the right places!

Here are my nine cards all assembled just before I sent them off to Australia for swapping.

Now - do you have any ideas about the theme Mandy gave us for the swap?

There are nine designers involved in the blog hop and each day one designer will show you the card they created in detail.  We were given a color scheme (black, white and silver) and a theme.  You will need to look at all of the cards and try to work out the theme. 

Four lucky winners will be drawn on Wednesday, August 18th - one for each cartridge.  Remember, Scrappy-Go-Lucky is in Australia so you will need to convert the time from Perth time.  My day is Wednesday - but that means I needed to post this on Tuesday night in my time zone.

To play along with the blog hop and have a chance at winning one of the new cartridges be sure to visit all of the designer's blogs and add a comment to Mandy's Original Post on the Scrappy-Go-Lucky blog telling her what you think the theme is and also list your all-time favorite cartridge and why it is your favorite.

The links for all of the designers are listed in my post from yesterday - here is a LINK.

If you would like to use my file to make a group of cards (or just get a closer look at how I put the file together) you can download it at this link.

Black, White and Silver Card for SGL


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