Coloration

One of the things that fascinates me most about paper crafting (and crafting, in general) is choosing colors for a project. I swear I can literally spend hours flipping through reams of cardstock, paper stacks, mat stacks and decorative papers browsing and matching, placing swatches and pages side-by-side, changing my mind again and again. I guess in the end--and something I find true of many crafters--we are all paper addicts. Can you really ever have enough paper? I, myself, am trying to debunk this myth apparently. I would never admit this in public, but I think when you have so much paper you actually have to pack some of it away, there might be a problem. But, then again, I tell my therapist it's just my back-up plan.

This card began with a scrap piece of paper left over from a card project from a few days ago (the chandelier card). It was a strip of lovely cardstock from the new Die Cuts With A View stack called "Downtown Loft" that is an exclusive to JoAnn's. It was a green tiled cardstock that had squares of high-gloss interspersed throughout. Since it wasn't large enough to actually use as a card base or mat, I decided to take one of my Martha Stewart punches ("Oak Leaf") down from the rack and punch out as many pieces as I could from the scrap.

As I started playing with my punched-out pieces, I soon was fascinated with a wreath-like shape. I punched out a 1 3/8" circle of white cardstock and and 1 3/8" circle of decorative paper from scraps. Using a Zig 2-way adhesive pen, I attached each leaf stem to the back of the white cardstock circle. Once it was complete, I adhered the decorative paper circle to the white circle. Then I stared at it for a while and decided it "needed" a bit more __________? I ended up piercing a hole through the center and using a Stampin' Up! Corduroy Button in Kiwi Kiss. (Are we sensing a green theme?)

Next, I went looking for papers to mount my creation on. After much thought, I ended up choosing Stardream Fuse Mica cardstock in Fairway for my A2 card base. The card mat is from the DCWV "Taj Mahal" mat stack. After everything was adhered together, I was struck by the fact that an Indian influenced design worked so well with the seemingly incongruent wreath design. One might even daresay it's rather "Christmas-y" in it's overall look. Yet, it could serve as a general everyday notecard.

Sometimes it is a game of trial and error. But, that's not really the right term. For in my opinion, there are no errors...just ideas that don't quite workout like you thought they might. Expressing your creativity and experimenting is a very large part of the entire crafting process.

Keep coloring your world....and as always, crafting...