Aloha, all!
Welcome to Thursday and another try at remaking a card that I originally made in May 2009. So far in my hunt for older cards to remake, I’ve really liked the original design enough that I’ve created a new card with basically the same layout. Today my card is more of a CASE card – one that takes the idea of the card and remakes it with some kind of revision. Technically all my Throwback Thursday cards are CASEd cards as I’ve had to replace the stamps and papers from the old cards. But for this card, it’s only the basic concept that survives.
Do I Really Like This Old Card?
As I wrote this, I thought of the TV program that I think is called “This Old House.” I’m not sure if that’s even around any more. But on the program, the house retained its character, but just got some new fixtures and some cleaning up. For this card, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try to give it some new life. I almost skipped over it entirely. But, wait. Maybe it gave me an idea.
I originally made this card as a Get Well card for my bridge partner. I loved the Stampin’ Up! papers and stamp set that had card games on it. Perfect for bridge players! But as I look at the constructions, my first thought was, “What was I thinking?” I must have really wanted to use the ribbons and brads. But why – so many “why”s. Enough.
OK, I liked the idea of some paper in the background and some brads to match. Well, in today’s Stampin’ Up! world, enamel dots rather than brads. Maybe I could run with that idea.
Really Switching It Up
The first thing that I did was to find some printed papers with colors for which I had some matching brads. I just finished making a Christmas card, so that left me with the Stampin’ Up! 2020-2022 In Colors, as they are the only colors of enamel dots that I had in stock. Then there is the Flowers for Every Season Designer Series Paper set that has the same set of colors featured. A good start, and off I went to create this card.
Does the Design Work Better at Landscape?
To start the construction of the card, I needed to figure out what sentiment I was going to use and which die-cut elements I could use to carry the sentiment. I love the Thinking of You sentiment from the Seaside Notions Stamp Set. Once I got that figured out, dies from the Switched So Sweetly Die set were going to make a nice sentiment layer. But I thought it overwhelmed the card with a portrait orientation. That’s one of the things that was bothering me about the original card! So I turned the card on its side and made it landscape. That worked beautifully.
Off to Select the Papers
There are SO MANY paper designs in the Designer Series Paper set I’d chosen. I flipped through the set at least 4 or 5 times before I realized that I’d do well to keep the paper I chose to a design with 3 colors at the most. Once I made that decision, the print with the Just Jade and the Cinnamon Cider leaf sprigs reached out and grabbed me. After that, the rest was almost a piece of cake. I chose another design from the paper set to serve as the mat for my sentiment layer as well as for the enamel dots element.
The Enamel Dot Element
For this element I also used die from the Stitched So Sweetly set. Yes, there are rectangles in that set! I alternated Cinnamon Cider and Just Jade dots from the 2020-2022 In Color Enamel Dots set. Five of those dots fit beautifully onto the smaller rectangle. With the Just Jade printed mat, this element looks so much better lying horizontally than it would lying vertically on this card. It’s a really nice complement to the rectangle design in the middle of the larger of the dies in the sentiment element.
What About Ribbon?
Then I went after some ribbon. Yes, there is some Just Jade 1/4″ ribbon in my stash. But now 1/4″ seemed just a bit too small for that large sentiment element. That was something else that bothered me about the original. So I scratched the ribbon idea. Maybe I could find something wide to lay behind the sentiment. There was wide ribbon on the original card. But there is no wide ribbon wide enough in the current Stampin’ Up! Catalog. So why not use another piece of paper? I tried the Cinnamon Cider paper with the grid pattern, but it wasn’t quite right. Aha, there was a set of papers in all the In Colors in my stash. The woodgrained pattern in the paper I used is a really nice complement to the designs in the background paper.
So, no ribbon.
The Bottom Line
I could just as easily have made a card with the original design today. Do you ever finish a card, look at it, and just can’t seem really to like it? The card itself is probably good enough to send out. My friend said she loved my card. But if that card nags at you, stand back and see if you can identify what parts about it bother you. If you can, I’ll bet you can figure out how to change the offending part, or even the whole card, to make something that you like a lot better. Try it!
Happy Stamping!
