Aloha, all!
This is the last Tuesday in October 2020, a month in which I promised my Tuesday’s Tips blog posts would focus on some basics of creating layers in cards. So far what I’ve shown you has had to do with layers that are rectangles. Granted they’ve been of lots of different sizes, but they’ve had 4 straight sides. Those are the easiest layers for which you can make mats easily using your paper trimmer. Today, however, I’ll show you how other shapes can also make layers.
I Was Searching for a Throwback Thursday Sample…
…when I came across this card.
While I’m sure this would have been fun for Throwback Thursday, it also looked like triangle-shaped layers. And layers is a Tuesday thing this month. I thought it would be especially fun for layers this fall as we have in Stampin’ Up!’s annual catalog a set of dies that cuts a lot of different sizes and shapes of triangles. The name of the set, appropriately enough, is Stitched Triangles.
CASEing My Own Card
Usually when I find a card for Throwback Thursday, I try to do my best to copy something other than the layout of the card. But, again, this is Tuesday. So I can do whatever I want, which is exactly what I did.
No cute birds, no primary colors. And, heck, as long as I have my Cut and Emboss Machine out, I might as well try out those fun Stitched Leaves Dies as well as the triangles.
The shape of the triangle in the original card is more of an Isosceles Triangle that the Equilateral Triangle that I used in today’s card. But the triangle I used was the right size to fill the front of the card.
Choosing the Colors
My first thought was a Christmas Card. But I spent the entire last weekend making Christmas cards. I made 46 of them using kits I had on hand (more about those on Saturday). And I am so finished with Halloween (all the cards went into the mail this morning). How about just Autumn? Well, no autumn sentiment called out to me for this one. But the Autumn colors worked wonderfully for what I had in mind.
The background layer is one of the prints from the Gilded Autumn Specialty Designer Series Paper. I’d wanted some fall leaf colors for the triangles, and that Crumb Cake-colored print was the perfect background for those. The triangle colors are Early Espresso, Cajun Craze and Mossy Meadow.
The ribbon accent could have been the Mossy Meadow striped ribbon I used in another recent project. But I did have the Copper Metallic Ribbon from the Gilded Autumn Suite Ribbon Combo Pack, which was smaller (just 1/8″). I felt that would work nicely for the card front I had in mind. It surely did tie those two little leaves in the lower left corner a lot better than the 1/2″ Mossy Meadow Ribbon!
And the Sentiment
I had the Love of Leaves Stamp Set out on my desk (I keep my dies and coordinating stamp sets in the same folder). So I decided to choose a sentiment from that set. With the sentiment I chose, I can send that card out just about any time this fall. I don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving, which is where all my other Autumn-themed cards are headed right now.
The Bottom Line
Two thoughts for today. The first is that any shape can be a layer. Stampin’ Up! makes it easy with its “Layering” die sets as well as several of its “Stitched” sets. Rectangles and squares are in that group, and they’re very useful. But I find it easier just to layer my own of those shapes. But try layering with the others. It’s a lot of fun!
The other thought is that autumn colors, including the Gilded Autumn Specialty Paper, aren’t just for fall, and they’re not just for Halloween and Thanksgiving. They’re pretty colors, and make nice cards for any occasion!
Whatever occasion is tempting you to make cards this week, I hope you have a blast with what every you use!
Happy Stamping!
