OLS8 - Details

Welcome to the Details Post for OLS#8. As we do each month, a few design team members will call out selected details from entries for the month as particularly effective design elements. One-layer cards have little room for embellishment or dressing up, and it's often amazing how a simple little detail will elevate a CAS card to something amazing!

Thank you all for participating in the August One-Layer Simplicity Challenge: Shades of Summer! What a great collection of cards we got, and it has been so difficult to pick just three whose details elevate their designs especially well.

Susan's Details

Kimberly used fabulous, summery colors from the #5 inspiration photo, but what I really love is the use of a bold, black sentiment and subtle half pearls.

 

Shirley used a gorgeous no-line watercolor technique to achieve the effect of a hand-painted rather than stamped-and-painted butterfly using the colors from the #5 inspiration photo.

 

Jasleen exploited the blue and orange combination from the #3 photo. Her one-corner, fade background is simply stunning.

Ardyth's Details

Sherrie's use of background stamps to make a sunny beach scene is inspired!

Julia's beautifully blended and framed card evokes summer perfectly!

Chris's use of line images leaves this CAS card feeling very light and airy!

 

 

 

 

Karen's Details

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Katherine's card caught my eye with it's fun lineup of glasses and the paint splatters. 

 

 

Sandra's card had such a tranquil, calm beauty to it done in the colours of Fall.

 

 

 Sue T's card really makes such a pretty statement with its banner greeting and the cascading flowers.


Cheryl's Details



Maura used such bright happy colors for her card.  I love how she masked and stamped on her balloons for added interest.




Lynn's soft outline around her images caught my eye.  The perfect masculine card.




Darnell's technique (colored stamp with markers, then lightly misted with water) resulted in a beautiful watercolor effect, with a soft subtle feel.




Thank you all so much for participating in the August challenge. Now, get ready for Ardyth's September challenge!!!  

One-Layer Simplicity Challenge #8: Shades of Summer

Our August OLS#8 Challenge is to be inspired by summer's wonderful colors! Those of us in the northern hemisphere are enjoying summer, and those of us in the southern hemisphere can dream about summer.

There are lots of fabulous options for this challenge, so remember that you have 24 days to play and are free to enter as many times as you wish. The challenge closes on August 24th.

For this challenge, pick one of the following color combinations and make a card celebrating this warm and fruitful season:

Shades of Summer #1

Shades of Summer #2

Shades of Summer #3

Shades of Summer #4

Shades of Summer #5

Shades of Summer #6

Aren't all those photos and colors beautiful?!!! If you've never spent time on the Design Seeds website, you might want to visit. AMAZING inspiration there, and all our inspiration photos this month come from it.

Tips for tackling this challenge:

1. Don't feel like you have to use ALL the colors in a combination...just 2 or 3 are fine, if you're keeping it really simple. Or use them all. It's really up to you.

2. If you don't have an exact shade of ink to match, don't sweat. Get as close as you can to the suggested colors, as I have done below.

3. Remember that you can off-stamp if you have a dark shade and need a lighter one. If you've never off-stamped, here's how: ink the stamp fully, stamp it on a piece of scrap paper, huff your moist breath on the stamp, then stamp it on your card. Test with the ink you're using on scraps first because some inks off-stamp better than others.

4. Keep your cards themed summery (floral, beach, ocean, picnic, summer sports, fruit, garden, etc.).

Using Shades of Summer #5

My first card uses a simple little flower from Hero Arts in a grid and a tiny sentiment from Clear and Simple Stamps. Of course there is bling to make things sparkle!

Using Shades of Summer #3

My second card makes the oranges of the inspiration photo dominant with a tropical ocean reef theme. Note that Shades of Summer #3 actually has more blues...but I changed the emphasis. Feel free to do the same.

Rules for OLS#8

1. A one-layer card is defined as a single layer of card stock folded in half. No other layers allowed.

2. Make a card inspired by summer using colors from one of the 6 Shades of Summer options above. Remember to keep embellishments to a minimum.

3. Post your card somewhere online and say which Shades of Summer option you used. Then, link to it using the InLinkz button below. If you link to your blog, please be sure that you link to the specific post and NOT your blog's main page.

4. HAVE FUN!!!

An InLinkz Link-up