Ink to Paper Design Team Tips {Three Cheers for the Red, White,and Blue}

Hello and welcome to this week's Ink to Paper Design Team Tips! I hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July yesterday! I wasn't quite ready for the party to be over, so today I am sharing a few tips on creating cards using Red, White, and Blue on your patriotic or non-patriotic designs! I don't send 4th of July cards but that doesn't mean I don't want to participate in this festive time of year!

I thought that this sentiment from the new It's a Sign: Beautiful stamp set is perfect for this time of year!  I ended up by making two cards, which use the same design elements, but different color bases and flower layout.  I did die cut and stamp equal numbers for each card.  To begin, I die cut the frames using the It's a Sign: Beautiful die collection and then stamped them using Cocoa Bean ink. I set those aside and got to work on the sentiment portion. 

I used to work in fashion which required me to do a lot of merchandising. I got a chance to work with the reps from many of the different companies like Ralph Lauren, Nautica, Calvin Klein, etc. Anyway, one of the tips that I learned for fashion merchandising was to always put the color Red in the middle. So...when laying out the sentiment colors, I chose to stamp the "smarter" in Pure Poppy ink . 

Red is obviously the brightest and boldest in this design, so I used it in smaller quantities so that it didn't overpower the card. I used it on the largest blooms to pack a bunch without being "too much"!

The other flowers are stamped in Blueberry Sky ink, and Spring Rain ink to keep the design light and fresh! The leaves are stamped in Simply Chartreuse ink,which is one of my favorite greens! For this lighter card, I used a Spring Rain cardstock panel that has been die cut  using the Nesting Basics Pierced Rectangles die collection to give it a nice detailed edge. I did the same thing on the Blueberry Sky cardstock panel as well.

For the lighter card, I arranged the flowers in the top right and bottom left corners, and on the darker card, I switched it! The two red flowers draw your eye towards the red center as well.  I tucked the leaves here and there and added some White Nuvo drops here and there for added dimension. I'm really liking the centers of these particular flowers left white, but by adding the White Nuvo drops,it makes it feel more intentional and special! I hope that you get a chance to put together some Red, White, and Blue cards this month! Thanks for fluttering by!