AECP 2 - Colour My Day

Hello Crafty Peeps, lovely to see you again. 

Today I''m on the AECP trail, with my submission for the class 'Color My Day', led by the very talented Therese Calvird, one of my favourite cardmakers. In this class Therese demonstrates how to choose and combine colours to give some interest to your cards and I have chosen to base my submission on lesson 2, 'Color Wheel'. 

I love colour and am not shy about using bold, bright and even clashing colours together on a card. But sometimes it pays to refresh some colour theory and so a colour wheel really comes in useful. They are readily available at most artist's supplies shops, but I bought mine from Amazon (link below). I particularly like the one I have as it is annotated with full instructions about using it, so there's no need for separate notes.

For my card, I wanted to use analogous colours, which are colours adjacent to each other on the wheel. I turned the wheel so that the arrow pointed to blue-green and chose yellow-green as my second colour.  This has to be one of my favourite combinations and one that I use often in my cardmaking. 

Here is the card I came up with, bold and bright and gender neutral. I used Altenew's Modern Circles stencil, which I inked with Cracked Pistachio and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks, on a 15cm (6") square of Nina Classic Crest Solar White 110lb paper. The resulting pattern is very simple but very effective. To complement it, I cut a circle from the square and then used two circle nesting dies to cut a frame for the opening. 

I lined up the square over the top of a 15cm square card base and drew a faint pencil line on the inside of the circle. Having removed the square I then lightly drew a freehand circle about 0.5cm (1/4") outside the one I had marked and then erased the inner line. I used Altenew Limeade ink to colour the card blank inside the pencilled line, swiping the cube straight to the cardstock.

I cut some fun foam to just smaller than a 15cm square and marked the position of the circle, which I cut away. I used the fun foam to give dimension when mounting the square onto the card base.

Using  Altenew's Leaf Canopy die set, I cut two sprigs of leaves from two shades of blue/blue-green mirror card and mounted these on the left of the circle, allowing them to overhang a little to cast a shadow on the background.

The sentiment is from Woodware's One Liners stamp set - a label style stamp set - which I stamped with black ink on white cardstock and added across the aperture. 

Rather than add sequins or gems, I used some Key Lime Nuvo Jewel Drops to add a little extra shine. To finish, I made a matching envelope and scored the flap for a little texture. 

My next AECP post will also deal with colour, its effect on mood and how that can be used to advantage in your cardmaking - it's fascinating.

 Until next time, keep crafting.

Supplies:

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