A Simple Card

   

    Today I decided to do a "simple" quick little card.  I knew I wanted it all in the same color and I wanted to use repeat stamping with a border stamp.  My little project turned into hours of work though.
     It took several minutes to decide on a color.  I was making a simple card that could turn into any type of card at the last minute.  Normally I have "blank" cards in my stock of ready to use cards but those need greetings added at the last minute.  I wanted a card with a simple greeting where if I was really pressed for time, I could just hand write a message inside because there was already a simple message on the front of the card, but I wanted to have room inside to stamp an additional greeting if I decided to.
     I had already selected the "for you" sentiment but since I didn't have anyone specific in mind I didn't know if I would be using it for a woman or a man.  I didn't want to use brown for guys or pink for girls so I was looking at reds, greens, purples and blues.  Purple was too feminine and I only had dark blues (masculine) or pastel blues (feminine) so  I narrowed it down to red or green.  I felt red was a little too stark on white without layers or patterns to tone it down so I went with the darker green.  (My lime green seemed too juvenile.)
     I tried several different border stamps and didn't like the results.  When I tried this border stamp from the Simon Says Stamp Artful Borders set (which does not appear to be for sale anymore), I knew I was on to something.  I lined it up in my MISTI tool so I could keep the border stamp in the same place and move my card front up or down on the grid-lines of the graph paper I was using to keep everything lined up properly.
     If I had stamped directly on the card base I would have saved quite a bit of time but I was concerned that I would mess up the expensive card stock that I use for my bases.  I ended up using my layering weight card stock to repeatedly stamp my border and the sentiment from Hampton Arts KI Memories Greetings (another set that might be difficult to find), then I took 1/4 inch off the top and 1/4 inch off one side of the stamped image.  After that I rounded the corners of the card base as well as the card front, adhered the stamped image to the card base, added embellishments from the Dollar Tree, stamped the back of the card with my "Handmade in Michigan" stamp from Endless Creations (which I just love), and admired my work.  I left the inside blank.
     It came out pretty nice and although it took quite a bit of time to meticulously line up my stamped image for repeat stamping, I felt it was worth making multiple cards while I had everything out.  Clean and simple and One Layer cards are my favorite look and this one seems to fit into both categories.  Hopefully the card front layer doesn't count against me in the One Layer Card category.