Monday, June 14, 2010

Going Round In Circles (aka Light Bulbs and Brick Walls)

Again, this is NOT a reflection of my disposition...although SOME may argue the point!!

The title refers to my most recent effort for one of our young neighbours who turned 7. He is the most beautiful little boy who has a developmental disability. He gives you so much every time you see him. He loves everything bold and bright as well as being heavily into anything to do with animals.

Once again....I strapped on my thinking cap. I knew that I wanted to use my very neglected Wild About You set (which covered the animal quota), but the bold and bright.....I hit a brick wall.

So.....I went blurfing for inspiration and came across something that the delightful Christie Wallace said. Although the whole of the quote pertained to SU product, the part that stuck with me was "Sometimes when you lack a bit of inspiration you only need to look at the papers and colour combinations"........So I did. I rummaged through my ever increasing stash of papers and found a bright bold circular pattern and then the light bulbs started to go off....so thank you Christie!!

So now I had my paper, my stamp set and I managed to match most of the colours with inks that I had. All was going sweetly. The idea of concentric bright circles and the animals in the middle then.........BRICK WALL!!!! After having thought I had nearly every size of circle punch from 1/16"-2"...the only one I did NOT posses was a 1 3/4" circle...AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So...another light bulb...my dear father gave me a primitive (but as it turned out exceptionally useful) circle cutter for my birthday last year that I had not used. It's like the old geometry compasses but it has a blade where the pencil would usually would have been. So then I measured out a 1/2 of a 1 3/4" circle and HUZZAH!! Blade did not quite go through the CS, but it was enough that I could cut it out.

Anyhow...this is the result...


As I did not do the best job of cutting out the large circles, I decided to distress them with the cutter kit. The "7" is from a Gel-a-tins set that I got sometime ago too, but just had not gotten out. I popped up all the circles on dimensionals...which you can (sort of) see here.













The best part of course was that Jayme LOVED his card and the fantastic smile I got was worth all the ups and downs of putting the card together.

Thanks so much for sticking to the end of this arduous tale.


Stuff used:
CS: Optix Turquoise and Yellow CS, SU Riding Hood Red and Whisper White.
Ink: (SU) Riding Hood Red, Tempting Turquoise and Summer Sun Stamp and Write Markers, VersaColour #14 - Scarlet
Stamps: (SU) Wild About You, Whimsical Words and Gel-a-tins "Build-A-Set" Numbers
Punches: CM 1 1/2 and 1 1/4" Circle Punch, Franchenville Circle Cutter and Compass
Paper: G.C.D Studios Designer Paper (#710) "Jumbo Dots" - Lost In Paradise Collection

Lynda xx

6 comments:

Unknown said...

A lovely bright card lynda,i love it. TFS

Kerry Parkinson said...

Excellent card, perfect for a boy so no wonder it was well received! Great tale too ... maybe SU's 1 3/4 in punch might be on the wish list soon!!! After the bird punch of course, LOL!

Richelle said...

Great card and a fab idea especially for a boys card!!

Debbie Pamment said...

AWESOME job Lynda - and a distressing tool certainly has it's uses - LOL. Love the bright colours and layout - you certainly were inspired
xXx

Patrice said...

The end result was worth all the drama believe me, it's a terrific card for a 7 yo - bright, with animals, just gorgeous! Perfect idea to distress 'rough' circle edges, I will remember that lol.

Andrea L - EnchantINK said...

I can tell a lot of love, time & effort went into this card! LOL! Laughed at your circle comment on my blog. You have just gotta get that 1 3/4" circle punch, girl!!! And ... the idea about using your paper as a starting point ... is always a winner! Hugs Andrea xx