10pm EST: "Recipe remix"

Earlier in the week, Papertrey Ink customers posted projects they have created in the past that they felt needed just a *little* something. Each design team member will select a project to remix to and re-make the project, making changes that they feel benefit the project. We'll discuss what design "rules" we used or why we made the changes we did. 

Here is the card I chose to remix... #27 by Kim Heggins.

The reason I chose this card to work with is because I love, love the products she chose to put together! The Sweet Life flowers are one of my favorites, combined with the Bountiful Banners and the Mat Stack 6 dies, she did a really nice job combining these products! And the colors too - really, really pretty color combo. Love it!

So, I took out my dies and stamps...all of the same dies and stamps she used on her card. I was already inspired! I went to work and this is what I came up with:

I decided first that I wanted my flowers and leaves to be the focal point of the card. I really wanted them to stand out from the background. So I changed the leaves to green, that was my first step...stamping three of the large leaves in New Leaf ink and Ripe Avocado ink for the leaves' centers. 

Next, I changed the color of the flowers to Harvest Gold ink and accented them with Canyon Clay ink. I love the yellow and orange with the darker green! The darker leaves with the lighter flowers adds a lot of contrast to the card. Contrast adds more interest to the eye. 

I decided to do two flowers instead of three, and make one flower smaller and one larger. Again to add more interest. If they are not all the same size, shape and color, it's a little more pleasing and exciting to the eye. Adding different heights and shapes helps the design become more exciting! Then placing the leaves in a triangle brings your eye around the pretty focal point.

Another thing I wanted to try a little differently is change the position of the card to vertical instead of horizontal. The reason for this is because the frame is very horizontal. To break up the horizontal lines and add another interesting detail, I wanted to create a vertical line also. Making the card base vertical helps break up those horizontal lines. (Here's a quick tip: this is how I score my cards for folding - with my paper trimmer and scoring tool.) 

I changed the frame to Soft Stone cardstock (gray). I thought we needed one more color that went with green, yellow and orange. I'm loving gray with yellow and orange right now. I decided to add another layer onto the frame. I felt like the big frame just needed a little something, but adding another layer just smaller grounded the flowers a bit. 

Speaking of "grounding", I brought the banner up and adhered it closer to the frame to keep it grounded to the rest of the design also.

A huge thank you to Kim for letting me work with her card! I appreciate it so much, and I hope she likes what I did.

Happy Birthday card:
STAMPS: The Sweet Life, Bountiful Banners
INK: Harvest Gold, Canyon Clay, New Leaf, Ripe Avocado, True Black inks
PAPER: Canyon Clay, Soft Stone, White
DIES: The Sweet Life, Bountiful Banners, Mat Stack 6
OTHER: pearls by Melissa Frances.