Playing Music in Black and White

 Hello Double D fans,

it's time for a new challenge theme and it is 

Musical!

When I was shuffling through my huge stash of patterned papers, I found one sheet with a music theme...just one sheet.  Starting there, I worked to design a music-themed card that can be used for anyone.  

      

  

Black and White Birthday

I love making black and white cards, and this week I have two challenges asking for black and white. 

Seize the Birthday  is the first.  I kept this one fairly simple:  one large die with a background and the small written "happy."  Dotted black and white cardstock makes the perfect background. 

Color Throwdown 839

 

This is a great color combination for Color Throwdown.  I relied on Pinterest for the design idea. 

Sunflower Elegance

With this creation for Sunday Stamps, I have started down a new path:  working with a vivid background of cardstock, emphasizing something in the pattern by embossing or fussy-cutting.  Lisa Somerville who designs for Divinity Designs, created a sunflower card recently from the company's "Vintage Sunflowers A2 Card fronts."  It was so striking and then I learned that the card fronts are available in packs.  (I bought 2 packs!)  Dry embossing the image and emphasizing a pattern feature by fussy cutting is a new technique for me, but I am going to work with it for awhile. Deciding on the next one will require some thinking.

 

Flowers Squared

 In order to meet the Monday deadline for Freshly Made Sketches, I spent some time in my craft room in the afternoon heat (it was 98 degrees at 2:30).  When I looked at the sketch, I thought about what I could do with the four squares.  The paper of bright flowers caught my eye, especially the orange flower in the center.  I knew what I could do with the center piece of the sketch! This card has more color than any other card I've made recently. The sentiment and fussy-cut flower are popped up on foam adhesives. 

 

Without Flowers for a Birthday Card

Seize the Birthday asks for a birthday card sans flowers....it's a challenge but a good one. To create my card, I dug into the remaining stash of wood-mounted stamps for this American Art Stamps image (my wood-mounts are really ancient).   Black and white seemed the right choice, with just a little bit of color added.  (Oops, there is a handful of flowers, but very tiny.)  This card would be appropriate for the right adult.  

 

A Freshly Made Tricky Sketch

I think this might be the first time I've worked with a die cut circle in a card. I modified it slightly for this Freshly Made Sketch.   I pulled out the dies for the flowers and used them to complete the card.  Yellow and black...dry embossed card front and a simple sentiment die cut.