Square Guest At A Round Party

Hostess of the 13th smART Cookie tea party, Dina Kowal, invited her guests to partake of this challenge:

Make a round card... not just something round on the card, but a card that IS round.

This was something I'd never done before, but Dina also explained how to make the base:

Fold your cardstock, then hang some type of circle template a bit over the folded edge, and trace/cut around the part of the template that remains on the paper. 

What you get is almost a complete circle with a "hinge." 

Note: This card uses a full sheet of 8.5 x 11 cardstock, and requires a square envelope for mailing.

For me, the first time through was a bit tricky because it was difficult to tell just how much of the fold to leave intact -- too little, makes the hinge flimsy, and the card unstable... too much makes the hinge obvious, and the circular effect of the card is lost. 

For a 5-3/8" circle, I used my Creative Memories circle cutter, medium template - outer track - blue blade.  I found if I left a hinge about 1-5/8" long, both the stability, and appearance of the card were near perfect. 

There, I had the base!  The hard part, which took me two tries, was over... Or was it???

Once I had the round canvas, working on it was truly out of my comfort zone... I discovered very quickly that I'm definitely a square/rectangle gal.  Had to keep telling myself, "But that's what a c-h-a-l-l-e-n-g-e is all about..." 

Every time I thought I knew where I wanted to take things, they just didn't look right, didn't fit right, or had no balance.  I had to stop, walk away, and mull things over several times... I finally had to sleep on it.  The next day, however, everything came together.  Here is the result:

First I opted to position the hinge on the card's left side.  Next I chose, and cut a strip of print paper the width of the hinge.  Starting at the hinge, I adhered the strip across the card, and rounded the overhang flush with the opposite edge.

This Anna Griffith print, a leftover from a previous project, then helped me choose two more things:  My main image taken from WD-210 Flower Girl, and my color palette.  In retrospect, I'm wondering if the overall design actually needs the strip at all, but if I hadn't used it, I wouldn't have had a launching point...

To soften the appearance, Flower Girl was stamped in Versafine Smokey Grey.  It was then embossed with Transcendence, and colored using markers, colored pencils, chalk, and ink from a pad (applied with a small brush).

Note:  Although I've gotten better with practice, coloring is not my strong suit, so rather than use a single, unmastered medium, I tend to tie colors together by pulling from everything I own...

Next came the saying from WD-134 Time & Again, also stamped in Smokey Grey and clear embossed... I started off leaving all the corners square, but the look on the round card was too angular... Next I rounded all the corners, and somehow that wasn't right either -- made the corners of Flower Girl stand out as too angular... Finally I re-stamped/embossed, and rounded only two, opposing corners. Ahhhh... the inked edges in these shapes, tied together both the square corners of the Flower Girl panel, and the round edge of the card!
 
Each stamped piece was then layered to iridescent purple, and grey cardstocks, and the two panels were mounted to the card.

Time for some embellishments!  Instead of punching flowers, this time I used "Brides" flowers from Michael's -- actually shimmery, embossed, table confetti made by Gartner Studios for Brides magazine, and sold at Michael's in the handcraft-a-wedding aisle.

Brides flowers come uncolored, in white or ivory, so I colorized these using Brilliance and Fluid Chalk inks -- first I smushed each flower face down into the Brilliance Pearlescent Purple ink pad, and heat set.  After that, I applied Fluid Chalk Lavender to the outer petal edges using a small brush, and heat set again.

The colored flowers were then layered with fern punches (Punch Bunch), mini flower punches (PBM2), and tiny circle punches, and adhered to the card.

The hinge area was still lacking "something," so the spots on a length of purple, Swiss dot ribbon were customized using a permanent, celadon marker, and when dry, was knotted, trimmed, and adhered to the card along the void.

I'll admit I learned a lot from working through this challenge, but I must also say I'm still too internally "square" to be a round card convert (translated: you won't be seeing many more of these babies).

Given my experience, I'm extremely curious to see what Dina, Donna, and Trish did "in the round," and how each one of them felt about it... 

Susan L. and Heidi are not playing today.

Susan T.

Comments

[Mary]

Lovely card! Really!!!

[Michelle Adams]

I think it is really nice!

[Heidi K]

I'm here! I played! I really love how you did the flowers on this Susan!

[Jacki j]

Cute and purple! Round cards are fun. I did one recently. I'll have to do one for this challenge...

[Trish D]

Glad to know I'm not the only one that truly found this to be a challenge ;)

I love what you came up with, though... love the soft, summery colors, and that bit of ribbon is a really nice touch.