We’re so happy to welcome back Jeannie Lieu to the blog. Today, she’s sharing her favorite tips and tricks for composition, featuring gorgeous gradients and using Gina K Design’s Master Layouts!
Do you ever get into a creative slump? Whenever I’m in a cardmaking slump, I go back to the basics using simple shapes to create a layout to help get my creative juices going.
Gina K Designs has a series of “Master Layouts” die sets that allow you to create your own card sketches. Each set carries a variety of dies to cut out layers for card panels, which you can use to create endless possibilities. Today, I’ll be sharing tips and ideas using Gina K Designs’ Master Layouts 10 to create a card set trio. At first glance, you may think this set is strictly for slimline cards, but I wanted to give you ideas of how you can stretch this die set to easily put cards together for an A2 card set.
Plan out your layouts by playing with the Master Layouts. This seems to be a simple tip, but I’ll pull out a blank card panel and then I’ll lay my different shapes down on my card. This gets my creative juices forming and honestly, I go into these types of cards without having card elements in mind. I’m, first and foremost, focused on the layout.
Here are the card sketches/layouts I’ve come up with using the Master Layouts 10:
Card 1:
Card 2:
Card 3:
You can use the layouts and tweak them to match your supplies (using pattern paper, different dies, or even adding embellishments).
For my card elements, I’m going to be using the Trinity Stamps Fairy Trio Die paired with some ink blending for quick cards. It’ll be very easy to incorporate them using the Gina K Designs’ Master Layouts 10.
When you are creating a card set, assembly style prep is the quickest. Anytime I have a lot of die cutting to do, I’ll do it all at once. Since I have my layout ideas in mind already, I know exactly what I need to die cut using the Gina K Designs’ Master Layouts 10. Then, I’ll also Trinity Stamps Fairy Trio Die three times (total of 9 fairies)
My next step is to ink blend three panels. Since I’m using the same dies throughout, I wanted to change up the colors so there’s some interest among the three cards. Because I still want a cohesive set, I will be using Saltwater Taffy Distress Oxide in each card but my additional colors are:
- Card 1: Chipped Sapphire, Seedless Preserves;
- Card 2: Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade;
- Card 3: Villainous Potion, Mermaid Lagoon.
I used Perfect Pearls splatter to all my panels because I wanted some extra glitter and interest to the panels. After ink blending, I did my final die cutting because for these three card panels, I wanted to use the stitched dies from the Gina K Designs’ Master Layouts 10.
To add more shine to the cards, I added Ink on 3’s Liquid Pixie Dust to the wings of all the fairies. The glitter is so concentrated in this that it looks like glitter cardstock.
For all the card layouts, I wanted a similar sentiment pairing, so I used the strip die from the Gina K Designs’ Master Layouts 10 set and stamped a secondary sentiment from the Trinity Stamps’ Simply Sentimental Thanks stamp set. For the main sentiment, I used one of the “Thanks” dies from the coordinating die set.
Once I had all the pieces ready, it was time to assemble following my layout plan. It was super easy to put together and I have a cohesive card trio that has similar elements but a different look that is unique to each card.
Thanks for checking out my thought process and hopefully, you’ll be able to incorporate your own ideas using these items or similar items that you may have in your craft stash. I hope you’re inspired to create and have a wonderful rest of the week!
Jeannie
1 Comment
Great tecnique! Thank you!