52 Cards a Year: Challenge Number One!

Simple Horizontal Stripes: Black or Gray and White: Birthday Card.

Recently at a family gathering I had occasion to visit with my uncle; J.D., a talented artist living in the Austin area. We were chatting about painting and where to start if you are thinking of diving in on your own... or getting back into painting. He suggested buying a blank canvas, a gallon of white latex paint and a gallon of black... and going to town... not worrying about color; only design, composition and texture. I think this will be well applied to card making too!

So that's your assignment in a nutshell. Using only black, white and gray tones, create a birthday card. I will simplify the assignment further by adding a super basic sketch; this horizontal line design. 6-8 lines of varying tones and shades of blacks, grays and whites... use patterned papers, solids, ribbons, stamped strips of paper... all in various thicknesses, to create your design. Incorporate a birthday related sentiment if you can.

Here is the sketch...

Here are my samples:

This first card uses all Kitchen Sink Stamps. It's pure black and white... and features lots of bold patterns and hard textures. My own personal criticism of this card is that it's a tad top heavy... that bold image in the top stripe sort of draws my eye away from the sentiment... which I think needed to be the focus of this card. This is actually why I decided to add the element of depth and texture close to the sentiment with the addition of the brads... which absolutely helped.

I really like the variety of patterns in this design, and how the black and white color ties everything together.


This design was created with justjohanna images. I used a lot more gray in this design... using black only for the scroll at the bottom and for the sentiment. Choosing the darker color for the base of the card helps keep in grounded and using black for the sentiment helps to make it pop. In turn, balancing the black with a light toned gray and a charcoal gray helps the lightest tone to also become a focal point... which is why the birds also stand out even though they are the lightest of the images. Of course placing the birds toward the center of the card also helps draw your eye to them.

I also used negative space to draw the eye around the card. Leaving white space around the sentiment and the birds brings the images forward, even though this is a one layer card.


Lastly... this card created with images by Lizzie Anne Designs. I used mainly grays and vanilla in this card. Only the stamping was done in black. You will also note I created the design in a horizontal layout rather than vertical.

It's easy to spot the focal point of this card; placing the party hat/gift patterned stripe in the center, making it significantly wider than the other stripes and matching the paper to the sentiment really helps to make them pop. Plus, I used only one patterned paper on this card, so there is not much to distract your eye from the focal images. Notice the gray dots I used in the focal image stripe? They were stamped with a pencil eraser, and added because I felt that there was too much negative space... especially because I was only shading the hats and gifts... not coloring them.



The Challenge Rules: This being the first assignment... let's chat about rules. There are no rules! Feel free to mix it up; make a card of a different theme... make a vertical sketch horizontal... whatever you please. The goal of these challenges is to help you expand your creative card making, to motivate you to try something new each week and to encourage you to share your work.

That's right... you must share! But don't worry if you don't complete the assignment this week... as soon as you create your card for this, or any assignment, share a link to it here in the comments. You can post it on your blog, or on your favorite message board.... just share a link with everyone here whenever you decide to jump in and play!

I hope you will join me... I am really excited about this series for 2008... if just to keep me thinking outside the box!

Have fun!