DOTS AND SQUARES

Today is my husband's birthday.

For his birthday card, I wanted to go all masculine.

I had had the cute set Enjoy the Little Things, now retired, for awhile now, and used it very little. The little designed squares had always intrigued me. I thought that by stamping them in masculine colors, I could make a little mosaic as my background.

So, in Island Indigo, Cajun Craze and Old Olive, I stamped the three designs on Sahara Sand cardstock, then punched them out with a 1" square punch. (In hindsight, I realize that my first mistake was in choosing Sahara Sand for this job.)

Once I had arranged the squares onto a piece of Cajun Craze cardstock, I was not impressed. It was completely dead. Dead, I tell you.

Even adding the Island Indigo Happy Birthday and some happy blue and white baker's twine, it still had no personality whatsoever.

My next step to add some much needed cheer was to add three 1/2" white circles. Yuk-o! So, I punched three little 1/4" Old Olive dots for the centers. Yuk again. So I punched three little Cajun Craze stars. But, since everything was looking fairly regimented, I added the stars offside.

Now, it really looked odd. And everything was glued in place. I didn't know what to do. Should I just junk it and start all over??

After staring at it a bit, and knowing that it obviously needed more white to balance those strange 1/2" circles, I grabbed my white gel pen and added the dots and slashes around the blue perimeter. Now, I was finally getting somewhere.

It needed just a touch more to make the whole thing pop and give it personality.

So I added the white dots between the squares, leaving the outside Cajun Craze and Old Olive dot-less.

There! Now I was happy.

A close-up of all its components

There! Now my masculine card can stand tall and proud.

Happy Birthday, Pat!

May you enjoy many more!

Has that ever happened to you? You know in your brain pretty much what you are going to do with a card design, only to have it turn out not so great, and be tempted to file it in the circular file, and start all over? But then you press on . . . 

Birthday

Smiles.