Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bah!Humbug! Aperture Challenge


The gals at Bah!Humbug! are featuring apertures this week. WooHoo! I LOVE apertures. There are so many ways to do them. I decided to do mine in Cricut Design Studio using the Winter Lace cartridge I hadn't even taken out of the package yet. LOTS of pretty snowflakes! I decided upon an A2 card because I knew I'd want to emboss the front mat. First I made a 4 x 5 1/4 inch rectangle from George and chose a simple snowflake cut at 3 1/4". I wanted a larger border around the snowflake than the regular shadow provided, so I cut that at 3 1/2" instead. The snowflake opening need to be enlarged as well because I wanted not only a large enough aperture to fit a word inside, but also a red border around that opening as well. To do that I hid the snowflake contour of a larger flake and the inside contour of the 3 1/4" one and centered it. (The only bad news about this is that each time you open DS you have to hide the contours again because DS will only remember to hide contours when there is more than one hidden in a design. PITA!)

On a second page I made a 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" rectangle for the card with a snowflake center that would fit inside the one on the top mat and hid the outer snowflake contour on that one. To line them up perfectly, you'll need to place them on the mat layer first and them copy and paste it to the second page and then delete them from the mat page. Then you have to close the program because you can't hide contours on an image that's been cut and pasted (ANOTHER PITA!) reopen the project and hide all of the appropriate contours again. Bah! Humbug! I know this is Greek to those of you who don't use Design Studio, but I thought it may be helpful to those who do and would like to make something similar.

After cutting, I embossed the mat with a Cuttlebug folder from the Oh My Crafts Holiday bundle from 2009 (I think) and the snowflake with Swiss Dots. Both the snowflake and mat are raised with dimensionals. I loved the sort of asymmetrical embossing on the mat, but it left a void in the top left corner I filled with adhesive beads.
The inside sentiment was done in my Printmaster Pro program. Lining it was a bit tricky but I'm pleased with the results. It looked rather plain, however, so I ended up embossing that as well. Although my aperture is small, I think it's effective. Ann, Judith and Fiona came up with lovely examples so be sure to check out their inspirational projects and we U.S. followers still have all of today to join in. See you there.

12 comments:

  1. WOW.. I still need to be your neighbor so you can show me how to do this.. Gorgeous card, love the inside too. hugs

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  2. You are one talented woman. I love this card. Beautiful!!

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  3. Oh...I love this card...its so puurrtty !!
    xoxo Joy

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  4. The simple white and red is just delish!!

    (-: Heidi

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  5. Wow...the red and white really stands outs, and the snowflake looks great!

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  6. Gorgeous card Donna...inside and out. Beautifully done!

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  7. it turned out so striking and very pretty....the embossing is so perfect....another awesome card...I have so missed your creations girl...hugs!!!

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  8. You totally flummoxxed me with your description of how you achieved this stunner ... but oh me oh my ... the end result is just amazing! Thank you for sharing with us at Bah! Humbug!

    Luv'n'Stuff
    Max
    xx
    Max's Craft Creations
    Bah! Humbug! Challenges DT

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  9. Hi there sorry to be so late commenting - I've been away. Lovely to come back to such stunning creations though. As usual you have come up with a stunning design Doann - I just love this one.
    Ann xxx
    Bah! Humbug! DT

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  10. Thanks heaps for the Design Studio tip... I find that program rather frustrating sometimes, glad to get any advice I can. White emboss looks so pretty.

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  11. Okay some how I missed this one! URG! This is just gorgeous! I love how clean and crisp this looks! Another great job!
    tfs

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Thanks for making my day!