Color Catalog & Towering Blooms
Kristina Werner is a designer I admire and follow on social media. She’s been using Sarah Renae Clark’s Color Cube in all her March makes. I was so inspired that I bought the digital version. I browsed the color palettes tagged Spring and chose palette number 187.
Towering Blooms was Spellbinder’s Large Die of the Month for November 2023. It’s a very mid-century modern floral design. I chose it as a vehicle to explore palette 187.
Once I had chosen the palette, I used my Distress Oxide swatches to find the closest matches. Then I decided that my background would be Turquoise and I’d use Orchid and Blush for my flowers. That left the two greens for leaves and stalks.
I started by foiling a turquoise card panel with the Geometric Diamond Glimmer Background Plate with Teal Glimmer Hot Foil. I also brought out a Solid Hot Foil Plate and foiled the reverse. Then I got to die cutting and ink blending.
Stack and Offset
My plan was to select different colors for different shapes. But when I did that, I didn’t like the result. Everything had the same intensity, so nothing was emphasized. It might have worked if the background were white, but not with my patterned turquoise background. There was nowhere for the eye to rest. It was tiring to look at.
So I experimented with stacking and off-setting layers. Adding a white off-set layer to the bottom of most die cuts helped a lot. I also strategically lifted up some layers with foam tape, to add contrast.
Sentiment
I had die cut the included Hello sentiment with all the colors of cardstock. But when I tried them out, I didn’t like any of them. Even adding an offset layer of white didn’t help.
So I created a landing spot for the sentiment from the Essential Shapes Die Set. I also cut out the sentiment again. This time from the reverse foiled panel. The calm white rectangle made the shiny sentiment pop against this busy background.
I added a few clear dew drop pearls to finish off the card.
This card was hard in interesting ways. I definitely felt that I grew as a designer by using a palette from the Color Catalog. I look forward to doing it again soon!
