Cindy Brown For the Guys (Geometric)

Cindy Brown/For the Guys

I enjoyed the geometric assignment in the class "For the Guys".  I used the Altenew stamp Pattern Play Diamond. I was inspired to create a design that looked like a pair of men's Argyle socks. I made many attempts to create the look I wanted and then I went through Pinterest to find how others have used this stamp. I found a design by my ACEP coordinator, Virginia Lu, and the way she had double stamped the diamonds, allowing them to overlap, was perfect for what I was going for and I incorporated her design into my own. 

                                                                          

I stamped one layer of the stamp with Altenew Frayed Leaf ink and then repeated it, one/half step to the right, with Altenew Jet Black ink which I then heat embossed with clear, fine embossing powder. This really gave the black ink some masculine weightiness. 

I then used the diamond shaped die from the Altenew die Geo Frames to die cut a diamond that I could stamp the sentiment on. I used the Altenew Birthday Builder stamp set to find a Happy Birthday, which I stamped with Versa Fine Clair Nocturne ink and then heat embossed with fine, clear embossing powder. The white diamond looked too stark against the background, so I cut out 2 more diamonds and used ink blending in Frayed Leaf to create my own colored paper.

I used adhesive to place the Frayed Leaf colored diamonds on each side of the center diamond to create the appearance of a border for the center diamond. 


The background  was adhered to a 110 pound Neenah cardstock base. I used 1/8 inch foam tape to adhere the sentiment diamond cluster to the card background.
I added a small gold, half-round embellishment to bring the eye towards the sentiment. My card was finished. 

But then, I decided that a black Geo Frame stamped border which goes with the Geo Frame die would be a good idea. 
The card was too well constructed to simply take it apart, so I removed the gold embellishment and stamped directly onto the diamond with Versafine Clair Nocturne ink.


This is the modified card (not what I consider the card for my ACEP evaluation). At this point, I think I ruined the card because the stamped frame was off to one side which accentuated that the sentiment was slightly off (though it had measured out as symmetric). Fortunately, I had already photographed the card for my blog without the frame. I do like the black frame, but in the future I won't try an add-on idea like this without deconstructing the card first.

Also, for my blog, I got great feedback from my ACEP coordinator Erum. I hadn't realized that I was not leaving space around my subjects, but once it was pointed out, I could see where the improvements were needed. I decided to use a nice, neutral piece of 12X12 card stock to create an area to arrange the elements for my photos, and I would make sure that there was room around the elements. This has been a helpful tool to improve my blog photos.