Make the Perfect Congratulations Card

I like to have a stash of hand made cards, ready to send when the need arises. Alas, I never seem to have just the right one available. Am I too fussy? Or do I just like to design a new card at every opportunity? Nevertheless, I like to design cards that have a general feel to them. Today I show you how to make the perfect Congratulations card!
Once again I turned to the Bravo photopolymer stamp set. Have you tried it yet? Many of the sentiments are big, bold and totally today! I love using it. The fonts are so fun that they provide an added design boost to any card.

The thing that I like about this card design is that it suits many occasions. At any time of year. It’s also equally suitable for both a man and a woman. Not a flower on it!

I used the Park Lane Designer Series Paper for the main background design. I love that paper as it’s more “conservative” in its design than some of the other papers. Then, as I often do, I picked my colors from the paper. However, I modified them a bit. My colors are Old Olive, Soft Suede and Hello Honey. It’s okay to branch out from the Stampin’ Up! suggestions!

By the way, the stars are pretty small. The ones at the bottom of the piles are attached using Glue Dots. The ones on top are attached with Stampin’ Dimensionals – cut in four! Okay, I can be a little fussy, can’t I?!

Here are some tips for this card design.

The 4-1-1

• Repeat design elements – There’s a star in the middle of the “word” YOU on the stamp. So I added a bunch of stars, punched with the star from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack. Repetition is not boring. It ties everything together!
• Layers have many uses – I added a layer of Old Olive card stock under the main sentiment. It’s the same width as the amount of the card base that shows under the Designer Series Paper. So, the repetition adds cohesion to the card design. It also highlights the main sentiment, drawing your eye to it.
• White space is critical to this card design – Primarily, the large white space helps highlight the focal sentiment. However, this is a busy card – due to the paper design and the star clusters. You need a place for your eyes to rest. Otherwise, all we have is chaos. And that will never do =)

Phew! That’s a lot of information today. I guess that’s what happens when I stay away from my blog for too long. So, I hope I made up for my absence by showing you how to make the perfect congratulations card!