clean and simple cards...

Hello!  As my blog title indicates I have clean and simple cards to share today.  First up is a card for the May Altenew inspiration challenge as well as CAS(E) this Sketch.  I love super clean and simple designs, but lately haven't been doing a lot of them.  The CTS layout was the perfect way to get me back to my first love, lol!  The colors for the May Altenew inspiration are bold and bright and I wanted to use them in a way that is somewhat out of my comfort zone.  I think I accomplished that!  To start I played around with the layout a bit on some scrap paper, as well as with the stamps that I would use.  I used the Altenew Always There stamp set and inks from Altenew to stamp everything.  Because I wanted a look where there wasn't a lot of stamp inside the outline image I determined that I needed to use the final layering image for the flower I was stamping.  This image mainly stamps in the center of the flower, but also has a tiny outlying edge that stamps, too.  I did not want that so I made sure to mask off those little areas before inking.  The outline images (flower and two leaves) were stamped in Altenew Pure Graphite.  I then stamped the flower using Tide Blue.  I created simple masks for the flower and leaf and then masked off the flower and stamped the first leaf.  I masked that leaf and stamped the second leaf.  The center of the flower was stamped with Chamomile ink and the leaves with Snapdragon.  I love the sort of pop art feel the stamping has.  I finished things off with a sentiment from a different Altenew stamp set that I heat embossed with black WOW! embossing powder on a banner die cut from vellum.  The Altenew color combo is not one I would normally use, but I really like it so I may make another card before the challenge is over!

For my second card I used the colors from Color Throwdown and the clean and graphic layout from Freshly Made Sketches.  This card was really simple to put together because I used two different dies from the A Jillian Vance Design Sentiment Strips die set.  I die cut the largest (in width) strip from yellow cardstock and the blue and pink cardstock using the smallest (in width) die.  I then adhered all the pieces to a white cardstock panel that I die cut with the largest AJVD Stitched Dot rectangle die.  I decided that I wanted a super simple sentiment so I die cut my letters (using the AJVD Headline Type Alpha die set) from white cardstock and then I found a tiny friend sentiment in a stamp set (Altenew Folksy Florals) and stamped that on the blue strip using black ink.  I finished off the card with three little butterflies (from the AJVD Spring Birdy die set) cut from the pink, yellow and blue cardstock.   Another super clean and simple design that I really, really like!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!