I found a challenge at the Paper Players this week which really appeals – a clean and simple card giving thanks.

I decided to use the Stampin’ Up! Fabulous Four stamp set and to do some teal coloured ombre technique. I snipped off the bottom part of the sentiment figuring that I can add it if I like but that this saves masking it! I saw recently, on Brian King’s blog, a card where there were 6 or so colours of blue used. I decided to give this a try in teal. I first tried using soft sky, costal cabana, pool party, bermuda bay, lost lagoon and island indigo but the last two seemed too blue to play with the others. So I was down to four. I switched to a horizontal card instead of vertical and decided to step the sentiment across the card. This required serious use of a ruler and pencil and after stamping. an eraser. I figured out the gap necessary at the top and bottom and also to the right of the bottom sentiment and to the left of the top one. Once I had that done, I drew horizontal lines across the card to show me where to stamp each sentiment. I then drew a line diagonally to show me where each sentiment should begin. It was a bit ruler intensive but it was worth it to have everything in the right place.

I had originally planned to glue my very vanilla stamped card onto a base and played around with various options. I was having difficulty deciding between bermuda bay and coastal cabana when I realised that I didn’t have to choose. So I added a mat of coastal cabana showing only 1/8 inch all the way around and then glued this to the base of bermuda bay. I think this is the first time that I’ve had two mats both of 1/8 inch deep and I rather like the effect. I finished the card off by lining the envelope in bermuda bay from the backgrounds DSP.