Quick and simple.....I wish!!!!!

Well the afternoon is romping away and I desperately wanted to enter Clare's Weekly challenge which has a leaf inspired photo and I am determined to keep plugging on with my "keeping it simple" philosophy. Soooooooo ....I know ....I will knock up a quick card with a suitable sentiment and a bit of stencilling. ....ha ha ha ha.....this has taken me quite a bit of time!!!!... and quite honestly I know it's not quite right but as the deadline is ticking away I will post it anyway (then I really must feed my husband.....beans on toast if I don't get a move on!! he's hungry ooops).

LESS IS MORE has not only a Spring inspired challenge but some brilliant tips on creating word art. I really enjoyed exploring positioning of text but seriously know I haven't perfected it yet, not sure about the transparency thing...I had to use the "no fill" option in "format" and after creating my piece of work I found I couldn't then reposition it as a whole....there has to be away of grouping the entire piece and then moving???????? any help is gratefully received.



After I had created my word art I draft printed on paper to decide upon the positioning of my image.
I created a quick stencil by folding a piece of paper lengthways, roughly sketched one side of the leaf on the folded spine then cut out the shape. Once open I then cut the stalk.
I practiced on the draft print, then repeated the stencilling on a blank A5 piece of card.


I stencilled pen ink over the stencil using my homemade daubers (further details on the dauber tutorial). I used a yellow and a couple of greens....again I was disappointed with my colours... I would have preferred a much fresher brighter palette for spring. To create the spine detail I cut out some veins from the stencil off-cut. I reinserted the leaf and stencilled a darker colour.

I then repeated the process by shifting the stencil over to the side (first I used the stencil to cut another leaf to create a mask to place over the original stencilled leaf).

All that was left to do was print the sentiment and score the card in half. quick and simple...it wasn't.....Clean and simple...may be!?

All in all I was quite pleased. The proportions and positioning aren't exactly right, and possibly the leaves too big. I preferred it once I rounded the corners , not sure why, maybe it echoes the leaf shape and creates a bit of harmony (ooh that was a bit deep and pretentious!!).

(To round corners, place a glass tumbler on the corner and cut round with a sharp craft knife - use an emery board to sand down any blunt edges)

I love the sentiment and I firmly believe keeping it simple adds so much to the importance of the message, I hope to send this to someone I know who is feeling a bit down, as life is proving a bit tough at the moment....I think the proverb says it all.