A Birthday Party Hat

Hello Saturday…It's the weekend, and here's a great party hat and my Card Design Tip #1.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again…yes, I am a patterned paper addict! I love to look at patterned paper and I love to create with it.

In this card, the adorable party hat is surely a hit, but the patterned paper does all the work. All I did was make the cuts. Stampin' Up!'s Designer Series Paper featured here is "Sent With Love", and the colors featured are Real Red, Pool Party, Island Indigo and Whisper White.

Here's the "How To":

Cut a standard 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" A-2 card from Real Red card stock;
Layer on a Whisper White band across the card measuring 2 3/8" X 5 1/2";
Add a second layer across the card onto the Whisper Shite measuring 5 1/2" X 2 1/4";
The awning (wider) stripe paper is 5/8" X 2 1/4";
The Pool Party center pattern is 2 1/4" X 3";
I hand cropped the banner and stamped it with my sentiment using Island Indigo ink. The Sentiment is from the Henry Says stamp set and Henry is as cute as cute can be!
Punch one "party hat" in Real Red, one "party hat" in Whisper White and one "party hat" in some coordinating patterned paper using the Petite Pennants Builder punch.
I punched holes in the Real Red "party hat" with a 1/4" circle punch to look like polka dots and layered Real Red hat onto the Whisper White hat, then layered both onto the patterned paper, dropping the patterned paper slightly at the bottom.
For the pom-pom on the party hat, I punched one large circle from the Owl Builder Punch from Island Indigo card stock and one from Real Red card stock;
I used my 1/16" circle punch to punch a tiny hole in the center of both circles and slipped in a Whisper White brad;
With my paper snips, I snipped around only the Real Red circle and fanned the edges upward to look like a pom-pom.

(As promised, here is my first of a series of posts with an easy card design tip.)

DESIGN TIP 1: THE GALLON/QUART/PINT RULE. In card designing, any card design will work when you choose a tri-color scheme, but remember to think of each color as "milk" (or whatever your favorite beverage might be). Use a "gallon" of one color, a "quart" of another, and a "pint" of your third color. Remembering this will always give you a color design masterpiece!

Take another look at my card today. My "gallon" is Real Red; my "quart" is Pool Party and my "pint" is Island Indigo. (My neutral in this card is Whisper White and neutrals are for another post). Now try to imagine this card without the Island Indigo…and replace the Island Indigo with, Real Red or Pool Party…go ahead, take another look with the replacement colors…kind of boring, right?

You probably wouldn't even come back to read any more of my posts or look at any of my other cards…but because I added just a "pint" of Island Indigo…the card comes alive!

Try using this Design Rule on your next card and let me know how you do. I'd love to hear from you.