A happy birthday

Hi there!

It's Christine with a quick post on "Adding interest by irritation."

We all know that: we create a card and while we're working on it (or even before we start) we try to find the right placement for all the elements. One of the most important elements (for me) is the sentiment.

The sentiment decides if people start thinking, giggling, smiling,...(insert any reaction here) and it's important that the sentiment goes well with all the elements on the card, especially if you use punny sentiments.

There are many sentiments that work on nearly every card, such as birthday sentiments. So if you want to make those sentiments special and make people focus on them you want to add some interest. You can do that by painting a focal point as a backdrop for your sentiment (like Joni Andaya did in this post) or keeping the rest of the card pretty simple (like Danielle did here). You could also use embellishments to draw the eye to your sentiment. 

But one other way to add interest to your sentiment is: Make it unusual - irritate the eye.

For my card I created a quite busy background with Sparkle and Shine. So I really wanted the sentiment to pop on that background. I did this by color (Bold black on soft light colors looks good, right?) and by an unusual placement. I used the Every Day Labels Set  because this set gives you endless possibilities to combine your sentiments. I went for an unusual placement (but kept in mind that we tend to read from top to bottom and from left to right!) 

I think this makes the sentiment more interesting and adds something "special" to the card.

I also added some embellishments, that I created with the stamps. I stamped the stars, cut them out, but them on toothpicks and added a thick layer of glossy accents. I used the same colors that I already used for the background - this way the embellishments are not distracting but still add some dimension and interest.

Okay, that's it for now. Maybe you feel inspired to get out your sentiments and try something unusual. :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Christine