Tip Top Tuesday

I have exciting news to share. I won the Top Tip Tuesday award for Top Tipper when I entered my snowflake cards on December 10   The result of that is that I was asked to contribute a card as a guest designer for the challenge that went live today.

The week's theme is Clean and Simple. They are featuring a terrific tutorial on paper bows. There is even a link to a pdf. I briefly considered making a bow for my project, but ultimately I couldn't. My printer is out of commission. And really, if I'm honest, I am not good at bows - even paper ones.

Given that, I just thought about what tip(s) I wanted to share. First, here is my card.

And now, my tips:

*Save your scraps, always! All the paper on this card is composed of scraps, with the exception of the base. The stamps I used are new to me, but the rest is product I have had for a while. I initially bought the pad of Winter Frost paper, which is 4.5 x 6.5, just a little bigger than the 4x5.25 we normally use for a card front. The leftover strips were perfect for flags, and I still have a few more left. The white is from my scrap bin. Scraps + a monochromatic colour scheme come together to make a card that's clean & simple, yet still cute.
I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a birthday card or add to my Christmas card stash for 2014, so I made one of each.

*Scraps work even if you want to use a punch that is the 'wrong' size. Take a look at the scrap I used to stamp the phrase Happy Birthday. Of fcourse, the word window punch is longer than this scrap. I taped it to another piece of paper, punched it out so one side was lined up perfectly, then retaped it and did the same for the other side. Quick and easy! 

 

I hope you'll hope on over to Top Tip Tuesday, give the other designers some love, check out the tutorial, and enter this week's challenge!