Patterns with Posies

Aug 9

Playing with ways to use inlay dies.

I’ve seen a lot of great cards made with the Posies Inlay Die from Concord & 9th. I challenged myself to find some other ways to show off the fun design. It is a very sweet flower pattern, but with the simple geometrics and linear details, it also has a modern style.

Card 1 - pop of poppy posy

I had the idea for the card that became card 2, below, but as I was cutting out the A2 panels from the colors I’d picked for that one, this one took shape in my mind. If you’ve read Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert, you know that we need to bring those ideas to life or they’ll move on. (It only took me decades to really get this…)

Techniques:

I wanted to create a focal point flower by stacking layers of the flower die cut (I used Poppy). I forgot to count, but I think there are 5 layers here of that one red flower, with the addition of a center ring on top of that.
I had intended to use a different sentiment on this, but the proportions were off. This bold pattern and the repetition of these shapes called for a sentiment that was either much larger than the flowers are, or in very contrasting shape and color. (Which is how that delicate stamped greeting holds its own against the bold colors and pattern of the card.)
I played around with which flower centers to use where on the flowers where the Peacock base shows through, but ended up keeping it fairly simple with all solid centers and only minor variation of the detail ring on some.
Adding those other two Poppy centers creates a strong visual triangle, and frames the sentiment strip.

Colors:

cardstock: Concord & 9th Poppy, Peacock, and Rainforest, as well as white
ink: black

card 2 - Thankful posies wrap

This is the card I was going to make first with this die, but I got distracted while die cutting and did the card above first.

Techniques:

My goal was to use this cover die both for texture only, as well as for paper piecing, on the same card front.

I wanted a core color palette of Watermelon & Clover, but added in the Blueberry base. I gave those two core colors each an additional color or two. I started with only two warm colors (Watermelon & Sorbet) but added in a third. I did some ink blending with sorbet ink on some of the Sorbet die cuts to create a deeper and more vibrant color to add to the mix.

Notice that even though the Grasshopper color is a yellow-green that tends toward green, it masquerades here as both a yellow (in flower centers) and a green (in the leaves), based on use and expectation.

The leaves added too much pattern for this layout if I used 4 greens for the on every flower, so if you look closely you’ll see that each flower has three greens in the leaves. I doubled up on the center pair of leaves for both columns of flowers, but alternated the other two greens in the leaves on the outer side.

Colors: