Clean and Simple Style with Craftin Desert Divas

Hello Friends and welcome back! Design Team member, Laurie here, to share one of my favourite card making styles, clean and simple.

Clean and simple, to me, doesn't necessarily mean quick and easy.  It's clean lines, white space and one focal image.  The time it takes to create something like this varies as usually I want my focal image to be perfect!

I started by breaking out my Stabilo 68 pens.  These are wonderful to use as a watercolour medium!  I chose one of my favourite bird images from the Birds of a Feather stamp set and created a mask by using a full stick Post-It note. I stamped the bird first, placed the mask then stamped the branch. This makes it appear that it was one entire stamp! Ahhh, the magic of masking!

I've been using Mixed Media paper for all my water techniques lately as I find it is a brighter white.  It's not a super heavy weight card but I don't usually use a ton of water :).  My ink of choice when stamping for watercolour is Versafine Onyx Black.

I cut an extra panel of the mixed media paper using a die to create a light washed background for this beautiful bird.  When using these markers for a wash, I'll lay down colour onto a slick surface and pick it up with a wet brush.

This creates a beautiful light background. And because the ink is reactive to water, it makes the prettiest splash effect!

For the colouring of the bird, I lay the marker directly onto the images and blend with water.

Because this is a clean and simple card, the focus will be that bird, which is why I wanted the background panel to be very soft.  I fussy cut the image and foam mounted it onto the panel and

stamped the simple sentiment below.

When putting together a CAS card, you want to make sure that your focal image is is aligned perfectly! I find that if things aren't lined up, it can be a distraction.

I made sure that the die cut panel was centred on the card base.  I also chose to use a blue base as I thought it made that little birdie pop!!

As for the finishing details, I kept that simple as well.  Just a few dots of white gel pen and Glossy Accents to accentuate certain parts of the image!

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you found some inspiration on clean and simple card making!!

Supplies Used:

(Affiliate links provided. This means if you make a purchase directly from one of these links, I will make a small commission, with no cost to you of course! Any purchases are greatly appreciated)

Birds of a Feather

Fancy Frames Dies

Verafine Black Onyx Ink