JB18: cardstock christmas!

the rather awesome miss jessica of basic jess wrote in to JINGLE BELLES with quite a radical suggestion for this week's prompt: would we be interested in making cards with NO PATTERNED PAPER??! knowing me, you'll have sussed that this is one of those challenges that i dread and love at the same time; dread, because this is REALLY hard for me; and love, because... this is REALLY hard for me, and so i know that even if i don't necessarily like where i end up, the process of trying something difficult will be cool and valuable!

around the same time, whilst looking for something else, i happened to find a file of photos of cards from the glorious caardvarks era, and saw this baby:

it's the very first "cardstock only" card i ever made, as part of a promotion for core'dinations. and you know what? i still like that thing! it's totally stark and minimal, but also kind of graphic and fun. from there it was not much of a leap to think, "if i were making that card *NOW*, what, if anything would i do differently?" and it turned out the answer was...

this:

(cardstock: coredinations; dies & embossing folders: cuttlebug; snowflake stickers & backing sheet (used in top and bottom "snow" panels, respectively): dcwv; glitter letters: american crafts; adhesives: tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape; other: gesso, manual typewriter, sewing machine)

ok, so it's sort of the same card, but it's also totally different! for one thing, in 2008 i didn't have a cuttlebug, and was only on vague nodding terms with my sewing machine. so i made realllllllly minimal triangle trees, and there's not a whole lot of texture going on, either in terms of stitching or embossing. so this time i might've overcompensated just the TEEEEEENIEST bit on both of those points! :) i've still got the torn layers of cardstock, though, and a palette of blue, green, and white... just in different proportions. i even wonkily re-typed the lyrics to "o tannenbaum", in english and in german, on some of my cardstock layers, just because i still find that fun and funky.

all in all i am quite pleased with this experiment. i thank miss jess most sincerely for thinking of it, and coming along as our lovely guest star this week. do pop over to JINGLE BELLES and see her card, and of course miss stef's masterpiece, and perhaps you'll be inspired to make a card yourself, and see where the "pattern-free" muse takes you!

ps: i'm working on a tiny step-by-step tutorial for making the latter day c-bugged trees from today's card; that'll be running tomorrow, so stop on back if you're interested! ♥