in the pink

i like making pink cards all year round, for almost any occasion, but i confess that my two absolute favorite pink cards of the year are the ones i make in october when we celebrate pink christmas at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, for the benefit of susan g. komen.  i think i can pretty much guarantee that if you make a card with us this week, it will be one of your own favorites, if only because stephanie and i are each donating $2 per card to that worthy organization; you just need to link up with us at this post! let me make it clear that you don't have to go nearly as pink as i've done here... you just need a little pink to be clearly visible on your brand new holiday card to qualify. here's my card:

(re-sized and re-tinted vintage ornaments illustration from ideals magazine, printed on kodak premium high gloss photo paper; patterned paper: ki memories, my mind's eye, echo park; cardstock: core'dinations; tag: pink paislee; chipboard letters: american crafts; sparkly snowflake stickers: martha stewart; brads: oriental trading; trim: october afternoon; scraps of ribbon and doily from my stash; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, sewing machine)

it's *VERY* pink, indeed, isn't it? and quite layery, as well... but ♥YOURS♥ doesn't have to be either of those things! i did a little digi-magic this week because, having found the PERFECT vintage centerpiece for my card, it just wasn't going to work as it was. want to see why?

ok yeah, so you'll have noticed the first problem, right away: it's GREEN! which, i totally could have incorporated into a much less pink card, but i liked the idea of the mezzotint look, i just wanted it to be shades of pink instead of green. the other problem was that this being a page from an old ideals magazine it's approximately 8x11, and thus quite large for a card... even one of mine, lol! plus the title of the poem (which i didn't want to use) was sticking up into the part of the illustation in which i was interested. luckily, there was ONE solution to all of these problems: scan the page into PSE, crop it, get rid of the text, and re-color using the various sliders for hue, tint, and saturation. when i was happy with the result, i printed it on photo paper... (filling in the rest of the sheet with some extra new york photos!) ...then i used this week's awesome retro sketch (#85) to design the layout of my card:

i'm also linking up with this week's simon says stamp wednesday challenge to make a christmas themed card or project. 

and now i cannot wait to see what ♥YOU♥ will make! why not go check out the readers' gallery and stephanie's card at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ for some awesome inspiration? then be sure to link up with us before wednesday night so that we can count it... times $4... when we make our donation to susan g. komen! ♥♥♥