Monday, November 3, 2025

PEACEFUL GARDEN COLOR EXPERIMENT

This week I will be featuring a Suite Collection that I featured a few months ago as a "sneak peek" of products coming in the Fall Mini Catalog.  I have used this Suite so much that I thought it deserved a second look.  It is called the Peaceful Garden Suite.  This suite can be used for so much more than Christmas, but this week, since Christmas is going to be here before we know it, I will be sharing Christmas Cards.


My first card is a bit of a color experiment.  I mention often that choosing colors is one of the things I struggle with.  Whether it is coordinating colors for cards, or for decorating my home, or what I'm going to wear, color coordination is a challenge for me.  

The Color Coach and Designer Series Paper are two of the things I use most for color inspiration.  The colors in the Peaceful Garden Designer Series Paper (DSP) are Basic Beige, Cloud Cover, Crumb Cake, Misty Moonlight, Pecan Pie and Secret Sea.

Most of those colors made "logical sense" to me, but then the Stampin' Up! designers threw in Pecan Pie, and my brain was having a hard time getting wrapped around that.  So, I decided to experiment with a combination that makes no sense to me at all.  I know blues and browns are often used together, but these blues and browns?  I wasn't so sure.


I laid out all the DSP Peaceful Garden Choices and then held a piece of Pecan Pie next to each.  Hmmm....  Frankly, I still wasn't buying it, but Cloud Cover and Pecan Pie started to grow on me -- so that's the combination you see in today's card.

The large Party Banner was die cut from Two-Tone Pecan Pie cardstock.  I die cut it with a larger banner than I wanted and then tore off all the edges.  I like how tearing Two-Tone cardstock reveals the inner white core.  I then roughed it up a bit with the edge of my scissors to add more texture.  I also thought that little white border helped with the transition to Cloud Cover.


I think this is the first card I have ever made where I did not use Basic White or Very Vanilla cardstock somewhere on the card -- at least for a sentiment.

The Peace on Earth Sentiment is stamped with Pecan Pie ink on another of the DSP designs that has a tonal, mottled Design in Basic Beige.


I even used the DSP for the message layer on the inside of the card so no white cardstock used here either!  

On the front and inside of the card I die cut branches from Secret Sea to jazz it up a bit.  The Hues of Blue flower embellishments from the suite are also the darkest color choice to add a bit more pop.

So, what do you think of this color combination?  I like the end result of the card but getting there was definitely something not in my comfort zone.  

Use this link to download a tutorial with all the details.  It includes step-by-step directions and all the dimensional information you need.

A list of the products used is shown below.  Click on any image to learn more about that product.

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Location: Commerce Township, MI, USA
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