CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #1: Texting Skills

It may be Wednesday, but it's CAS-ual Friday here! My bestie, a CAS-ual Fridays design team member introduced me to the new challenge blog dedicated to clean & simple design. Its inaugural challenge was posted this past Friday: Texting Skills.

One goal crossed off of my 2011 list is: start craft blog. It seems like a simple enough thing to do, but having maintained this blog for the last 4 months, I can say that each post is a mini production on its own. Like a print magazine, there's a photo shoot, copy writing, sourcing, and timely publishing with each post. I would even call it a second 'job' if I didn't love it so much. Being that it's become a large part of my life, I wanted to document it in a clean & simple layout. The title "breaking free" is about having my blog as a platform to speak freely about my creative endeavors.

It was so nice to complete a layout with a simple and straight-forward design. What I loved most about creating this layout is that it challenged me to stay true to my contemporary whimsical craft style while keeping a very clean & simple design. I created dimension and texture with a paper-cutting technique in the title but was still able to keep the design very clean. I think it shows that designing with a CAS style doesn't mean loss of crafting technique! Thanks, CAS-ual Fridays, for great inspiration!

Here's a closer look at my "texting skills":

• The title was stamped and then following the letters' outline I cut the tops and bottoms leaving the middle of the letters still attached to the cardstock base... it gives the appearance that the title is "breaking free" from the cardstock. :)
  


• I then curled the detached parts to make the title pop.


• I also cut the negative parts of the letters so when I slipped a French-English dictionary page under, the text would fill in the negative parts of the letters, for a double text effect.
  

Used: Kaisercraft pattern papers; Papertrey Ink Outlines alpha stamps; Bazzil cardstock; EK Success border punch; Fiskars craft knife

Thanks for stopping by and check out the CAS-ual Fridays blog for awesome clean & simple inspiration! Hope you like my interpretation of their first challenge!

-KRAFTY pearl