Retiring Showcase - Grunge Color Challenge Birthday Cards - Plus A Layout Lesson

Libby and I were very productive last Thursday. This is one of the projects we made. The colors are from a challenge we picked so are not either of our favorites.We enjoy challenging ourselves by using color challenges that aren't the best for our stamp sets to keep things interesting. We then discussed a particular pin that we thought was a good idea but the placement of the circles bothered both of us. I will not put the pin here since we used it as a "not very good" example that we wanted to "fix. My first project was ok, but I did not like the placement of my Garden Green circles, believe it or not, it is very difficult to place large circles well!

I figured I would work on a better layout after we crafted. I wanted to create what would be a good layout according to my eye and would share the "fixed" result. I also wanted to create a beginning stamper one layer card to further demonstrate how nice a card like this looks when kept very basic.

The first image is the project that did not sit well with me. I do not like the two right circles lining up vertically. The top circle should be over to the right way more with a small amount of it bleeding off the edge.

The second image is much more natural looking to my eye with the top circle in a better location to balance out the layout. 

And just for fun the third image is a basic one layer card. I used a mask and re-stamped in the same-ish layout as what is on the second image. I then stamped the sentiment in the empty white space, and added the Soft Seafoam horizontal lines similar to the two casual projects with the popped up sentiment.

The colors still bother me, but it was a great exercise. Everyone sees things a little different, but I do hope you can tell how unbalanced the first image is. Leave me a comment and tell me if you agree, and if you disagree, let me know why. There isn't a right answer to art, it is all a matter of opinion, that is what makes it so fun!