Tic Tac Toe Challenge #5

Today I am playing over on the Tic Tac Toe Challenge #5. So you select your row and then you need to incorporate everything from that row into your card. My row is upper left to bottom right and includes having an inspiration photo to base your card on. I went searching on Pinterest for some Green & Gold inspiration and settled on these cups with a very art deco feel to them. I found gorgeous photos from home decor, stationary, invitations, fine china, front doors, wedding color schemes and just about anything else you can think of right down to green and gold wedding cakes and fancy wedding shoes. It is a beautiful combination and I happen to really like gold. I always prefer it over silver.

 
I die cut the Cover Plate: Twist from gold foiled cardstock to go over the top of my Vintage Jadeite Cardstock from Papertrey Ink.  This is a "new to me" color and I love it.   One of the things I really like about Papertrey Ink's Perfect Match Cardstock is that it is available in packs of 12, 24, or 50 sheets. So if it's a color I don't use as often, I can buy a smaller pack. This is so important to me because of the smaller amount of storage space required.  I cut a piece of the Vintage Jadeite to 4 3/16ths x 5 7/16ths, ran it through my die cut machine with the same die and the embossing mat to give it that inlaid look, then attached the die cut using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.

Cover Plate Dies are a fantastic way to make gorgeous cards with a whole lot of impact in a short period of time. Papertrey Ink carries a good selection and they are very reasonably priced. Once I had that adhered, I carefully laid the whole piece back into the die and ran it through with the embossing mat again to deepen the impression and make it look even more inlaid.  Fair warning - you can mess the whole panel up by doing this.  Trust me when I tell you this because I am the voice of experience.  Ahem....




I also used a My Favorite Things Oval Stax in two sizes and the Leaf Filled Flourish Die to go with my Peony. The peony is from Papertrey Ink's Peonies on Parade and I watercolored it using Worn Lipstick Distress Marker. The sentiment is from Graceful Greetings and I used the Graceful Greetings Coordinating Dies to cut it out after I stamped and heat embossed it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.

I'll also be entering this card over on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog for their "A Bit O Green" theme.

After my initial post I found "The Card Concept" Challenge #50 and this card is just the perfect thing for the Classy and Elegant Style Category. This is my first time playing over there, so I hope they like my entry. I also found another new challenge blog called Double D Challenges!  So excited to participate in more challenges.

Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget to set your clocks ahead one hour.  It's time to "Spring Forward".

A Party in a Card

Today's card is a celebration and when I mail it to my girlfriend who lives all the way in Charlotte, NC, I want her to feel like it's a "party in a card."  We are celebrating.  No, it's not her birthday, anniversary or Christmas.  We are celebrating NO MORE CHEMO and I know that is more than enough to make her SMILE!  My sweet friend has endured 18 months of Chemo every three weeks or so.  In October of 2014 after a routine Mammogram, they found Breast Cancer.  After further Testing, they found she is a BRCA Gene Carrier which was previously unknown because she is adopted. And of course, once they knew that, they decided to do not only a mastectomy but also a complete hysterectomy. It's better to be safe than sorry but I've watched this journey and it was hard to watch from the sidelines so I can't imagine living it.  Amanda is and has been so brave.  I wish she were the only friend I had who has been going through this but the important thing is that both of them are survivors.  My other friend still has a ways to go but she will do her last Chemo Treatment next Monday.

To start this card, nothing says festive to me more than some shimmer, sparkle and shine, so I started by spraying some Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist onto some Papertrey Ink Berry Sorbet Cardstock to create a shimmering background for the Papertrey Ink Cover Plate: Twist cut from Gold Foiled Cardstock.  Since the card stock is not going into a scrapbook, I've started using Gold Foiled Poster Board for my cards.  It's a lot less expensive and I only have to cut it down to a manageable size when I get it home with a decent pair of scissors.  It is frequently on sale for $1.09 at Hobby Lobby and I can use about all of the gold I want with this much less expensive version and I like that option, *Ü*.  It seems like the sheets come maybe 24 x 36 inches, so the equivalent of 5 sheets of 12 x 12 Gold Foiled Cardstock which costs $10.00 for just $1.09.  It works for me!  I attached it to the background panel using Ranger Multi Medium Matte holding it in place for just a few moments to set it.

Next I cut some Memory Box Elegant Leaves and used my embossing mat on them for the 2nd pass.  I arranged them on the left side of the card knowing that I wanted a label or medallion or something to go in the center of them to hold my sentiment.  For this, I ended up using a couple of new-to-me dies from the Papertrey Ink Stamp-A-Faire Renaissance Kit and a Circle Die.  The set I have is from Quickutz several; years ago and there must be a least a dozen different sizes in the set.  I cut the two dies from the kit in Gold Foil and the other in Gold Shimmer Vellum.  I cut another circle out of the Berry Sorbet to place behind it. Then I cut my "smile" sentiment out of gold foil and started adhering the layers. The smile sentiment is from a set of three words that came from Little Yellow Bicycle  and are some of my favorites for their size and their font. I adhered the center medallion using some thin foam squares for just a bit of dimension and gently curved the leaves up around it to give some additional texture.  I adhered the panel to a Standard A2 Top Folding Card Base made from Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select #110 White Cardstock.

The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog theme for this week is "Touchy Feely" and my card has lots of dimenion and texture that can be seen and felt.  I have another idea that I hope I can get to this afternoon or tomorrow!