The Color Throwdown & Fusion Challenge

I am popping in with a quick card this morning. I made this card yesterday but I didn't photograph it until this morning. The Color Throwdown #451 has these pretty colors of dark pink, light pink, green and white.  The Fusion Challenge has a great sketch this week and I wanted to try mixing a couple different patterned papers which I am not that great at doing.  I wanted to give it a shot so I selected two coordinating patterned papers and decided to incorporate the two challenges into one card by combining the key elements of color and sketch.

I started with a top folding card base made from Hibiscus Burst Card Stock. I die cut the My Favorite Things Stitched Rectangle from Blueprints #15 from the pink and rose striped paper for my background layer.  Next I cut two smaller Stitched Rectangles using the second largest of the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Dies; one from a different patterned paper and one from New Leaf Cardstock.  I adhered everything using the sketch as my layout design.  I wanted something simple to bring that pop of green onto the foreground so I die cut one of the Spellbinders Romantic Leaves and then popped the sentiment on top of that.

I finished off the card with a few sparkling clear sequins from Simon Says Stamp.  The ones I have are an assortment of sizes in one package which works best for how I use them.

This is it for now.  I have a few other projects on my desk this morning to finish but I am getting dental work done this afternoon so I don't know if I'll be back today or not.  I might come back and work until the anesthesia wears off.  LOL! Have a great day everyone!  I hope you'll come back soon.

The Challenge #91

This week at The Challenge we have a sketch up for you! I have only recently been doing Sketch Challenges but I am enjoying using them as my starting place for my cards.  I hope I never get stuck in a rut but sketches are a great way to be inspired by a fresh approach to card making.  The Challenge on the Always Playing With Paper Blog has a sketch challenge about once a month.  This allows me to use the same products in a different way than I might have previously. Let's face it, stamps and dies are a significant investment of both time and money, so I want to stretch mine as far as I can.  

I wanted to use a combination of Green and Navy for my card so I started by water coloring the panel using Lucky Clover Distress Ink. Using a No. 8 Round Silver Black Velvet Brush, I wet the panel in a circular pattern and then added a heavy concentration of color and let it move with the water.  I put a few drops of reinker on an acrylic block to get this heavy concentration.  I left it alone (as much as is humanly possible for me) so I could get those hard, fringed edges. Once the watercolor was dry I hit it with some Tattered Angels Iridescent Gold Shimmer Mist and let it dry completely before die cutting the panel with the Gift Card Layers Die from WPLUS9.  The largest die in this set cuts a full A2 sized stitched rectangle panel.  

I cut the widest and 2nd widest strips from the My Favorite Things Horizontal Stitched Strips Die out of Dark Indigo and Gold as well as the "Celebrate" die from Gold Foiled Cardstock. Next I stamped the "You Did It" phrase from the Birthday Cheer Stamp Set onto the Dark Indigo strip using Versamark and heat set it with Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I adhered the Dark Indigo layer to the gold layer using tape runner and the word die using Ranger Multi Medium Matte. A strip of fun foam was placed beneath the horizontal strip to attach it to the card. Using the banner from the Tag Sale: Quilted Die, I folded it so that two ends would show underneath the horizontal strips as in the sketch. I assembled it all to an A2 Top Folding Card Base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  I added a few Pretty Pink Posh Metallic Gold 6mm Sequins to add the finishing touch.

Be sure to stop over at the Always Playing With Paper Blog and see all of the projects from the design team.  As always, there is some fantastic inspiration among my teammates.  We hope you'll be able to join is this week!

The Challenge #86

Hello everyone and welcome! Today's card is for The Challenge where we have a sketch challenge for you this week.  I realized as I was finishing up my project that I did no stamping on my project - alas, the reason I struggle to use patterned papers! So this post is an example of what you can do if you don't have time to stamp something but you still need a card for a special occasion.  Lesley provided dimensions for you or you can wing it which is what I have done. Even though there isn't any stamping on this card, I really like how this card came together.

All of the papers came from the same 6x6 paper pad from My Mind's Eye Fancy That Collection. I had some of these papers a few years ago from a Simon Says Stamp Card Kit and loved them! Then when we were in Dallas for Christmas last year, I picked three more pads up at Michaels. Because these papers were all meant to work together, it was super easy to pull a coordinated look together.  

I love the way color blocking looks and I wanted to incorporate that into my card. This particular sheet comes with 4 stripes, but I cut off the eggshell white stripe and then used it for one of my vertical pieces (#4).  The color blocked panel was cut with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die in the largest size. I used a bit of washi tape to hold it in place so it wouldn't come out crooked.


The paper with the Gold Confetti on it was cut with a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle two sizes down from the largest.  This pattern has the gold confetti bits going all around with open space in the center so I positioned the die to include the confetti in primarily one corner.  The pale pink confetti piece is cut from the pattern that has much more confetti on the whole pattern and it was perfect for the little banner. That banner was cut from the Number The Stars Die by Papertrey Ink.  I use that die A LOT along with a couple of other ones from Papertrey that I use all the time.  Tag Sale Quilted has a banner the perfect size to go across a card and is another that I leave out all the time.  It has stitching all the way around and I love that.

Since I had two papers that used the Confetti, by the time I got this far, I thought it would make a fun and festive Birthday Card so I cut the "Happy Birthday" using a Penny Black Die that I have had for quite a few years.  I have several stamp sets that I could have used to stamp a greeting, but I wanted the gold to coordinate so I used the die.  The star is one from Spellbinders that cuts and embosses at the same time.  It has a long curly tail on it, but I had previously cut it off thinking I would use it for another project and then didn't. But I don't throw those things out so it was sitting there in my little container of "parts and pieces" as I call them. I try to keep all but the smallest scraps of any specialty paper as well and for a coordinated line such as this one, they get their own file pocket so that when I am trying to pull a look together, everything is right there.  

I assembled everything onto a top folding Horizontal Card Base made from Papertrey Ink's True Black Cardstock.  Whenever I use a black note card, I always put a white panel on the inside to write or stamp on.  I've found this much easier than trying to find a pen that works well on black cardstock.

Thank you so much for joining me today.  I hope you'll leave a comment and be sure to check out all the projects the design team has created to inspire you.  You can find the blog post here.