30 Days of Blogging

Hmmm...I seem to remember mentioning that my goal was to post something on my blog every day in April. Well somehow April 1st has come and almost gone, but I've still got an hour and 18 minutes to get in my first post for the month! Everything I've been stamping lately can't be unveiled until this weekend when the LOSTies reveal their spring card kit creations, so I went back and found a card I stamped a few months ago but never shared.

I find that I very rarely use purple on my cards, but I'm thinking I should start more often! The purples here are Plum Pudding and Lavendar Moon from Papertrey Ink, and the green is Spring Moss, also from PTI. I pulled this color combo from the Polka Dot Parade patterned paper collection from, you guessed it, PTI! The main image is made up of two sizes of flowers from the Verve set called Meditations. I layered them with a dimensional in between and finished it off with Stardust Stickles in the center of the flower. The sentiment is from PTI's Mixed Messages, the ribbon is Lavendar Moon twill, and the background was created with PTI's Polka Dot Basics stamped in Plum Pudding and dotted with a white gel pen. That's about it!

See you tomorrow!

Mojo Monday 75

This card was for the Verve Mojo Monday sketch #75. I flipped the sketch vertically because I wanted it to fit the sentiment I chose, which is from Verve's Meditations stamp set. I made this for a co-worker whose brother unexpectedly passed away. Those who know me know how close I am with my brother, so to me that is one of the worst things I can imagine. There's not much I can do to comfort her, but hopefully this card brought a quick second of calm to her.

The main image panel features the butterfly and part of the large swirly vine from PTI's With Sympathy. I have to say, I'm loving this set! And not just for sympathy cards - I've made 3 or 4 cards with it just since it arrived last week, and this is the only one that's actually a sympathy card! The vine is stamped in Spring Moss and the butterfly is in Lemon Tart. I pulled my color scheme from the patterned paper, which is from PTI's Polka Dot Parade Collection. This card took me a while because it's more layers than I'm used to doing on layouts I design myself, but I liked stepping out of the box. Having so many components to a sketch forces me to use more of my supplies too! The 7 dots beneath the image are 1/4" circles punched out of Aqua Mist cardstock with a clear gemstone adhered to each of them. I pierced both pieces of Spring Moss cardstock to frame the image and the sentiment and stamped the scallops with my SU punch.

Viva la Verve Challenge #4

This card is for the 4th and final Viva la Verve Challenge. The twist for this one was to use some acetate. I REALLY struggled with this card - it took me over two hours to come up with the design and put it all together, which is a really long time considering I had the layout already decided for me! I pretty much never use acetate on my cards, so I was really stumped as to what to do. I don't have any full sheets, so there wasn't enough to use as a card base. The only acetate I had were the pieces that my PTI stamps come on - I knew I was saving those for a reason!

I ended up stamping the verse, which is my absolute favorite verse in the whole Bible, on the acetate with Palette Noir ink. I then stamped the cross with Rose Red onto PTI white cardstock and attached the acetate to the cardstock with the black brads.

I had left the white panel on the right blank at first, but sort of thought it was a little too plain, so I decided to try the polka dots to give sort of a reverse of the ribbon. I don't know how I feel about the polka dots - is it too "busy"?

I did not plan on adding that sentiment on the right - to me, the Bible verse was the sentiment. But then I looked at the sketch again and realized that sentiment strip was a component of the sketch and I didn't want to be ineligible to win just because I left that off. So, I used markers to color just the first few words of one of my Verve Plain Jane verses and stamped it on the little strip. I think it fits well with the message of the card, but I'm not sure how it works with the look of the card and everything else I've got going on there.

So that's it for the Verve challenges! I really enjoyed doing these, even the ones that took me a very long time! It's fun to have a jumping off point for the creative process, and sketches are my favorite type of challenge. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that I somehow win the grand prize and all those fabulous new Verve stamps!

Viva La Verve Challenge #3

For the third Viva la Verve challenge, the twist was to make a monochromatic card using the sketch. Clearly, I went with pink! The image is from PTI's Butterfly Kisses. I traced the wings with a clear spica glitter pen and the body is covered in Cotton Candy Stickles. The flowers are from the Target $1 Spot, and the pink gemstone brad is from Making Memories. I painted the flower with opal Shimmerz and really love how it looks in person with that extra sparkle! The ink, pink cardstock, and patterned paper is from SU, the white cardstock is from PTI, and the sentiment is from PTI's Birthday Basics.