More is More

WooHoo!  Any day I get to stamp two cards is a good day!  And I was even somewhat productive around the house besides.  I made time to do the SCS Sketch Challenge today and ended up making two cards for it.  🙂

The first card turned out nothing like my original plan, but I’m quite happy with the direction it went anyway.  The base is Really Rust (I’ve used more Really Rust in the past 2 weeks than in my entire stamping career!  LOL!) and it’s layered with Chocolate Chip and Apple Cider designer paper.  The sketch has 2 *strips* and the first thing I thought when I saw it was that I wanted to try this wide chocolate satin ribbon for the narrow strip.  I love the way it worked out.  I had originally stamped an image from Heartspeak to be watercolored (see next card), but just couldn’t make it work here, so I used the flower from True Friend.  To get the mottled effect on the flower I started by inking the whole thing with River Rock ink, then I went over it with markers (pumpkin, rust and chocolate) and lightly misted the rubber before stamping on Naturals Ivory cardstock.   I then covered the whole piece with Versmark and heat embossed with two layers of clear embossing powder.  I wish the smooth finish showed up better in the photo – it’s cool IRL!  The gem in the center of the flower is an orange Adorn It Jewel from eclectic Paperie.  I used blue ones on the next card.  I just love those things!

So I had this image from Heartspeak stamped on a Shimmer White diamond of cardstock and here’s what it turned into:

Is that such a sweet little image?  I had to have that set the minute I saw it in the catalog and I haven’t played with it nearly enough yet.  I played around with some different colors for this card and finally settled on Blue Bayou, Artichoke, Rose Red and Soft Sky.  I made the patterned background on Shimmer cardstock by stamping the Bouquet Jumbo wheel in Soft Sky and watercoloring the berries and leaves and adding some dots of Rose Red with Itty Bitty Backgrounds.  The Rose Red and Artichoke grosgrains are from Fabric Barn here in Long Beach – they match amazingly well (better IRL than in the photo).  The sentiment is from So Many Sayings and in order to layer it I simply punched out 2 pieces of Rose Red with the Word Window punch and glued them slightly offset behind the Soft Sky piece.

This was a fun sketch and I’m so glad I was able to make time to play today!  I think it’s really cool how one sketch can produce two such different cards from the same person!

My poor hubby is sick with a terrible cold.  He managed to work about 3/4 of the day today, but he’s miserable and went to bed super early.  Practically everyone at my office has been sick over the past two weeks.  Both my parents and my uncle have all been sick.  I feel like I’m just waiting for the inevitable – ugh.  It will be a  small miracle if I come through unscathed!  I’m praying for that small miracle!  Just in case, though, I went to the grocery store today and got provisions!  LOL!

I still need to share the cards from my Holiday Mini swap – soon I promise.  Thanks for stopping by.