Saturday, January 19, 2008

VSN, day 2

Today was pretty busy - not as much time to stamp as yesterday. But I still got three cards done - only two for VSN, though. It's just too tough with having the kids on my own most of the day.

Enough whining... here's the first card. The challenge was to use bling - do you think I got enough on there? This was a tough one to photograph and I think it's better in person, but ah well. I started the whole thing with the papers from DCWV's Luxury Stack - I've had this in my stash for ages but haven't touched it till today. It's metallic pearlized paper and just so elegant. I figured embossing was the only way to get stamping to work on this paper, and that let me add some more sparkle with the Ranger embossing tinsel (over Versamark). It's fabulous stuff. The "love" stamp is by Rubber Stampede. Something else new to me was the SU photo corner punch - I pulled it out and realized I had no idea what to do with it! After browsing some blogs and galleries I decided to layer the stamping on silver cardstock and repeat one of the papers on the photo corners. Of course I had to use my fun Making Memories crystal brads again! The embossed swirl background on vanilla (Art Impressions) and silver organdy ribbon were last-minute additions that really made the center panel just pop out. I had a few false starts and lots of interruptions doing this card, so I'm not sure I really made the 45-minute time limit, but I *think* I would have been OK!

My next VSN card was for the next-to-last challenge, which was a follow the list challenge that you can find here. It seemed pretty challenging based on the list, but I made life easier by going to some SU coordinating stuff - my adored Carte Postale set, the matching paper Le Jardin, and - initially - the French Flair background stamp. In the end I thought the swirly background was too busy so I swapped it out for the Linen stamp instead. It always looks so classy. I picked artichoke, river rock and vanilla cardstock to go with my two prints, and for embellishments used gold brads, river rock ribbon, and for bling my clear gel pen. I wanted to keep it subtle. The flower stamp is all I ended up using from Carte Postale, with a sentiment from Warm Words. To make the flowers soft I stamped the artichoke and river rock off once before going around the sentiment. I did use the paper piercer to make the brad holes, but the punched ovals (Marvy) are the only visible sign of the required tools. I really enjoyed Frances's challenge and I think I ended up with a lovely wedding card out of it.

The third card from today was for the inspiration challenge - couldn't miss that one, of course. I love how it turned out, and for once I will direct you to my SCS gallery here for the details instead of the other way around!

No comments: