Inspiration Challenge #21: Floragraphix

My mailbox has been letting me down lately. Where are all the catalogs with the wonderful inspiration pieces? Hrmph. I decided to go browsing online and I ended up at equilter.com. Yes, in a former life, I was trying to learn to quilt. I was blessed with two Mennonite grandmas who were both amazing quilters, and I thought that would be a good thing for me to carry on. Well, it wasn't to be. It turns out that my favorite part was choosing the fabrics and patterns, and I liked the piecing OK, but I never, ever finished a single project. The quilting did me in. I like to think that I'm channeling my grandmas in my cardmaking, since I feel much the same process going on when I'm choosing what goes on my cards. The nice thing about making cards, though - they're easier to finish than quilts!

Anyway. So I was browsing fabrics and this one took my breath away. I thought, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but I have to use it! The fabric is called Floragraphix and it's from the Jason Yenter Bohemian Brights collection. Feel free to take your inspiration from anything you see that grabs you - just be sure to show us! This week's keyword for uploading to SCS is DSIC21.

The collection has lots of butterflies - I'm not much of a butterfly person when it comes to stamping, so instead I focused on the swirls and medallions, the silhouette and scroll at the bottom, and the beautiful colors. I went with certainly celery, tempting turquoise, basic black, and whisper white. For the layout I used today's sketch challenge on SCS.

The focal image I chose is by Stampers Anonymous. Inspired by the look of the fabric, I used my Carte Postale stamps along with it. I did the upper right panel first by stamping the flourish medallion (is that what you call it? I don't know) in black, the flowers in turquoise, and the scroll in white craft ink on a scrap of celery patterned paper. Then I took a turquoise cardstock sheet and stamped the scroll and medallion in turquoise and the flowers in white. Once it was dry, I stamped the silhouette in black over top.

I used my Baroque Border wheel to reproduce the scroll at the bottom of the fabric. I inked the wheel in white craft ink and rolled onto black cardstock. Then, because I wanted it really really white, I colored over the wheeled border with a white gel pen. Crazy, right? But it stands out much better this way.

For all the corners I used my EK Success scalloped corner rounder punch, then inked the edges with basic black. Tip of the day: To ink those scalloped corners, just use the very corner of the ink pad and you can get right in there with no problem.

When I assembled the layers, I realized that the celery and turquoise weren't overlapping in a way that I liked. So I layered the silhouette panel between the small turquoise layer and the celery paper layer, and now you can see all the colors distinctly.

The sentiment is by Hero Arts and is stamped in turquoise on whisper white. I kinda wished I'd stamped it in black, but I didn't feel like doing it over! The scrolls behind are celery stamped off once on scrap paper first. I used the large oval punch to cut it out, offsetting the words to the left so I had room to punch a slot for the ribbon. I punched a corresponding slot in the black layer and tied small strips of turquoise and celery ribbon after mounting the oval on foam tape.

So what do you think? I'm not sure I love my card as much as I loved the fabric, but it's growing on me! I'd love to see what you do with this challenge. Have a great day!