Not my usual inspiration piece...

As I was checking out the Curiosity Shoppe for this week's SCS inspiration challenge, I found myself drawn to something far from what I would normally pick. It's a book cover. I just loved the colors, and it also brought to mind the Medallion stamp - you know the one - you're seeing it everywhere, right? Well, I haven't inked mine up yet, but this was the perfect time. I am also using something else for the first time: the Naturals cardstock that is, sadly, now retired. My wonderful upline, Nola, gave me this pack as a gift and I can't believe I never broke it open while these were still available.

I interpreted the colors of the inspiration piece a bit loosely in order to use some of the In Colors. On a panel of naturals ivory cardstock I stamped the medallion in soft suede. Then I punched out the center of a bermuda bay medallion and added a vanilla hodgepodge hardware brad (colored with timber brown Stazon) in the center. I filled the empty space on the panel with images from the Charming set, using soft suede and dusty durango in generation stamping - I think I got all the way down to fourth generation! I wanted to have it be quite light. I used a bermuda bay layer and a card base made from the retired Taste of Textiles metallic copper cardstock - something else I never used before it retired! It's too bad we don't have it anymore because it looks amazing with soft suede. To make the card nice and grungy I sponged everything with soft suede.

The sentiment from Short & Sweet is framed by another of the Charming images, then adhered over dusty durango ribbon, turned with the solid side out. The upper left corner seemed to need something in bermuda bay for balance, so I cut out flowers with one of the Birds & Blooms dies, sponged them with soft suede, and used a vanilla brad in the center.

What do you think? I'm not sure how I feel about it... but it was fun using some of my new goodies that hadn't seen ink yet. Hopefully there will be more to come in the next few days!