OCC sketch, Color Throwdown

I'm back from vacation! We had a great time in Mexico. Maybe someday I'll get some photos up, but not this week. I had no choice but to schedule my stamp club for the Friday after we got back, which was yesterday, so there has barely been time for anything else.

I did need to do my card for the latest challenge over at Our Creative Corner. Linda is wrapping up her hostess month with a fun sketch challenge, so be sure you check it out. I hope I didn't tinker with this one too much - it kind of took on a life of its own! I also played along with the Color Throwdown challenge. Of course I had to tweak that one as well - hopefully no one minds that I used vanilla instead of white with my pretty in pink, chocolate chip and old olive.

I tried something different with my background shapes by using the Top Note die cuts. I wanted to stay SUO and not use Nestabilities so that's how I ended up here. What do you think? The paper is from Sending Love. I adhered these to a 5.5" square panel of chocolate chip cardstock, then wrapped this wide striped chocolate chip ribbon around the panel before I adhered it to a 5.5" square vanilla card base.

One thing I wish were different with this card - I think the focal image should be bigger. The balance looks a bit off to me. But I didn't have time to start over so I went with this anyway. The flower is from Friends 24-7, stamped with chocolate chip and colored with pink and olive markers. I used the scallop trim border and corner punches on the chocolate chip layer. Once I'd adhered that panel with dimensionals, I had room to add a knot of ribbon to the right of the image.

The sketch indicated something in the upper right and lower left corners. I first put the two pearls in the upper right, figuring that I would balance them with a third pearl somewhere else. That ended up going on the sentiment, which is from Think Happy Thoughts. Isn't it cool that the flowers from the DP fit perfectly inside the flowers on the Flower Trio punch? You can only punch one at a time, but it looks super cute and gave me a great place to put my pearl.

When all of this was done, I felt like I needed one more olive green something, somewhere. I tried a few things but ended up tying a Playground button to the ribbon with linen thread. It's a very big ribbon treatment, but it really fixed the balance problem with the green. That's one thing I love about stamping and cardmaking - I'm always learning new things, and I think this card taught me a few things.

That's it from me - now go take a peek at all the other wonderful creations from our fabulous team! And have a wonderful weekend!