Natural Elements

For this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner our hostess, Linda Coughlin, has a recipe challenge: use light neutrals as your main color(s), dark neutrals as accent color(s), and both lace AND buttons. I played around with different ideas for a really long time - which is probably not evident by my CAS card. You'll just have to take my word for it! ;)

When I saw the challenge I immediately gravitated toward my favorite neutral color combo: Very Vanilla, River Rock and Basic Black. If lace and buttons were going to be involved that made me think of something pretty and vintage-style, so that led me to Elements of Style. I didn't do anything to the image except sponge the edges with River Rock. The lace was the hardest thing to incorporate - it's not something I'm usually drawn to. I was digging around through boxes of old stuff and nothing was grabbing me, and then I remembered that SU had black lace in the holiday mini last year. Jackpot! After experimenting for a while I ended up just using a couple strips as accents over the streamlined striped background. I also looked and looked for the perfect buttons - these little guys from my stash finally made the cut, and I threaded them with matching embroidery floss. The sentiment didn't come easily, either - I tried lots of punches and nothing looked right, then I realized - duh! - I could just stamp a little sentiment right onto the image. This sweet little saying is from On the Grow (in the summer mini).

I know you will want to visit the OCC blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with - their creations are always fabulous! Then get out your neutrals and play along with the challenge - it's a fun one!