Whiff of Joy DT call / Anniversary card...

Katharina of Whiff of Joy is holding a call for a guest designer (see details here) and I wanted to enter since I just love her stamps! I knew I still needed to make an anniversary card for DH, so I decided to kill two birds with one card, ahem, stone. :)

I looked through all of the great sketches Katharina has posted on her blog, and knew I had to play with this one as soon as I saw it. However, the long oval didn't really work for what I had in mind, so I rotated the layout 90 degrees for my card.

I purchased this adorable Lily & Milo hand in hand stamp a while back, intending to use it for my anniversary card for DH. We used to go walking for hours when we were first dating, so it just seemed perfect. The image was colored in with Copic markers, and then highlighted here and there with a white gel pen. The gorgeous designer papers on this card are all from a 6x6 pad of Basic Grey Infuse. I love this paper, and am kicking myself that I didn't buy a second pad of it when I had the chance. *sigh* I've been hoarding it since it is so pretty, but DH is worth the good stuff, right? LOL!

The "I want to hold your hand" sentiment is from Feeling Groovy by Verve Stamps. DH is a BIG time Beatles fan, so in addition to being perfect for the image on this card, the sentiment had personal meaning for him. The set has several other sentiments from Beatles songs, so I knew I had to buy it as soon as I saw it.

The oval and matching scallop were cut using my Cuttlebug and Nestabilities dies, and the scalloped edges are the new SU punch. I finished off the card with a few Prima flowers with Bella's Baubles for centers, and a piece of the yummy new SU Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon.

*side note* DH really seemed to like the card, and commented that the colored image looked like something you'd see in a quality children's book. That was a compliment, right? LOL! He then went on to note that I really seem to like those cute people images lately. If he only knew! Good thing he doesn't check out my stamp room very often!

*disclaimer* I apologize that the photo isn't as true-to-life as it could be. The bulb in the true color lamp I use for taking photos blew, and I haven't had a chance to get to the store for a new one.

Mojo Monday #49

I decided to try out the Mojo Monday sketch challenge hosted by Julee of Verve stamps on her blog, Poetic Artistry. I don't do sketch challenges very often as I find needing to work off a particular layout tends to block my creativity and I spend way longer on a card than I would if I was just designing from scratch, but I really liked this sketch and had an idea for it almost immediately. (Though I have to admit that it still took me 2+ hours to finish this card. I could decide what colors I liked best for the flowers and kept trying out different color combinations...)

As I mentioned previously, I was one of the lucky winners of Beautiful You at the Verve anniversary party. My set arrived yesterday (THANK YOU, JULEE!!!), so of course I had to use the flower from it for this sketch. The sentiment is from another Verve stamp set, Feeling Groovy.

For the center panel, I stamp the flower in the center, and then stamped it again in each corner. The petals were colored in with Copic markers (I used R89 and RV10.). I then cut out the center flower, covered the RV10 with pink stickles and set it aside to dry. The two sides were matted onto a piece of black cs, with extra room in the middle so that when I put the flower back in the center (using a pop dot) it left a nice black boarder around it.

I did a lot of embossing with my cuttlebug for this card. The small white dots at the top are the Swiss Dots folder, the large at the bottom are the new Just My Type folder, and the red was done using the Birds and Swirls folder. I didn't have red cs that was an exact match for the color I used in the image, so I sponged some Purely Pomegranate ink onto the red after it went through the cuttlebug to darken it up a bit.

After the card was assembled, I decided it need just a little something more, so I went digging through my cross stitch supplies. I found pretty little beads from Mill Hill, and used them for the center of the flower, and to make little berries on the red cs.

This was actually a very frustrating card to photograph. For some reason, the pink is coming out much darker than it is in real life, and the red isn't as vibrant. *sigh*