Papertrey Ink hosted a Stamp-a-Faire on Saturday. There were nine different challenges with video tutorials. I’ve watched all the videos, and they were all wonderful, but time constraints limited me to participating in just three of them. I picked the three I thought would be most challenging, since they involved brand new products (gold leaf paint) or techniques I often struggle with. The first was Gilded with Gold by Danielle Flanders. I didn’t start with any vision for a card, and ended up with four cards, none of which I’m thrilled with. Why four? So many attempts went south, I had bits and pieces all over my desk which ended up as cards. I definitely love the gold leaf paint (I purchased Martha Stewart’s), and learned quite a bit in the process. The next time won’t be so fraught with difficulties!

Here’s the first one, and probably my favorite.

Looking for something else entirely, I came across a scrap of vellum with gold dots, and a card I had previously scored six times. The vellum piece fit in exactly right.

Next up, I tried adding gold leaf to a couple of Maile Belle’s “Black and White” patterned papers. The first time I dotted on some gold leaf between the black stripes.

Then I tried adding some gold stripes to this design:

I ended up with one Love die cut (Wonderful Words) and it fit perfectly onto this piece of patterned paper from the “Star Scribbles” pack of papers.

 

 

The second challenge I took on was Kay Miller’s watercolor challenge. She’s a master at watercoloring, and I was so interested in her technique which combines stamping with watercoloring. I ended up sticking very close to Kay’s design. I didn’t have the Berry Sorbet ink so substituted Melon Berry which is a much more subdued color. I think it worked out alright though, and it will make for a good fall birthday card.

I was pretty happy with this one, and my husband who rarely comments on my cards, said he liked it a lot.

The last challenge I took on was Amy Sheffer’s Starry Night challenge. As soon as I saw it I was taken with it, but didn’t have high hopes that I could pull it off. My ink blending skills leave a lot to be desired, so when I finished this card, I was really pleased. For once, I took my time and let everything dry before moving on to the next stage.

It also gave me an opportunity to use the new sentiment set, Number the Stars. I stamped the banner with Enchanted Evening, and backed it with the same banner cut from silver paper. I had some silver thread which is one of the elements on Amy’s card, and added some sequins and silver stars in my stash.

I also splattered some white acrylic paint and some silver metallic watercolors. Finally got the splatter technique down! You can’t see it from the photos, but I added some Wink of Stella glitter to the banner as well.

I have a couple other challenges I’d like to try, but won’t have time to get to them until long after the galleries close. Given my schedule this weekend, I’m happy to have managed these three. 

 

It’s the 25th of the month and the day for the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop Challenge. No surprise, I’m still working on the Stamp-a-Faire projects, and hope I’ll be back later with another post before the galleries close tomorrow morning. I didn’t want to miss the chance to participate in this month’s blog hop, though, because the minute I saw the inspiration photo, I had an idea for the card.

The idea was contingent on the Papertrey order arriving in time, which it did. I knew I wanted to use the new “Some Like It Hot” set which features one of my favorite flowers, the hibiscus. I used the colors in the photos–aqua and orange, the diamond pattern on the wall for my background, and the gray carpet as the card base. I would never have chosen gray had it not been for the photo, but it turned out to be a great choice.

It’s not often that a card turns out the way I envisioned it from the start, but this one did. I stamped the hibicus on separate card, masking them to group them together, and then fussy cut them out, and popped them up with some foam tape on the diamond embossed background. It’s been awhile since I pulled out an embossing folder (Quickcutz). I die cut “birthday” with the Swoosh die and the small stamp sentiment came from Swoosh as well. It just needed a few clear sequins to finish it off.

Until I purchased a MISTI, getting the layers right for multi-stamped images was always a struggle. The MISTI solves those problems. I used three different inks for each of the flowers, and love the dimension you get with these. 

I’m babysitting for my new granddaughter this afternoon, but hope to be back in the craft room later today. You can see others’ interpretations of the inspiration piece right here.