A Real Challenge!

Aloha, all!

     My card for today was inspired by the Create With Connie and Mary New Catalog Edition challenge for Week 1.  It's a color challenge, including four of the colors in the new Comfort Cafe Designer Series Paper –  Summer Starfruit, Cajun Craze, Pool Party and Soft Suede.  It turned out that I only have a few sheets of the Comfort Cafe paper left from the project I did for Create With Connie and Mary as a Guest Designer for Week 1.  But it also turned out that the sheet I was looking for was still in stock in my Craft Room!  I looked out my craft room window towards my husband's gorgeous garden and immediately saw the layout for this card in my mind.  Then things got out of hand.

    Things got out of hand because, every time I started to work on an element, I thought, "What if I added this?"  As you know from my two immediately previous posts, I do answer myself when I ask such a question.  This time, up until the very last item on the card, the answer was, "Why not?!"

     The first two items were just fine:  Stamp one of the small images from the Stamp Set, Daydream Medallions and cut it with one of the New Floral Frame Framelits.  Good!  That was cool.  Hmmm, what if I added a circle to act as a mat for it?  Why not?!  And, while I'm at it, what if I embossed it with a folder?  OK, which one?  Ah, Vintage Wall Paper.  This is where it started getting hairy because I like to center elements that I emboss with this embossing folder.  OK, fine. To make things easier, I first ran the Cajun Craze Card Stock through the embossing folder and then punched the center of the largest design on the embossed card stock with the 1-1/4" Circle Punch, then mounted the Medallion stamped images onto the circles with Stampin' Dimensionals. 

     Knowing that I wanted these two images to be over at the side of a 4-1/4" high card, and knowing that I wanted this particular sheet of Comfort Cafe paper to be the main layer, I needed something to layer under the circles or to my thinking the card front would be too busy.  So what if I used the long thin piece from  the Apothecary Accents Framelits set?  Why not! 

     Nice fit, but those semicircles at the end just cried for something to be added to them.  Since I'd already decided on Antique Brads for the centers of the circles, brads at the end of the Apothecary Accent layer seemed a bit much.  What if I went back to the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder?  Why not!  Problem – there's nothing that naturally embosses a piece the size of the Apothecary Accent so that the two semicircles at the ends looked as nice as I'd hoped they worked. 

     This is where it got every hairier.  What if I folded a piece of card stock and cut the folded card stock so that it was just a little bit longer than the natural length of the Apothecary Accents piece?  Why not!  OK – after several tries, I found a piece that was just the length to pick up the centers of two of the floral images on the Vintage Wallpaper folder!  Mission accomplished.  But wait.  Why not take some of the challenge colors and mat the Apothecary Accents piece?  Whoa!  I am NOT folding card stock in two directions for this!  For one thing that would mean running the mat piece through the Sizzix Big Shot twice because those framelits are only really wonderful with at most two thicknesses of card stock.  So I just cut rectangles – from Pool Party and Cajun Craze – to mat the rectangular shape of the Summer Starfruit emobssed layer. 

     Ah, finally!  Add some ribbon – the lush new 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon – and we're done.  But wait!  We need a sentiment layer!  What if I used another image from the Apothecary Accents set?  Fab idea – why not!  And what if I just stamped the image from the stamp set, Layered Labels and punched out the center oval so as not to make the card too busy?  Why not.   And what if I embossed the Apothecary Accents piece with the Vintage Wallpaper folder?  Stop. No. Enough is enough!  Maybe next time, but not now.

     And so the design and execution of my "For You" card came to a peaceful end.  But you know what?  I had fun with it!  Although I'm sure glad I don't have to make this card again!

     I hope you have some fun with your paper crafting today – and I hope it doesn't take nearly as much work getting to the finished product as mine did!