The Card Concept Challenge – Fun with Red & White!

Aloha, all!

This post is getting out almost a day late as we here on Hawaii’s Big Island have been dealing with earthquakes and threats of lava breakouts near the Volcano. And guess where we live? Yep, right in the thick of it. So it’s been a bit on the stressful side, and probably will until we see what happens. If you follow my personal page on Facebook, there is a picture of what we’re dealing with.

But meanwhile, it’s time – past time! – for the new The Card Concept challenge, “Bold Bloom.” Here’s the photo we on the Design Team were given to come up with our own card.

No matter how I looked at this picture – I even turned it sideways and upside down! – I kept focusing on the window blinds, which reminded me of the Simple Stripes Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. This folder was first introduced in the still-current Stampin’ Up! 2018 Occasions Catalog, and will continue into the upcoming 2018-2019 Annual Catalog. So I started with the embossing folder.

After that, I had to figure out how I was going to channel that beautiful red flower. Believe me, I tried just about every different kind of 3-Dimensional flower that I know how to make with current Stampin’ Up! product, and nothing looked like I wanted it to. While The Card Concept in no way features Stampin’ Up! products, I’m a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, and I really do try to use their products in my projects. So I ended up with a 2-Dimensional Real Red flower, using one of the dies from the May Flowers Framelits set (and this is my first post in May, so that’s appropriate!). To give it a bit more color, I punched a piece of the Real Red cardstock using the 1-3/8″ Scallop Circle Punch, from the Occasions Catalog.

For a bit of embellishment, I added a Gold Faceted Gem to the middle of the flower and a piece of  Real Red 1/8″ Solid Ribbon around the card front. The final touch was a sentiment from the Retiring Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set. This will certainly be a nice card to send to a friend as a “just because” card!

Here are the Stampin’ Up! products that I used in this project. The only thing that’s retiring is the stamp set. Everything else is going to continue to be around for at least another year. By all means order any of them you might be thinking about and I’ll be using them to show off in projects throughout the next 12 months. For sure if you’re thinking about the Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set, now is the time to purchase. Stamps are guaranteed to be available for another couple of weeks; but then they start being discontinued as it gets closer to new catalog time.

And be sure to check out the rest of the Design Team projects and enter one of your projects in the challenge!