Cherry Blossom Birthday

I still haven't had the kind of quality time I long for in my scrap room over the past few days, but I did manage to get one card finished and another one started. I am working on some cards to enter into the Fall DT contest at SCS in the Clean and Simple Forum. Jen (MissBoo) has put together three seperate challenges for us to follow.

Her first challenge is to create a card using the sketch seen in THIS card.

I decided to go a Oriental. I hadn't had a chance to ink up my cute little Hero Arts Japanese dolls that I bought a while back so now was the time!

Here is what I made...




The doll is paper pieced using some BG DP from the Lemonade collection. The cherry blossom branches are from SU. I colored them in using a mix of Copics. The sentiment is from Custer's Last Stamp which I stamped in SU ink (Sage Shadow). I added a light gray outline around the doll and gave her a shadow underneath her and then I sponged the background to give a little more color. To finish it off I added the strip of paper up top that I used a MS Border Punch on and then added the trim and the oriental coin to complete the piece!

To see the rest of the submissions, you can visit the gallery HERE!

Thanks for taking a look! I am hoping for a nice Monday. Sunday wasn't so nice with four deliveries at work! Today I have to find some time to get my son some back-to-school clothes. He starts back tomorrow and has grown like a weed over the summer!

Have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with blossoms of happiness!

A Quick Card Post!

I survived my last day on call and am enjoying the first of five days that I have off from work. Since I do my full time job on call plus half of another person's call days each month, it is rare for me to get a stretch of time off like this. I soooo need it and am excited to have some uninterupted time in my stamp room to play and get caught up on some cards and projects I need to finish!

The card I am going to show you today was made on Monday between attending deliveries, but I couldn't get it posted until today. It is a challenge card from the SCS Clean and Simple Forum.

The challenge was to use the Rock and Roll technique on your card which is something that I hadn't ever tried before and I kind of liked it. The stamp I chose may have been a little too narrow to make it work the best, but I still like the varied coloration that the technique provided for the bamboo stamp that I used.

Here is the Clean and Simple card that I made...

The stamp is from Unity and is one of the silhouettes in the Gratitude = Joy stamp set. The sentiment is and oriental Happy Birthday stamp from Custer's Last Stamp. The DP is Basic Grey from one of their older lines called Perhaps (Fierbird). The colors of the paper matched really closely to the SU ink colors I used So Saffron and Creamy Caramel. The green ink was also SU, Certainly Celery and Old Olive. The band of Asian paper is a DP by Zsiage called Confucious Say What? (Dream Borders).

Here is a little better view of how the Rock and Roll Technique came out. See how the edges are darker? I think it offers a more realistic look . Colors in nature aren't solid, they have depth and dimension.

To stamp this image it took a lot of masking and overstamping, but all in all I like how it turned out. I think it could be either masculine or feminine because of the the touch of black and the simplicity of it!

Thanks for looking and I hope to be back more with some projects I get done today and tomorrow!

Have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with time to spend in your stamp room creating to heart's desire!