Butterflies and Stars

This first card is inspired from this sketch FTL187 from Clean and Simple Stamping:

Here is the link if you would like to join in the fun and see what others have created: http://cleanandsimplestamping.blogspot.com/2012/04/ftl187-just-note.html

 I am disappointed in how the card turned out. I worked hard and long on it and thought about scrapping it altogether but after all the time I had put into it I felt I needed to keep the card.  After all just because I don't like it someone else might really like it. I think it is the gingham paper that just isn't working. And the stars I made didn't turn out quite like I thought they would. I had to turn the sketch so I could fit in the stars. I added a white star gemstone to the center of the big star. That seemed to help a bit.

And instead of a straight end of the gingham paper I cut it into a ribbon on the bottom and I embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder. The stars are die cut and embossed with Spellbinder dies out of watercolor paper and I used three different blue distress inks and three different red distress inks. I used the direct to paper method of inking them then spritzed them with Perfect Pearls to blend the colors. I had enough stars left to make two more cards.

For my second card I used this color blocked sketch from I Spy Sketch Challenge:

And oh boy you should see the cute cards the Secret Agents created! Here is the link: http://ispysketches.blogspot.com/2012/04/issc13-with-dawn-mercedes.html

Now for my card:

 This is my favorite of the three cards! There for a while I thought I had lost my mojo and almost gave up after the first card. I am also entering this card in the Tuesday Trigger Challenge over at the Moxie Fab World where every Tuesday Cath puts up an image to inspire us. This was a two weeker thank goodness as I didn't get around to making something for it last week. Here is the image:

Look at all those beautiful water color butterflies! Check out the Tuesday Trigger yourself here: http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2012/04/tueday-trigger-watercolor-butterflies.html 

Instead of butterflies I went with stars since I have been working on Patriotic cards. I used a different embossed cardstock for each of the color blocks. The white cardstock was already embossed and is from DCWV. The other two are embossed with Cuttlebug embossing folders.



This time I layered the three stars together and put a clear gemstone star on the top. It took me a while to figure out where to put the star. I finally decided to turn the sketch on its side and add the two rows of scalloped borders and wrapped a ribbon around the the whole thing.







I stamped the sentiment with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on red cs and matted that with a scrap leftover from the white embossed paper. I decided the layered star looked better on the border instead of in one of the blocks and put the sentiment under the star in the navy block.

For my third and final card for this week I used sketch #48 from The Deconstructed Sketch:

I thought this was a unique sketch and here is my take on it:

 I had one lonely blue star left to use! I stayed pretty true to the sketch. I just added a punched star border and after I was done with the card I kept thinking it just didn't look quite right so I got out my trusty corner rounder that seems to be just the thing to fix things like this. And once again it did the trick.

 I used  three rows of Michael's Craft Tape and after I stamped the word happy I thought it needed a little bit more of a punch so I got out a black Glaze pen and went over it. You can see how it now

has a shine to it as well as just a bit of dimension. Those Glaze pens are my new found must have craft item. I think I need more colors now that I have used them a bit.

Hope you play along with some of these sketches and challenges.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!