Blogger's Challenge #114 - Sketch Challenge!

It's Friday, hooray! I love my weekends because it means I get to spend more time with my family and this weekend some special friends too! I also want to give a birthday shoutout to one of my dearest friends Tiffany Bauer, who is 29 again today! Happy Birthday dear girl! If you visit her blog today, be sure to send her birthday wishes!

Today's Blogger's challenge was to follow this sketch by our Challenge Mom Lisa Somerville. I did take a little liberty with it, but that's what a sketch is, a starting point for your creativity!

Here is my card and I have to say, it's a bit out of my usual 'style', don't you think?

For my focal point piece, I used Naturals Ivory cardstock and cut it twice with the Big Shot and the Top Note Die to create this cool shape! (It's really easy to do, too!) Then I stamped the grass in Dusty Durango ink along the bottom using the stamp from the Autumn Days set. I then sponged the edges with More Mustard ink and a Stampin' Sponge to make it stand out. Lastly, I took my greeting from the Hostess Level 1 stamp set Holiday Best and inked it up with Stampin' Write Markers in Chocolate Chip and Old Olive.

The little pheasant from the Autumn Days set was stamped on another piece of Naturals Ivory cardstock in Chocolate Chip ink and cut out with my Paper Snips. It was curled and shaped a bit with my Bone Folder and mounted on Stampin' Dimensionals to make it stand out.

For the card itself, I used a piece of Dusty Durango cardstock layered with a piece of More Mustard and then I added a piece of the NEW Autumn Meadows Designer Series Paper that's coming out in the NEW Holiday Mini Catalog next week! Trust me when I tell you that this pack of paper is simply gorgeous and you will NEED it!

I took the dsp and sponged some More Mustard ink on the edges and added some extra texture to it by running it through my Big Shot with the woodgrain texture plate in Kit #4. Then I used my Sanding Block and distresed the paper a bit more, revealing just a peek of the white core by sanding lightly over the surface. The pictures don't do it justice, you really need to see this one in real life so you can TOUCH it.


The final accents are the layers of ribbon and Gold Brads. The ribbon is a piece of Dusty Durango Polka-Dot Ribbon, flipped over to the plain side - love that this is double-duty ribbon! A piece of 1/4" Apricot Appeal Grosgrain ribbon and they are both wrapped up with a piece of Gold Elastic Cord which is coming back in the Holiday Mini this year!


So, there you have it - I am so happy with the way this one turned out and I hope you like it too! Be sure to leave me some comment love and then go check out the other creative ladies in this group by clicking on the Blogger's Challenge button in my sidebar. There's no telling what they've created with this sketch!



I hope you'll stop back tomorrow too as I'll have another great card for you following the Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch!

Stamped blessings everyone,

~~Robin