The Green Challenge......

So, lately I've had a bit of a conversation going on with a certain group of my demo friends about the color Glorious Green. The general consensus has been that we despise this color and either have never used it or have a very tough time using it. Personally, I love green, but just not this one. Now, I have used it before for classes and camps and on those occasions, my clients there have loved it for those projects. Two in particular come to mind - a shamrock card using the heart punch for the leaves and a fun Christmas card with a snowman and red striped grosgrain ribbon.
When I was designing cards for my classes yesterday, I decided to make myself use Glorious Green on a project that wasn't seasonal just to prove that it CAN be done! Ha! It is very hard to be creative with a color or product that doesn't personally appeal to me, but since I need to stretch myself from time to time to be a better stamper this was a great challenge for me to tackle.

So, after much debate about co-ordinating colors, here is my card:

What do you think? Does it hurt your eyes? :)
Since Glorious Green is such a BRIGHT color, I decided to go FUN with it and pulled out my Circle Circus stamp set. And I love purple with green so it was easy to pull out those colors, (I used Lovely Lilac and Orchid Opulence) but the hang up was the 2nd green shade. I finally settled on Certainly Celery because I thought it would tone down the bright green somewhat.

The card itself was pretty simple to put together. I used Glorious Green for the folded cardbase and layered it with Lovely Lilac and Whisper White that had been embossed with my Big Shot and the Perfect Polka Dots folder.

The stamped panel is on Whisper White and I used my stamps from largest to smallest, beginning with the lightest color first to give more of a balance of color and not be too heavy with the brightest green - my nemesis! That panel was then layered on another piece of Glorious Green to frame it. The greeting is from the Sale-A-Bration stamp set Vintage Labels and is stamped in Lovely Lilac on white. I used a simple label frame from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware to showcase it.

I also added another Whisper White panel to the inside stamped in the same way as the cover piece.

The ribbon and brad accent was my final challenge as I really wanted something darker in that area - again for balance. So, I went with a layered ribbon of lighter colors - Whisper White Taffeta and Certainly Celery Narrow Grosgrain and then added the flower brad to it.
I mixed up a little Lovely Lilac reinker with Crystal Effects and painted it in the brad to make the flower stand out. I was very happy with the way that turned out - it's been a while since I used that technique!

Now it's time for your input - I would love to hear what you REALLY think about this card! I can share with you that everyone who came to class yesterday loved it and they were happy to use the bright, fun colors. So, leave me a comment and tell me your opinion and tell me also what color you struggle to use well. We all have one I think!

On a side note, did you guys catch the Men's Ice Skating at the Olympics last night?! Wow! Evan Lysacek gave the performance of his life! And proved that you don't need a Quad jump to skate an amazing program! He is currently in 2nd place with the Long Free Skate still to come. WooHoo - Go USA! Go Evan!
Yeah, I'm an Olympics junkie, just bear with me, ok?
~~Robin