American Star - UDI Inspiration Challenge #102

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Happy New Stampin' Up! year that is!

Today marks the official start of the NEW Idea Book and Catalog and you know what that means..........
maxxed out credit cards and empty bank accounts! LOL!
Well, hopefully not, but from all the chatter in the online groups I belong to, this catalog is the BEST ever and I must say that I agree completely! It has a beautiful layout, gorgeous samples, handy charts to help you choose just the right adhesives, Big Shot accessories and Hostess benefits. It has suggested color combinations, a fabulous new look and layout to the NEW color families, amazing new ribbons and bling and most of all, simply fabulous new stamps! It's all designed to make your stamping projects easy, fun and irresistible and dare I say that you will be like me and unable to resist this catalog!
Can you tell I'm a bit excited about this?!!
If you are in need of a copy and don't have a local demonstrator to obtain one from, please let me know and I can help you out with that.

Now, would you like to see what I made yesterday?
Being Thursday, this is the UDI Blog Inspiration Challenge and here is the intriguing photo our challenge Mom Maria sent us:

I knew I wanted to go patriotic on this card, but wasn't quite sure where it was headed, so I pulled out some new colors and got to work.
Here is the end result:

A little bit of Cherry Cobbler, Naturals White and Marina Mist combined with Crumb Cake made for a really cool patriotic look. The best part was the shiny metal star that I was able to cut with my Big Shot and Stars #2 Die. It's made with roof flashing which comes in a roll from the local hardware store. You just use your Paper and Rubber Scissors to cut it into smaller pieces so it will lay flat on your die.
I did have to shim mine to make it a bit tighter fit through the rollers with the plastic shims that come with the Big Shot, but you can use pieces of cardstock or printer paper if you need to do the same.
Once the stars were made, I layered them with a Stampin' Dimensional and punched a hole through both with my Crop-a-Dile to add the Square Fire Rhinestone Brad.
*Important! If you decide to try the roof flashing, be sure to wear gloves and be careful. It is very sharp - I found out the hard way! Bleeding on your projects is never appealing!

The layout is super simple, all I did was cut my pieces of cardstock, line them up side by side on a piece of Grid Paper with Dotto temporary adhesive and run the inked Jumbo roller over them. I used the New Early Espresso ink for the stamping.
Then they were just adhered to the card front with Snail after sponging everything with more Early Espresso ink.

I added the NEW Whisper White 5/8" Grosgrain ribbon accent wrapped around the card front and snipped the ends into little banners. The star accent piece was layered on the front using Stampin' Dimensionals.

Here is a view of the dimension from the top of the card:

I don't know why the Cherry Cobbler cardstock looks so dark in the photo, it's really not in real life.

So there you go, my take on the inspiration photo. I hope you liked it and seeing the new products from the new catalog! It is so fun working with NEW goodies!
Be sure to stop by the UDI Blog today and see what the other design team members created, they are sure to inspire you!

Happy Thursday everyone!
Stamped blessings,
~~Robin