Start With Something New - Monkey90-Sketch + picture

It's time for A La Card Monkey's newest weekly sketch, Monkey 90 New To You and Sketch.  This sketch is all about using something that's new and unused in your stash, so it can be about anything.  Because Valentine's is coming and I'm in that kind of mood, I chose to do a "romance" theme. 

It wasn't hard to find something new in my stash that I hadn't tried out yet.  One of the perks of being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator is that you get to pre-order new things, and with my last order, I earned a number of free stamp sets both from the Occasions and the upcoming Sale-A-Bration catalogues.  If you want to know how to earn free hostess or other sets, just contact me for more information.

Okay so to get on with this week's sketch challenge, I first want to begin with the sketch.  Here it is:

Is it a rabbit or a doctored up squirrel?  I had such a laugh over this picture, first because of the little paw on the heart.  That is just so darned cute! 

But then I looked closer and I thought wow, that paw's a little out of proportion to the body and look at those ears...........not typical cottontail ones.  And whoa!  What about that dear little face?  You tell me rabbit or squirrel, I'd like to hear your take on it, maybe it looks like some other little critter.  Maybe I had too much caffeine!  Maybe I just want to see if you read my post! 

I love this little image from the Take It To Heart Stamp Set, but I hadn't used it yet, so it's my something "new".    I know this stamp will be one of my favourites "to go to" from the Occasions Mini.  It just smacks of young romance, but I can also see it being used for friendship.  I'm also in love with these hat pins and had to add one just "because" you can find them in accessories in the Idea Book and Catalogue. 

Take It to Heart is a beautiful 5 piece stamp set that can be used in conjunction with the Hearts Collection Framelits and the Full Heart Punch.  It comes in either a wood mount #12520 or clear mount #125522 set.  You can find it on page 14 of the Occasions Mini Catalogue.

Here's my whole card.  The card base is in Real Red card stock and I've layered that with Basic Black and then used a 1 1/2" strip of Red Glimmer Paper for the top layer and added a 2 1/2 " piece of DSP from the Holiday Mini that's in Very Vanilla and Glimmer Red, that I hadn't used.  It matched perfectly.  My sentiment is from a retired hostess set called "Something to Celebrate" #121955.  The little bow is made with Gros Grain Red Ribbon

Here's a view of the inside of the card.  I cut a piece of Red Glimmer paper with the Scalloped Punch and topped it with some of the DSP, then mounted it on a strip of Basic Black cardstock.  I stamped the Hearts from the Take It To Heart set in Basic Black ink.  It would have been better I think if I'd embossed them with Black Embossing Powder before adding the decorative strip as they were lighter than I intended.  Oh well, I'll do that on the next card  I make like this. 

Okay that's it for today.  Hope you liked my entry even though I took a little license with the sketch design by using hearts instead of circles and changing up the size of the DSP. 

As always thanks for dropping by and let me know if you like it, or not.   I love getting your comments, they make my day!