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!

Stampin' Queen's Sketch Challenge - SQSC20

Here's another great sketch challenge from Stampin' Queen's Design Team.  These wonderful and creative gals keep coming up with great challenges that allow you room to add your own touches without going over the top. 

I am so loving the beautiful stamp sets in the Occasions Mini catalogue. They have that wonderful romantic vintage look that I adore.  I hope you've had an opportunity to explore them too!  If not just click here or on the Occasions Mini Catalogue button on my sidebar to view the PDF version of the catalogue. 

I couldn't miss this opportunity to create a Thank You card using two of my new "favourite" sets, Tea Shoppe (#125547) from Shelli Gardner's Signature Collection and Take It To Heart (#125522).

Tea Shoppe #125547, from Shelli Gardner's Signature Collection

Take It To Heart #125522

Edgelits Adorning Accents #12522

And here is my card:

I chose a piece of DSP from the now retired Spice Cake papers.  I love the petite flower design and how it lends a more vintage feel to the card.  It must be winter as I'm tending to go to darker colours for my stamping and really find the Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla and Soft Suede cardstocks meet this need.  

These 3 tiny tea cups are from the Tea Shoppe Set.  I stamped them in Soft Suede on a Very Vanilla medium sized framelit and then dry embossed the small hearts on either side of the cups with the new Edgelits Adorning Accents embossing folder.   To add interest I restamped the tea cups, heat embossed them and then fussy cut out just the cup portion and mounted them with dimensionals on the original stamped image.  I sponged Soft Suede ink around the Framelit to give it some depth.

The Crumb Cake Seam Binding ribbon and bow  are punched up a notch with the addition of a Pretties kit hat pin and jewels.  I've also added some basic pearls to the beautiful label from the Take It To Heart set.  I've double cut the label in Soft Suede and in Very Vanilla Cardstock and mounted it with dimensionals.  This has to be my new favourite stamp for displaying sentiments. 

I kept the inside simple so a message can be added .  The only element is a fussy cut of the large tea cup which was stamped in Soft Suede and heat Embossed with Clear Embossing Powder.  It's mounted on Dimensionals.


Hope you like this card, I'd love to hear from you.  If you're interested in purchasing any of the new products shown above just click on my "Shop Now" button on my blog sidebar and it will take you to my Stampin' Up! website and shopping  cart.