No More Monkey Business

Sometimes really great things must come to an end.  After today the cute little Monkey badge won't be on my side-bar anymore and I wanted to let you know why.

Tonight I heard that A La Card Monkey Challenges were ending, and I'm really sad.  I liked, no loved this small challenge site for it's friendliness and the great weekly sketches, and fun posts. Over the past two years I've entered many of these challenges and each time it was with enthusiasm and anticipation of the great projects I would see.  

The wonderful design team comprised of Shirley Sumption and Terry Blais (a dynamic duo if ever there was one) and the winners of the Monkey Princess and Monkey Guest Designerhonors, never failed.  And, a couple of times I was even lucky enough to be selected as a Monkey Princess.  That was so cool! 

So this post is dedicated to remembering some of those sketches and some of my entries.  Sorry I couldn't put these into a collage..............have to get another program for that.  Enjoy! 

Loved this sketch, so cute!

 

This was such a yummy sketch!

Such a great sketch!

Monkey 80, one of my favourites

Monkey 81

 

Awesome Christmas or anytime sketch

Monkey 88

Can't remember the # but this was a fun sketch too!

Monkey 90

86

I hope you've enjoyed this little sentimental tour!  Thanks Shirley and Terry for all fun times!

Life's a Bed of Roses for Monkey Challenge #55: Flowers + a Sketch

Wow look at this bright and inviting card sketch from A La Card Monkey. It's Monkey55:  Flowers + Sketch challenge. 

The moment I saw this sketch I knew I loved it and knew I had to make it.  I think you'll agree that the simplicity of this layout  would work for many different occasions. 

For my version, I chose to add some 3-dimensional flowers made with the scallop circle and 1 1/4" circle punches insteading of stamping a flower image.  I pulled the colour combo from the beautiful Springtime Vintage Designer Series Paper (DSP) featured in the Mini Occasions catalogue (Jan-Apr 2011). TIP:  It's so easy to match up your coordinating cardstock and ink because underneath the DSP pictures in the Stampin' Up! catalogues, there's always a listing and colour swatch of the matching colours. If you haven't used this feature check it out...........no more searching.

I love the richness of Rose Red so chose it as my base cardstock and then  layered it with Crumb Cake.  For contrast I was able to incorporate both sides of the DSP for the next layer and the flower centers. Accents in Rose Red and Crumb Cake were added for the straight and scalloped edge pieces as well as the 3-D flowers. The Petal Pizzazz leaves for the flowers were cut using the small oval punch and then embossed with the Square Lattice Embossing folder and leave edges were sponged with Always Artichoke ink.  For the sentiment I used the medium jewelry tag punch and Pear Pizzazz cardstock stamped with Always Artichoke ink.  To finish off this card I used smooch spray to give it some shine.  Here's my sample.

Closeup of the Flowers.  Scallop punched in Rose Red and then scallops cut to give it some dimension.

Closeup of the tags cut using the Medium Jewelry Tag punch.

View of the inside of the card. 

I hope you like my version of this sketch both inside and out, and leave me a comment.