Two Challenges Completed

I spent the afternoon finishing a scrapbook page and then I made two quick cards for two challenges, one for each of my swap group blogs. This first one was posted by Kristin (kristin moore) for the GSG Blog. She challenged us to use metal in any form on our card. She made a beautiful Chocolate Chip and Copper card. I chose some more muted tones for mine. Yes, I used it again-Inspired by Nature. I love all the dsp in the catalog and as much as I would love to have it all it is just not in the budget. One way to achieve a similar look of the papers is to repeat the color combo. This one comes from the Green Tea dsp-Celery, Olive, and Baja blue. I created the layered look of the main panel very quickly by first inking up the grass stamp with baja ink and stamping off once before stamping. Next ink up the flower side and stamp. I then cleaned the stamps and used my versamark PEN to ink up the single larger cone flower. I stamped that and then embossed it with silver embossing powder. The main image is matted with olive cs and I rounded two of the corners. I added another metal element with the styled silver hph frame and used the Say it with Scallops greeting and punched that out with the 1 inch (fits this frame perfectly) to fit inside. I tied some olive twill ribbon through the top hole of the silver frame and secured it at the bottom with a brad. Thanks for the great challenge, Kristin!
The next one to show you is from the NMBS blog. Barbara gave us the challenge this week to create a card with the following elements : use a background stamp, use a punched piece as an accent, and then use any other ribbons or accessories you felt necessary. This color combo came from the Maine Blueberry dsp pack-Not quite Navy, Bashful Blue, and Old Olive. As you can see I used the polka dot background stamp on the olive piece of cs and I used the scallop circle ,1 1/4 and 1 3/8 circle punches as my accent piece. I love that little "hi" sentiment from the Say it With Scallops set! I also used my 1/4 inch circle punch to accent my not quite navy brads, just adds a little extra touch and helps tie together the colors. I love the CAS look of this card! I wasn't going to post today, but thought I'd share these with you anyway. Hope you all found time to do something you wanted to on such a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Hugs,