Out of my comfort zone

Today's challenges took me outside my comfort zone.  First, the SCS Friday Free for All challenge was to make a graduation/congratulations card without using caps, diplomas or owls.

I started with some happy pogo-ing sock monkey paper (Daisy D's) and built the card from there.  I was very frustrated because first I couldn't find a stamp set I wanted to use, and second I couldn't find alphabet stamps that I KNOW I have around here...somewhere!  I ended up computer-generating the sentiment, which was okay.  I made a brown scalloped edge for the patterned paper and mounted it on pale blue Bazzill cardstock.  I sponged red ink onto my sentiment panel and mounted it on white cardstock.  I added three bright red brads and mounted it onto the card using foam tape.  Finally I added 3 rhinestone stars along the right edge.  I am still dissatisfied with this card but it will have to do because I want to move on!

Next, I took on the Queen for the Day challenge.  This is similar to the Featured Stamper challenge on Sunday, as it again honors an SCS member by sending card makers to her gallery for inspiration.  She likes a lot of layers, shapes and details on her cards, and her look is often very vintage.  I was not in the mood for fussing a lot over a card today, at least when I started, but the project drew me in and I ended up liking it very much.

Here is Becky's card that inspired me:  Nature Inspired.  And here is my card that I made:

As you can see I kept the same overall color scheme and theme (vintage, nature) but tweaked the design somewhat.  I started with a sage green card base and layered on a rectangle of sky blue Bazzill cardstock.  Onto that I added three strips of designer paper (Recollections, Graphic45) and inked all edges with Colorbox cocoa ink.  It adds a lovely soft brown that complemented the colors of this card beatifully!

I cut an oval out of cream cardstock and inked the edges as well.  I stamped it with leaves (Autumn Leaves) in Adirondack pesto ink.  Then I used a mini flower punch to punch several flowers out of a Basic Grey scrap--if you look close you can see it's the same paper I used for my butterfly card yesterday!  I folded up the edge of the flowers and glued several green seed beads in place for the flower centers.  After they dried I mounted them to the oval with foam tape.  I layered the oval onto a slightly larger sky blue oval.  I added a cream ribbon to the card and layered the oval on with foam tape.  The ribbon and beads came from Dollar Tree.  Finally I punched a butterfly out with my Martha Stewart punch and stamped a flourish on it with the pesto ink (also Autumn Leaves).  I used some more seed beads to make the butterfly's body and used a dimensional to mount it to the card.  The last touch was gluing on 2 bugle beads as the butterfly's antennae.

I like a card that presents a series of problems to solve one by one and makes me think a little to figure it all out, but doesn't frustrate me by not working out.  This is one of those cards--more work than one of my quick and easy cards, but I think the results were worth the effort.

Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend!