Silhouetta, Gentille Silhouetta

I'm pushing myself to spend more time creating at the moment and less time worrying about the state of the world.  So I've been scouring the wonderful space that is Blogland for ideas to get the old Mojo fired up!  And it worked - there are several challenges out there at the moment that got me thinking and inspired!

Obviously the first Challenge is the TWOFER Challenge!  Except I got a bit carried away and made a THREEFER!   I chose this stunning silhouette (a freebie from a craft mag bought eons ago) designed by Indigo Blue!  As I studied it and considered various layouts,  I realised that it was going to be difficult to make different layouts (a requirement of the TWOFER Challenge I believe) as it basically took up the whole card front!  So I thought I'd stamp it on different media instead, to change it up a bit!

BTW, this Indigo Blue set has been on my "To Use" list for years now and has only just seen the light of day so I would like to enter it in the NBUS challenge #19

I chose an alcohol inked background for my first card.  The colour combination was a no-brainer - it's October and I'm always Thinking Pink in October!  And it also happens that the TIMEOUT Challenge #172 is to make an encouragement card with a twist of Pink.  So I created a background using all the pink alcohol inks in my stash and a little gold and stamped this beauty on top.  Fortunately, I knew from past experience, that I could have trouble getting a clean image and used my TH Stamp platform. 

I knew I wanted to use this Beautiful die from Verve, but I wanted to say more, so I ended up creating this sentiment using Microsoft Word Art.  The pink was a bit washed out, so I went over it with a pink marker before I gave it the Glossy Accents treatment.  The Beautiful got the same Glossy Accents treatment and a little gold was sprinkled on while wet.

I always decorate my envelopes (or at least try to) so I was happy to see that the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge is to make a card and matching envelope.   Again, owing to the size of the stamp, there wouldn't be a lot of space for addressing the envelope, so I went with tone on tone stamping, using Pearlescent Orchid Brilliance Ink. 

While the stamp was on the Stamp Platform I stamped it on another piece of card stock, this one highly textured.  It was fortunate that I used the stamp platform, as the only think trickier than stamping on this is trying to photograph it!   I went for a simple "Thinking of You" sentiment from Waltzing Mouse's Big Day Today set.  I thought it might be useful as an encouragement card or even a Get Well Card.

While working on the envelope for the first card, that I got the idea to truncate the stamp.  So I changed the orientation of the stamp and stamped it three times off the page along another piece of textured pink card stock.  This one I made into a penny spinner card using this beautiful Tattered Lace Oriental Butterfly.

While making the Word Art for the first card, thought I'd try another sentiment.  Sympathy cards are always something I need, often at short notice.  I was really being lazy here as I have plenty of lovely sympathy sentiments I could have stamped on black card stock with pink embossing powder, but I quite liked the glossiness of the printed sentiment.

Here's the butterfly in flight!

There are other challenges which happily coincided with my post.   The Pick of the Paperbacks Challenge at The Library had the following inspiration photo - pretty obvious which of these titles reminded me of of my first 2 cards.

613 Avenue Create has an Anything Goes Challenge with the optional twist of "Winged Things" so my Butterfly card will be fluttering over there!

We Love Chocolate Baroque has an Anything Goes Challenge (focal point must be stamping), so I'm entering my trio over there!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit!  If you leave me a comment, I can return the favour 😘

Kate