Daily Archives: February 20, 2008

Since November, each month the Splitcoaststampers Dirty girls…past and present… get together for a challenge. It’s so much fun to reconnect and to design something just for fun. Last month just seemed to get away from me and I wasn’t able to take part so I was determined to work something in this time. This month the challenge had three parts…

Challenge Focus: Stamps Designed by Fellow Dirty Girls. –OR– alternate option – use any fellow Dirty Girl’s gallery creation as an inspiration to semi-CASE something of your own (be sure to link it in your post).

Required Element: Spring Color Combo – whatever feels like Spring to you!

Restricted Element: NO CuttleBug/Big Shot/Wizard or similar diecut/embossing machines.

Keyword: DCS208 (for Dirty Challenge Shout February 08 )

You may know, my good friend Lisa Strahl designs a line of stamps for Cornish Heritage Farms called Mona Lisa Moments. Lisa and I were also on the Dirty Dozen Design team together for a 3 month overlap at the end of 2006 to Feb 2007 and I’m excited to use a few of her stamps here. Two backgrounder designs, and one of my very favorite sets… Classic Essential Expressions.

Forever Friends

For this design I decided to pair up two of my favorite backgrounders Lined Paper and French Script with some patterned paper stamping and a pocket card design. It’s been a long time since I did a pocket card and I thought it would be fun. Going through my paper stash, I found this Birdie Crate Paper line. I just love Crate Paper, the colors and texture are gorgeous and perfect for stamping on. This Birdie line just screams Spring to me and so I had my color combo. Speaking of Spring… I CANNOT wait for it to arrive. It has been a long strange winter!

The pocket for this design is just a 5.25″ square card with the top corner folded down on an angle. To create the pocket, I just stitched up the side seams and created a little card insert to fit inside. It may be a little faint but over the front polka dot paper, I stamped the French Script Backgrounder a couple times and then used my Lined Paper Backgrounder for the inner panel. I also added a few other stamps from CHF to the design. Along the folded flap, the ornamental image from Time to Stamp from the new Rummage Bin line. Inside, the flowers stamped onto the lined paper are from the Silhouette Blooms 1 stamp set. The rules didn’t say you couldn’t add extra stamps so I went for it. 😉

To add in another stamp set by Lisa…I used her new Classic Essential Expressions to add in a couple sentiments. At the top of the pocket insert, I stamped Forever Friends and added a fun little rhinestone accent in the center of the o. I always love adding a little bling. 🙂 Along the edge of the front folded flap I stamped Thinking of You three times to make a little border and emphasize the edge. Also to add interest to the front flap, I punched holes along the fold with my Crop-a-dile and then stitched my ribbon through to hold it down. I love how perfectly this ribbon works with the paper.

The funny thing is…once I finished this design, I realized…I didn’t use even one scrap of cardstock on this design. Just patterned paper. Now how often does that happen?!

Have a great day and don’t forget to stop by Splitcoaststampers and check out all the other designs for this challenge. I’ve gotten a peek at a few of them already and they are fabulous!

Stamps: Lined Paper Backgrounder, French Script Backgrounder, Classic Essential Expressions, Time to Stamp, Silhouette Blooms 1 – Cornish Heritage Farms

Ink: Black and Burnt Umber Palette Ink – Stewart Superior, Antique Linen Distress Ink – Ranger

Paper: Birdie Collection – Crate Paper

Other: hole punch, ribbon – May Arts, button – Autumn Leaves, flower – Prima Marketing, rhinestone – Me and My Big Ideas, sewing machine