Two Cards for the Simply Stampin' Challenge #44

This week's challenge at the Simply Stampin' blog is a colour challenge and the colours are Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso, River Rock and Very Vanilla.

This sounded quite sombre and I'm usually drawn to bright and cheery colour combos.  Also River Rock is not one of my fave colours as I said in my post yesterday so I was definitely feeling a tad daunted by this challenge!  I pondered a bit, opened up drawers, looked at stamps, papers, punches and dies and then gave that up when inspiration failed to strike.  So on to plan B - get the SU! catalogue out with the aim of selecting a stamp set to use which would mean at least I had a starting point.  I ended up wanting to use the Ornate Flowers and Trendy Trees sets and rather than choose between them I decided to make two cards.

My initial reaction to the colour combo was it appeared to lend itself to masculine cards so I was surprised when the Ornate Flowers set leapt out at me when I was browsing the catty.  Anyway, I decided to go with it and see where it led me.  I remembered seeing a Not Quite Navy patterned paper when I'd rummaged earlier so I dug it out, cut it to the size I wanted and then realised the background was white rather than vanilla.  Hmmm, I decided I still wanted to use the paper so I set about shabbying it up a bit to tone down the white.  I stamped the Texture wheel on it a few times with River Rock ink and then added River Rock ink with a sponge dauber.  I knew I wanted to use the rectangular solid flower stamp from the set as my main image so I stamped that in Not Quite Navy ink.   I stamped the flower twice - once in River Rock and again in Early Espresso and cut the flower and centre out.  I was just getting ready to cut the vanilla panel when I wondered if the stamped image would fit within the rectangle frame in the Textured Impressions Embossing Set  - woohoo, it fit perfectly!  So after embossing the frame I cut it out, popped it up onto an Early Espresso mat and then layered that onto a larger River Rock mat.  Before adhering the River Rock panel I stamped the sentiment, added the Early Espresso ribbon and three brads. Lastly, I popped up the flower and the flower centre.

I stamped a Very Vanilla panel for inside the card.  For the envelope, I stamped the flower three times without re-inking using Not Quite Navy ink and cut them out.  I popped the front flower up with Dimensionals.  I love stamping a frame onto an envelope as somewhere to write the recipients name and I thought the bird frame from the Four Frames set would be a good choice for this card.

So onto the second card which is more masculine - actually I think it would work for either sex really - but as there are no flowers, scallops, decorative edges, ribbon or bling I would probably stick with this being a card for a man!  I made a side opening Not Quite Navy A6 landscape card and kept to a very simple CAS layout.  After stamping the trees I cut them out with the 1 3/8" circle punch and I layered them onto 1 3/4" Early Espresso punched circles.  I cut my Very Vanilla panel and decided it looked too stark as it was.  The Texture wheel stamped in Not Quite Navy ink after stamping off once first put paid to that issue and I added Early Espresso CS strips.  I stamped the sentiment onto River Rock CS and punched it out with the Word Window punch.  I adhered the tree circles to the Very Vanilla panel, popping up the centre circle.

The Funky Forest wheel simply stamped in Early Espresso ink on the front of the envelope and on a Very Vanilla panel for inside the card finished off nicely.  Considering I felt quite daunted by this colour combo I'm fairly happy with how these cards turned out!

I hope you'll play along with us at Simply Stampin' this week - you don't need the exact colours, you can substitute for a similar SU! shade if you need to.  Just remember to use at least one SU! stamp, punch, die or patterned paper in your creation - and have fun!


Supplies for Best Wishes card:
Stamps: SU! Ornate Flowers, Sincere Salutations & Four Frames sets, SU! Texture wheel stamp
CS: SU! Not Quite Navy, Early Espreso, River Rock & Very Vanilla
Patterned paper: SU! Rose Red Prints Designer Series Paper pack
Ink: SU! Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Rose Red & Chocolate Chip
Tools: Rectangle frame embossing folder from SU! Designer Frames Textured Impressions Embossing Set,  SU! Mat Pack & Paper-Piercing Tool, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Early Espresso 1/8" taffeta ribbon, SU! Vintage brads, SU! Dimensionals

Supplies for Thinking of You card:
Stamps: SU! Trendy Trees set, SU! Texture & Funky Forest wheel stamps
CS: SU! Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso, River Rock & Very Vanilla
 Ink: SU! Not Quite Navy, River Rock & Early Espresso
Tools: SU! 1 3/8" & 1 3/4" circle & Word Window punches, Stamp-a-ma-jig
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Dimensionals