Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous LeAnne to host this week and as it's the fifth Sunday of the month we have a tic-tac-toe challenge board for you to work with:
I went down the first column of our TicTacToe board with blue/die-cut/heat embossing and decided to use Jen's Freshly Made Sketches layout and make another slimline card that was totally inspired by the fabulous nautical photo over at The Card Concept - take a look:
Here's the low-down on today's card:
Sailing Home - I took the inspiration for my 'clean and layered' card from The Card Concept's great nautical inspiration photo this week, specifically the cushion at the top of the photo, with the blue and red stripes on cream. I incorporated these into my design but decided to change out the anchor for the sailboat that features on the central cushion as it fitted better with my sentiment, as I wanted to make a congratulations/good luck for the future-type card. I heat-embossed the large sailboat from the 'Sailing Home' stamp set in white on Night of Navy then diecut it with my Come Sail Away dies. A 'thank you' too to the team over at The Card Concept for choosing this card as one of their Honourable Mentions recently and for their kind comments on a card that felt quite out of my comfort zone but was totally inspired by their awesome photo!
A Beautiful World - For my sentiment I used both the retired stamp set 'Beautiful World' and paired it with one of my favourite diecuts from the retired Summer Silhouettes dies - the long, slimline design is perfect for showcasing the long 'adventure' diecut, which I cut a couple of times and glued together for added height. I also added another stamped greeting from the same stamp set to the inside of my card:
A Cautionary Tale - So I'm sure you are looking at today's card and thinking it came together really quickly; to be fair, if I made a second one it probably wouldn't take long at all. For this one that was not the case though! I spent quite a bit of time deciding on which nautical elements to incorporate on my card and then just as I had everything stuck together, I decided my card needed a little something extra so decided to add a trio of stamped gulls. And that was where the disaster happened! I missed one part of one of the gulls, and then slipped with my stamp-a-ma-jig when I went back in to correct. So what to do? Luckily I managed to remove the top vanilla panel with some dental floss (such a craft room life-saver!) and then I removed the top portion and replaced with another one, with birds correctly stamped before I glued into place. Crisis averted - and let that be a lesson to you: don't glue everything down until you are completely sure your stamping is complete! I do like the addition of the birds though, so it was worth it:
This is one of those cards that I would not have made without the photo that inspired it, but I love it! What do you think? Do you like the current trend for slimline designs? Do leave me a comment below, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:
You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any.
Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:
The Paper Players Design Team
Here's a quick recap of our challenge rules:
1. Create a new paper project
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to us and provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge submission.
3. Please link your card to no more than four challenges, TOTAL.
4. Have FUN!
You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any.
Enjoy your day; I am looking forward to spending some time in the garden today as we are enjoying some warmer weather here in the UK for a change - it bodes well for our Bank Holiday weekend for sure. I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!
Edited to add: I was the Challenge Winner over at The Card Concept with this card!
Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: