Tomorrow is March! The weather personnel are hyping up our second big storm in a week so I guess March will be coming in as a lion. Does that mean it will leave as a lamb???
With the first of March comes Stampin' Up!'s Spring Mini catalog and it's a winner. I've worked on a few samples but haven't posted many of them here because I wanted to keep highlighting the possibilities with some of the winter and Sell-a-Bration setsand papers. But now it's time to bring on the Spring Mini!
One of my favorites so far is Crab & Company. It's a seashore version of last spring's Unfrogettable and the accessories should mix and match wonderfully. The first chance I had to play with it was for The Ways to Use It Challenge 100: It's a Great Big World Out There. The challenge is to find your inspiration somewhere on the web. What a wonderful challenge. I love to look for "eye candy" and see what will inspire me. I started my surfing by googling table linens and eventually found this wonderful site French Brand.com.
Choosing a childrens comforter with an exciting color combo and bugs as my inspiration piece, I started out thinking that I would do colorblocking to more closely mimic the comforter but, other than the crab, the images were a bit too small to really get the same look...and not take all week to do it. Then I hit uponthe idea to layer strips and I was really happy with that. I may try it again by tearing the strips to resemble layers of colored sand. The colors included are Regal Rose, True Thyme, Cameo Coral, Marigold Morning and Rose Red. The watercoloring was done with the inkpads of the same color plus a little bit of Pumpkin Pie. I don't think I would ever have come up with this color combo on my own but I love it and will be using it again. All of the images were cut out on this card. When I made a variation for my downline swap I stamped the crab and the birthday hat on the Very Vanilla rectangle and just trimmed around the claws a little with a craft knife so that the crab could hold the present and cupcake. You wouldn't need to add the other little critters but I already had them cut out when I made this card. It was kind of an accident that they look like an audience.
I'd love to hear from you about your favorite source of stamping inspiration. Tell me in a comment on this post and I'll draw a name on Friday morning, March 2nd, and I'll send the winner a stamping surprise with this card. I guess that's what others call "blog candy".
Thanks for looking!
