Verve Visual Guest Designer

Well not yet?!?!?! But hopefully I have the card that will change all that. Verve Visual issued a new guest designer challenge on April 1st and I haven't been able to sleep since. Seriously, I'm not kidding. I either lay awake with ideas running through my head or I am dreaming about making the card. I actually woke up the other night and thought "How do you dream cardmaking", but this brain of mine wouldn't turn off until this card was made. Maybe now I can finally get some peaceful sleep.

This has to be my favorite card to date.....ever.......... yes EVER!! I have always been in love with my Verve Serenity set and almost turned to it when I sat down, but I withheld. After all, that would be playing it safe and I really wanted to challenge myself to make something different. I bought the Thankful Blossoms set almost a month ago because I loved the flowers. Then when I tried to use them I couldn't get them to come out quite the way I wanted. I normally LOVE to color but these flowers were not working for me. I couldn't get the color choices right and I finally gave up and fell in love with the butterfly and of course the great sentiments. I decided for this card to try one more time and really am happy that I did. I gave up on coloring them and just stamped them on decorative paper and finally got the look I wanted.

I usually follow sketches pretty closely and had every intention of keeping this card horizontal. While I was drawing the sketch I even thought I'm sure someone will have to flip this sketch but I don't think it will work. Not this one, NO WAY!!! Well TADAHHHHHHH!!

I didn't intend on putting stems on these flowers but I just couldn't leave my Serenity set alone. I love, I had to use it. To get the stems to fit I had to flip the sketch. And much to my surprise, it worked. I like the look of this card. I got in a major rut of a one size fits all card that this was such a breath of fresh air. I was worried about ALL the space but it really was no problem. This card is really huge. I used Laurie's dimensions of 3 7/8 x 9 1/4. VERY BIG!!!

So, lets break it down :) All cardstock was SU, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, and Rose Red. All my color inspiration came from the main sheet of decorative paper from My Minds Eye. I used eyelets for the center of the flowers and for the corners of the main image. I wasn't real sure which sentiment I wanted to use. There are so many good ones in both sets that I have. I decided to use two. One sentiments says "Thanks for you Kindness" and the other "You made me Smile today". Mine read's "Thanks for your Smile". I combined them by omitting the words I didn't want and love the way it looks. I liked the "tag" a little askew rather than straight like the sketch. It seemed to fit the space better. Below are a few closeup shots so you can really see the detail. I is hard to see the piercing on the main photo.