You Brighten My World

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the kind comments yesterday. You guys are the best blog friends a gal could ask for. It's nice to know y'all understand. Today I have a special card to post. This one uses a sketch I created for the Verve Visual Honored Guest Card Contest that starts today. For a chance to win, all you need to do is submit a link to a card using the sketch provided. If chosen you could be the next Verve Honored Guest and will get to play with the March release sets right along with the Verve Visual Design Team. We'll be doing some random prize drawings throughout the contest, so be sure to get your entries submitted. For all the details and to see the sketch, check out the Verve Blog. Everyone on the design team has created a card with this sketch, so be sure to check out their creations, too.

I really like how this card turned out, although it took FOREVER to get to the finished card. I guess that's what's been frustrating me the most about my stamping lately. Things that used to come quickly are taking a lot more effort. This card really shouldn't have taken much more than half an hour, especially since I already had the sketch drawn up and the stamps picked out. But I spent so long deciding on what papers and accents to use, that by the time I finished the card, two hours had passed! Sheesh! Who has 2 hours to sit around and only finish one card? Not me! LOL

I eventually decided on this BasicGrey Scarlet's Letter paper, because I was thinking about Allison's Suggestive Sunday challenge this week. The striped star is from the Verve Visual Seeing Stars set and I actually stamped it first in Crimson Red Versafine and then colored in the star with Prismacolors and Gamsol and then just stamped over it with Onyx Black Versafine. To give it a nice glassy look, I painted the star with Diamond Glaze. The trailing stars on either side of the striped star are from the Swirly Stars set and I outlined them with a light gray Tombow marker for a little softness. The sentiment reads "you brighten my world" and is actually created from two different stamps. The first two words are from the you brighten my day stamp in the Thoughtful Florals set (a remixed photopolymer version of Thoughtful Phrases that's releasing soon). The second two words are from the You rock my world stamp in the Uplifting Phrases set. Both phrases are stamped on a word window punch with Satin Red Versafine ink and bordered with the word window dashed frame stamp from Thoughtful Florals. I added a tiny red rhinestone to each punch and also to each tiny scallop behind the horizontal layer in the sketch. To finish off, I tied a black satin ribbon around the top.