Did you ever do anything COMPLETELY Different than planned?

Did you ever do anything COMPLETELY Different than you planned?  I did! When I saw this sketch challenge from Global Design Project, I immediately envisioned using the Beautiful Peacock stamp in the focal point, and using the beautiful bright blues & greens & golds of a real peacock.  What I ended up with isn’t even remotely close!  No peacock in sight!  Does that ever happen to you?  I just didn’t like the way the peacock had to be cropped to fit in the circle, so I just scrapped that idea entirely and went in a different direction, and boy I’m sure glad I did!  I really like the way this card turned out. (Confession:  I ultimately wound up using a larger punch than I was planning and the peacock may have fit much better in the larger 2-1/2″ circle.  But don’t tell the Peacock!).

Anyway, this card gave me opportunity to break out my sponge brayers that have been sitting idle and feeling lonely lately.  I just love to color, whether with colored pencils, crayons, Stampin’ Blends, and coloring the background with a brayer is just joyful to me.  A sponge brayer, an ink pad and the Springtime Foils Specialty DSP created the layer immediately behind the focal point. The metallic dots resist the ink so when you color the paper, the metallic print isn’t affected!  I like the way the Rose Gold metallic looks against Rich Razzleberry.  A piece of Crumb Cake cardstock behind this gives balance and contrast to this busy layer, and the Rich Razzleberry card base ties it all together.

Take a closer look at the sponged Springtime Foils Specialty DSP:The focal point circle was stamped on top of the sunburst image in Sahara Sand ink twice to create a circle.  Then I stamped the floral image in Versamark ink and heat embossed using gold embossing powder.  Look closely:

Next up I colored the flower using Rich Razzleberry ink and my aqua painter.  I layered the ink on very lightly and built it up a layer at a time.    Another scrap of Crumb Cake cardstock provided me with just the right thing for my sentiment layer.  I stamped the border & Congratulations from “Happy Birthday Gorgeous” in Rich Razzleberry ink and enlisted the help of my snips to crop out that shape.

Although there are a lot of elements and layers, this card came together fairly quickly.  I’m hoping the folks over at the GDP like it, and I hope you like it too! Why don’t you head over the Global Design Project and see what others have come up with using this sketch.  But before you leave, please take a moment and leave me a comment to tell me what you think of my card, and if you ever completely changed directions when you sat down to create a card, or any other craft project.  If you need any of the products listed here, please click here to shop now.  Remember the Sale-A-Bration items are Free with a qualifying purchase ($50 or $100 before tax and shipping).   There is NO LIMIT on how many FREE Sale-A-Bration items you can earn.  Sweet, right?  But there is a TIME LIMIT – it all goes away on March 31st!  So place your qualifying order and get your favorite Sale-A-Bration items before they’re gone! Happy Stampin’