The Ladies of Leisure Challenge

Well, it's time for another Ladies of Leisure Challenge (eye roll upon typing the word "leisure") with my bloggin' buddies Chris of For Love of Paper and Jill of Inkgenious Inklings. This month it was Chris' turn for a theme and she challenged the 3 of us to make a monochromatic card. I love the look of this type of card but unless I am challenged, I simply forget about them! Recently, I placed an order from Dreamworks organized by a lss, The Rubber Stamp Lady. There were 2 stencils that were outlines of little Asian girls that I absolutely had to have. Last week, I was shopping at one of my favorite internet shops, Jacksonbelle Embellishments, (my sweet DH gave me a store credit as a present for my upcoming birthday.) Lindsey, the owner, had just received the new 7 Gypsies 6 x 6 paper packs. As soon as I saw Sushi Journey, I knew it was a "must have" and I wanted to pair it up with my new stencils! I find dry embossing to be a very satisfying technique. First, I ran a piece of wax paper over Naturals White CS to help the stylus slide over the paper. Next, I attached the stencil to my light table with repositional adhesive. After placing the paper on top of the stencil, I used several different sized embossing styluses to get to the different sized nooks and crannies of the image. Once done, I flipped it over and voila! my focal image was complete. Another element of interest on this card is the sentiment tag. The card consisted of so many right angles that I wanted a circle to soften and add interest. My Making Memories Tag Maker was perfect for this except the metal tags did not go with the theme of this particular card. The solution? Cover the metal rim with Versamark then heat emboss it using French Vanilla EP. The actual sentiment is a rubon from Hobby Lobby. Once the layout of the card was complete, I added some hand stitching with linen thread and a polytwill bow. The lush polytwill was something that I had in my stash and I am not sure where I got it which could be a problem because I absolutely love it! I used 2 little Heidi Grace straight pins to hold on some crystal colored beads from Michael's in an chris-crossed pattern which reminded me of a beautiful Asian hair accessories. This card was truly a fun project! Please be sure to stop by Chris and Jill's blogs to see their wonderful monochromatic creations. I hope to share some of the projects I made this weekend at the retreat on tomorrow's post! It's ALWAYS a Stampin' Good Time! Take care!

LOL Monochromatic recipe:

Paper: Naturals White, tan CS (from stash-unknown), PP- 7 Gypsies Sushi Journey

Ink: Versamark

Accessories: Linen thread, paper piercer, mat pack, polytwill ribbon from lss, Heidi Grace heart straight pins, crystal beads Michael's, double rectangle punch, glue dots, MM tag maker and silver rimmed circle tags, heat gun, French Vanilla EP, rubon sentiment- Hobby