Blogger Challenge: Week 22

This week's bloggers challenge was to find something--a design, a pattern, a color combination, whatever-- that inspires you and create a project using the elements that inspire you. I find a lot of inspiration in the piles of catalogs that fill my mailbox, so this week's inspiration project is based on an item from one of them.

I was leafing through the LL Bean catalog and these fun duffel bags caught my eye. They come in solid colors and in a funky floral pattern. The floral pattern immediately brought to mind the emerging color technique, so that's the inspiration for today's card.

I stamped several of the large flower images from Ginormous Flowers and one of the tiny ones from Little Flowers on white cardstock in bright, but light colors. The totes with the floral pattern were all in tropical color palettes, so that was the look I was after here. After letting the ink dry, I used Versamark to stamp another of the large flowers from Ginormous Flowers over the stamped images. Then I covered the Versamark with clear embossing powder and heat embossed the flower images.

I used a brayer and Tempting Turquoise ink to cover the sheet with ink. The turquoise wasn't as dark as I wanted, so I ended up covering the turquoise with Brilliant Blue ink. I rubbed the ink off the embossed areas with a paper towel, leaving the stamped panel you see on the card. Some of the images from the bottom layer still show through the Brilliant Blue layer, but it still has a cool look to it that reminds me of the pattern found on the tote.

I used a sentiment from the retired SU! Mixed Greetings set. I love the fun script font of the sentiment in the set. I stamped the sentiment in Pixie Pink, then again slightly offset in white craft ink (with the help of my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line it up just right, of course!). It has a really cool, embossed look in person.

Be sure to check out what the other blogger challenge group members have come up for this challenge. You can find links to their blogs in the sidebar on the right.

Materials Used:

Ginormous Flowers, Little Flowers, and Mixed Greetings stamp sets, Pixie Pink, Cool Caribbean, Yoyo Yellow, Gable Green, and Brilliant Blue Classic inks, White Craft ink, Versamark, Pixie Pink, Cool Caribbean, Gable Green, and Whisper White cardstock, corner rounder, clear embossing powder, brayer, Stamp-a-ma-jig (Stampin' Up!); green stitched grosgrain (Michaels)