A La Card Monkey Nature Challenge

It has been a long time since I've done any challenges, and I think it's time for me to start getting those creative juices flowing again.  As a SU! demonstrator there is a website called Stampin' Connection that we can access.  While looking through that website last night I found a discussion about a new challenge blog, so I needed to check it out.  It's called A La Card Monkey, and they will be doing weekly challenges.  The theme for this week's challenge is nature:

It's just a simple card, but who says there is anything wrong with simple?  I don't have many nature sets...hmmm, maybe I better do some shopping. 

Supplies

Card Stock:  Not Quite Navy, Watercolor, Soft Suede

Designer Series Paper:  Paisly Petals

Stamp Sets:  Spring Song (retired)

Ink:  Not Quite Navy, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Basic Black Craft Ink

Punches:  2-3/8" Scallop Circle, 2-1/2" Circle, Decorative Label Punch, Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border Punch

Accessories:  Basic Black Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, Embossing Buddy, Powder Pals, Basic Pearls, Paper Snips, SNAIL, Dimensionals, Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz, Color Catcher, Aqua Painter

Tips

1. You can't see the effect of the Smooch Spritz in the picture, but it really adds some shimmer to the card.
2. The color catcher is a great tool to have when using the Smooch Spritz.
3. Never try to do watercoloring without paper towel close by.  I always seem to get too much water on the picture, and dabbing the area with paper towel always does the trick.
4. I used watercolor paper so I could do watercoloring on the bird, so I also used watercolor paper for the greeting; just so it would have the same look as the bird. 

Products

I just learned (I know, the whole world has known how to do this forever...) how to do screen shots, so now I can show you some of the SU! products I used. 

The Pearlized Smooch Spritz is a spray that adds some shimmer to your cards.

And the Color Catcher is just a box that you can leave set up to catch the spray so you don't get anything on the furniture.

These things are all in the 2010-2011 Idea Book and Catalog, but the Designer Series Paper isn't.  SU! has given us a little sneak peek of the 2011-2012 Idea Book and Catalog.

Doesn't that look fun!!

Anyway, on my last post I told you I would show you how to layer the Decorative Label Punch.  This is not something I came up with, I seen it done on a video on The North Shore Stamper.

To start you want to punch out 2 of the Decorative Label shapes in whatever color you are going to use for the layering.

With your Paper Snips cut each one of the shapes in half, one lengthwise and the other shortwise (is that a word?).





Then you want to cut the corner tips of each one.  The cuts don't need to be straight because you won't see it, you just don't want those points showing in the layers.

With the tips cut off use SNAIL to put the first layer on, it doesn't matter which one you do first, just be sure to either do the top and bottom, or 2 sides; not a top and a side. 

Honestly you could stop here if you wanted, just the top and bottom layer looks good.

After the top and bottom, use your SNAIL to add the 2 sides, so the back looks like this.

And the final product looks like this.





As always, let me know if you have any questions, and I hope you enjoyed my post today.