For this card, I combined two different challenges from SplitcoastStampers daily challenges. The Sketch Challenge this week really intrigued me and still not having had too much time to play with my new Green Thumb acrylic stamp set from PAPERTREYink, I decided to use it for the Ways To Use It Challenge -- small image stamps (less than 1-1/2").
I decided to save a little time and assemble the bottom of the strawberry and the sentiment together on one acrylic block so I would know they were aligned perfectly before stamping. After aligning, I inked the images with Stampin' Up's dye-based markers (rose red & garden green), doing a little shading on the strawberry along the way. Then I colored the stem and leaves with celery and garden green markers before stamping onto SU's shimmer white cardstock. The great thing about acrylics is that you can see thru them to be able to perfectly position the top of the strawberry!
The background paper is Stampin' Up's Palette of Prints in rose red. I chose them because the white flowers reminded me of strawberry vine blooms and the dotted paper reminded me of strawberry seeds! I matted the V-shape with white cardstock, trimmed with scalloped scissors and tied a white organdy ribbon.
The focal image's mat is rose red cardstock (SU) and trimmed with SU's Ticket Corner Punch. There are several ways to get a perfect mat for your image, including craft knives and rulers but this is how I do it: eyeball it! I place my image to be matted onto the cardstock and using my thumbnail, lightly mark the cardstock where I want my cut. Then I trim the piece with my paper trimmer.
Tip: The green MM brads were perfectly placed by using this technique: I use my paper piercing tool and pad to punch holes for brad placement. I find this small tool allows me to see better where to place the hole as opposed to a big hand-held punch that inevitably gets in the way of being able to see where to punch!
To finish this card, the focal image is mounted on dimensionals.
So do you remember that package that Beate sent me and we were going to do a challenge with Lori? Well, 12 days later, those silly bees finally made it to Texas late yesterday, so I'll be making and posting that challenge card a little later today. Happy Friday!
