Color Inspiration Challenge

For all our readers in the United States, I hope you enjoyed your holiday.  It was VERY hot here, but a good time was had by all at Bafoon Lagoon (our nickname for our pool).  In fact, we need to add water to the pool because 1.  the water was way too warm and 2.  the kids sloshed so much out from doing their cannonballs off the diving board!

On the first Thursday of every month, I am honored to present you with a brand new color challenge.  Since the new catalog has been out for over a month now, I thought I would slowly introduce you to the new 2012-2014 In Colors.  Today, we are going to play with one of my favorite In Colors:  Midnight Muse!!!!  If Night of Navy and Not Quite Navy had a baby, they might call it Midnight Muse.  Oh, it's such a beautiful color!!!!!

This month's color combination is:  Midnight Muse, So Saffron, Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive.  Of course, you can add any neutrals (white, vanilla, crumb cake) to make this combo work for you!!!

Now, I had to make a sample card for you!!!!  In fact, this is my mother-in-law's birthday card.  You see, my MIL loves the color red and she adores roses.  I grabbed my new stamp set called Stippled Blossoms and got right to work.  I do suggest using a Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the roses perfectly.

I used Crumb Cake (a neutral) as my base card.

For the next layer, I ran a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock through my Big Shot using the new Fancy Fan embossing folder.

Next comes my Midnight Muse banner element.  I simply took a strip of cardstock and cut the banner edge using one of my square punches!

For my newsprint layer, I ran a piece of First Edition Specialty dsp through my Big Shot using one of the Labels Framelits.  I dragged my Crumb Cake ink pad over this layer using the Direct-to-Paper technique.

My roses are stamped onto Very Vanilla cardstock using Cherry Cobbler ink.  Stippled Blossoms is a two step stamp set.  That means that it takes more than one stamp to build the image.  First I stamp the more solid layer.  I ink up this image with Cherry Cobbler ink, stamp off once onto scrap paper and then stamp onto my Very Vanilla cardstock.  Using my Stamp-a-ma-jig, I ink up the more detailed image with Cherry Cobbler ink and stamp it full strength.  The result is a very beautiful rose.  Each of the roses are cut out.

The leaves are also two step.  They are stamped just like the roses but using Old Olive ink.

Lastly, is the sentiment.  I inked up the "Mom" stamp (from the Family Reunion stamp set) using Basic Black ink.  I punched it out with the Large Oval punch and inked the edges with Crumb Cake ink.

All that's left are some Basic Pearls on the left banner edge.

I hope she loves her card.  Her birthday is tomorrow!!!!!

Now, it's your turn to play with this month's color challenge!  If you choose to play, we hope that you'll  link your card's web address to the Linky Tool at the bottom of this post.  This way we can all oooooh and aaaaahh over it!!!!