Howdy! CPS Challenge #70

I decided to do this week's sketch challenge at Card Positioning Systems. All of the stamps are from one of my new My Favorite Things stamp sets called " Ride em Cowgirl." It is another one of those "I don't know why I need this set, but I do" purchases. The paper is by Kaiser, and the ribbon is from a stash I have had for years and years and never used. I couldn't tell you what company made the ribbon, but I can tell you how cool it is that I am finally using it.

I thought I would use this card as an opportunity to talk about problem solving when making cards. I had to do some planning for this card because it wasn't working out as I wanted. I chose to use these stamps for the sketch, but they weren't the best to use for the challenge. The cowgirl stamp had a rectangle border around it, but the sketch called for an oval. Some people don't take sketches as literally as I do, so the rectangle wouldn't have been a problem for some. For me, the sketch had an oval, so I wanted an oval. When I punched an oval around the cowgirl, I was left with lines from the frame on either side. Here is a picture:

How to fix this? Humm.. I could trim it with scissors, but I couldn't cut a nice line to save my life. I could edge it with a pen, but my punch doesn't cut very well, and every flaw is highlighted with a marker. I love to use Krylon pens to edge, but I didn't think itwould work well for this card. I decided I wanted to cut some slots so that the outer oval would hold my inner oval. That way the slots would cover up the lines on the side. Next problem... how do you cut the slots?! I know there are tools out there that will do this step for you, but I don't have them. I decided to make my own template and cut out the slots myself. For this, I traced a penny on either side of the oval:

I used the curve I drew as a guide and cut it with an exacto knife. Important note here! Do not cut all the way to the edge of the oval or you will end up with a cut out section on your oval instead of a curved slot. This is what it looked like when I cut my slots:


As you can see, I don't cut very well. However, it didn't really matter. The area I cut is small and hardly noticeable on the finished card. I am sorry I chose cardstock that was brown on one side and white on the other. The white showed through when I made the cuts. To cover this, I edged the slots with a brown Prismacolor pencil.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Look for another IO design team challenge on the 1st!