Shabby Chic and Guest Artist

Last week's challenge on the Hero Arts blog was to create something "Shabby Chic." My understanding of Shabby Chic is that it is a worn, vintage look with a lot of pastels, distressed edges, fabrics, twine, buttons, pearls, etc... Basically, not what I normally do. But, I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

To make the card, I used three stamps from the same HA clear set and paper by Cosmo Cricket. I stamped the tree onto some light patterned paper with brown VersaFine ink and colored it in with various watercolor pencils and a blender pen. I cut out the tree and added some pearls to the bottom and to the center of the star. I stamped the bird onto my background paper and again onto the same light patterned paper as I used on the tree. I cut out the body of the bird and the wings from the light patterned paper and then glued it over the bird I had stamped on the background paper. I did this so that I wouldn't have to cut around the bird legs or the string with ornament. I ran some cream paper through a corrugator to give it thexture then ran some brown ink over the top to distress it. I also distressed all of the paper edges with some scissors and added some brown ink to the edges with a sponge. To finish the card, I added some buttons with waxed linen tied in the centers and some lace behind the corrugated paper.

For the next card, I want to share something my friend Marilynn made:

I wanted to share this card because it uses the same stamp I used in my last IO challenge but in a different way. To make her card, she stamped the image with Memento ink and then colored it with Copic markers. I really like the fact that she colored the trunk grey instead of brown...very spooky. I also like that she used both brads and an orange ribbon as embelishments. Marilynn said that the finished card didn't take much time to finish....always a plus!