Black And ....

This evening I am engaged in my usual Creative Avoidance. I really want to cut up the card stock for my kits for this weekend's Stamp Camps, but then I also want to use the black DCWV cards I have out so I don't need to put them away. Last night I'd spotted a challenge to use Black & White and one other color, and I thought I'd play with that idea, and asked #2 what color she thought would work with black besides the usual red or light blue or green. Lavender, she says .... then I went to bed.

Before we get to the Black + Lavender, I saw something today that is pretty rare in these parts lately: the Sun. I had to dig out my sun glasses this morning! Not to worry, though, it is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, so all will be back to damp here shortly. While the sun was out, I took this picture out the window at work:

I am told this is a Tulip Poplar, or maybe that's a Poplar Tulip. Whatever, I was on the 4th floor when I took this and the tree towers over the building, so I'd say it is a good 60 feet tall. Really pretty!

Okay, on to the Black + Lavender. While I did use three black DCWV cards, I cut into three virgin pieces of patterned paper, so I have managed to increase The Heap. Drat! Let's see if it was worth it.

Here's the first one I did. This paper, by the way, is from my 1/4 of the Blog-iversary patterned papers. It could be yours ... have you entered my contest yet? Hmmm?

The card is really a mish-mash of stuff. There's that paper, layered on a piece of purple from The Stash. The cupcake, a non-traditional Crooked image, is from my Anniversary PTI stamp set. I stamped the parts-is-parts with various newly-opened PTI inks, and also cut into an as-yet-unused PTI purple dotted ribbon. The sentiment is also from PTI.

Next up is this ... thing. I don't know what happened, but I did a lot of "hey, what about ...", and this is what came out. The paper is a piece of light purple flocked shiny paper from my stash. I have others that coordinate with it, too. I think I got it at Recollections before they closed. Sigh ...

For the sentiment, I wanted to use the flourishy frame that came with the PTI Anniversary set along with one of the sentiments, and I only had to stamp it five times to get one to come out right. Of course, I stamped it too low on the card stock, plus the Nestie shape was huge, so I decided to only cut out part of it. Then I cut out a piece of Basic Gray to layer behind it. I hacked it off so it was straight (lol!) and decided to cover it all with some yummy SU satin ribbon. It is still see-through - oh, well. The bow is tied separately.

In a desperate attempt to make it look finished, I added some half-pearls to the sentiment swirly frame, which you can see here. You can also see the flocking on the paper. (No, that is not cat hair.)

Okay, okay, one more. The third piece of patterned paper I'd selected and hacked into is not my usual fare, but I was brave and persevered. Since it was already a bit different, I took it a bit further and used some more of the paper flowers I have, and also added a swirly rub-on left over from my Basic Grey* card kit. I used black brads in the centers in an attempt to pull it all together, but I also got out a pack of unopened snap things from my old, old stash, and cut one of the flowers so it wrapped around the snap, just because I could, I guess. Ribbon - of course - but I used twill, and I had it stop under the flowers instead of wrapping all the way around. Hey, I figured I might as well be REALLY different. :-)

Then there's that whole balance thing, but adding anything more to this thing would have made my head explode, so I simply stamped a sentiment (PTI, again) just above the twill and called it done.

So there you have it - three cards in one sitting. Not bad, not bad.

I guess I'll go clean up now, or cut card stock, or something. Let's hope the rain holds out until after 2:30 tomorrow afternoon! No rain, no rain, no rain ....

Thanks for stopping by!

* Tidbit of trivia for the day: Grey/gray is spelled differently depending on who's saying it. Today I learned that 'gray' with an 'a' is the American spelling and 'grey' with an 'e' is the Eurpoean (and sometimes American) spelling. You will never see greyhound spelled with an 'a', though. ;-)