Sunbursts

I got a clue! :)

People ask me where I get my ideas, and I tell them I spend a lot of time reading blogs and tutorials. A LOT. For example, my bloggy pal, Lauren, posted a card for a challenge I used to follow, then for some reason it fell off my radar. Which challenge? It's called Inspired By Challenges, and you get a different inspiration each week. This week's challenge is:

Sunburst. I have never successfully made one of these, so I decided to give it a whirl today. I have several templates for cutting sunbursts so they're even, but Lauren did hers without one, so I thought I'd be bold and try the free-wheelin' option myself. Here is one of the three (THREE) cards I cranked out today:

I used my now-open pack of Cosmo Cricket Early Bird papers. The trick was to get the strips of paper ray-like, and since I was flying without a net, this is what I did:

First, I cut a bunch of strips about 1.5" wide:

Then I cut them each on the diagonal:

I did this for all the papers. For the yellow strips, though, I had other plans, so I cut them again:

Then I got to work. I covered pieces of card stock with adhesive (I used my ATG, making sure to hit the edges), then placed my first ray sorta in the middle. The rest I just lined up next to it and it made its own pattern. For the first one above, I didn't use any yellow, but for the next two I did, because I wanted to mimic the yellow in the inspiration piece.

Here's one:

 You can see I separated each colored strip with a piece of yellow, and it really brightens it up! You can also see that the top layer on this card doesn't reach all the way to the right edge. That's because ... have you ever cut your own bangs? You know, take a little off on this side, then a little on this side, then ... yeah, again I did this. I finally got it pretty even, then stuck it to the yellow layer crooked. I cried UNCLE and cut the dang yellow edge off and decided this one would butt up against the left side of the card. I totally meant to do that. *ahem*

For this next one, I had a moment, and 4" turned into 3.5", so it was too small to start with. I realized this after I'd stuck on the rays:

To be different, I lined this one up with the right edge. Since I was in "winging it" mode, I also hand-cut the circles for the centers of each sunburst. Okay, they are not actually circles; they are rounded-edge shapes.

I've been staring at these most of the day, trying to figure out what to do to finish them. Did they need something more inside the circles? Did they need bling? What? I finally decided they didn't get anything else, and I settled on plain old sentiments and made them into banners. I called them Done.

And now that the weekend is just about over, I have another idea, but it will have to wait until tomorrow evening.

On that note, I bid you adieu. I hope you had a good weekend, have a great week, and thanks for stopping by!