Four More VSN Cards

I've done it! I've played ALL THE CHALLENGES for this weekend's VSN on Splitcoast. I now bring you four of the last five cards I've made.

For the Ocean Water challenge we were to make a card using the Salted Background technique. Here's mine:

This was like my fourth or fifth attempt, and I just called it DONE! You can see the stamping isn't so great. I couldn't get all the salt off no matter how much I tried. I also tried different inks for the stamping. All pffth. I'll call it "distressed".

The next challenge was Tan Lines, and we were supposed to use masking of some kind. Here's my card for that one:

I misted over a stencil. I actually tried this several times (do you see a pattern here?) before I got one I liked, and it turned out to be a less-is-more version, with just one color of spray.  This spray was made with Peacock Feathers reinker, water and Perfect Pearls. It's very shimmery.

When I mist through a stencil, I take it off and smoosh it onto another piece of water color paper to save all that inky goodness. My sentiment is stamped onto a piece of that second piece of water color paper. It's the negative of the background, and a perfect match. Speaking of which, that's another piece of mystery card stock for the base. I've made a pretty good dent in my pal's stack of card stock this weekend.

The next challenge was Lemonade, and we were to use "ade" colors of yellow, orange and green. I thought I'd use some of my new goodies, so I made this:

I used my new Simon Says Stamp grid background and heat-embossed it in white. I then applied three colors of Distress inks. To contrast all the bright, I opted to open and use my skunk. I couldn't bring myself to use black with him, so I settled for a dark grey. I even added Enamel Accents to his eyes and he didn't come out a complete zombie.

Next challenge was NOT your typical summer vacation, and we were asked to (in her words): "create a card to reflect the craziest, most amazing summer vacation you have never had... yet!". For me, I've lived in suburbia all my life, and I dream of how wonderful it would be to spend time on the open range out West. All that big sky, with no street lights or buildings to interrupt the landscape. Maybe I could spend a month or two on a working cattle ranch. I also know my brain has a romanticized version of ranch life, as it's a ton of work! But I still dream about it, so that's what I used as inspiration for my card:

I opened and used some not-so-new dies (horse and cow), and I actually re-used my Lawn Fawn bird stamp. Heck, I'm retired. I've got all sorts of time to retrieve it, open the package, mount it to an acrylic block, stamp it, clean it, and put it away. Right? Pffth. But I did it, just this once. :)

I'm pretty proud I've used more of that green Hero Arts paper that's in the growing pile next to my big paper cutter, not to be confused with the paper trimmer I keep on my desk. There's no pile next to the smaller trimmer as there's no room on my work desk for a pile of scraps. Sometimes small is helpful in the war on clutter. 

That card base is another from the box gifted to me. I'm working through them as fast as I can, since I have no place to put them, and I'm kinda tired of stepping over the box. Hmm, I wonder if that "stepping over" thing counts as aerobic exercise. 

I have one more card, but it will get it's own post since I'm also entering it into a challenge. So there will be only one more VSN post, then it will be back to your regular programming.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used (mostly in order of the cards posted): Kosher salt, misc brads, A*Muse cloud dies, Poppy Stamps Galloping Stallion, Poppy Stamps Moo Moo Cow, and the following:

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