Paper Punch Art Challenge

My friend Paola is currently hosting a swap featuring punch art cards on Splitcoaststampers.  She is now having a weekly challenge Tuesday through Thursday for those taking part in the swap and friends that features punch art cards.  This week the challenge is to make a punch art card using the negative space left by the punch.   I used a butterfly punch along the lower border, a Martha Steward Punch Around The Page butterfly punches for the gold panel and a single Martha Stewart punch on one side of the the panel.  The panel has an overlay of vellum with the sentiment stamped on it fastened with a butterfly brad and a yellow rhinestone brad.  A little black and gold fringed ribbon is wrapped around the bottom of the black panel that is mounted on the gold metallic cardstock.  To find out more about this swap check out this link:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/cards-f107/new-punched-art-swap-%2Adue-april-2-2012%2A-t545218.html

Dueling Darling's "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"

It's the 15th of the month and time for another duel between the Divas and the Dazzlers.  This month Diva Carol and Dazzler Debbie, aka Lildj, chose the theme "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and isn't that appropriate for the month of February.  I'm part of team Divas and was awestruck with the beautiful kit I received from Carol.  Carol was afraid she didn't sent enough embellishments.  So not true!  I have enough left over after making this card to create more cards.  The only item on my card that wasn't in the kit is the base cardstock and the metallic silver die cut framing the image.  

I've been a little under the weather for over 3 weeks now.  Either dealing with a severe cold and sinus infection or having to have oral surgery last week for an infection.  I'm still in recovery mode and have to admit I'm not operating at full capacity so my card is a little late in getting posted and is rather simple in style. Without further fanfare here it is:

This darling image is from Mo Manning called "Young Love" and isn't it sweet?!  So perfect for the the theme!  It's colored with Copic markers and die cut with the Blossom Nestabilities and framed with a metallic silver die cut trimmed with pearls.  The beautiful heart embossed background paper is called Sweet Cakes from the Doodlebug's Heart to Heart collection.  I used one of the gorgeous ribbons in the kit to create a bow, attach it to a glittery silver punched heart and added one of the very pretty pink ribbon flowers in the kit.  Below the image I created a panel with the satin fuchsia ribbon placed behind the fantastic sheer heart ribbon.  I attached one of the small glittery silver punched hearts to the middle heart of the ribbon and trimmed the remaining four with the bright pink heart shaped rhinestones.  Well, that's it. What do you think?

 Please visit the rest of the Diva team here:
Kelly: http://sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/
Carol: http://lostinmycraftroom.blogspot.com/
Barb:  http://inkingintoretirement.blogspot.com/
Jamie: http://butterflystamper71.blogspot.com/
Joan:  http://msearlgrey.wordpress.com/
LJ:  http://buckygirl.blogspot.com/
Tami:  http://blueinksdesign.blogspot.com/

And also visit the Dazzlers starting with their leader Jeanette here: http://creativeplayischeaperthantherapy.blogspot.com/

Below I have several cards I managed to make with a valentine theme:

This card was made using Card Patterns Sketch 152.  We R Memory Keepers makes this bright and fun heart designed designer paper. I used one side for the background and the reverse side for the strip beneath the oval layer.  Those hearts were the inspiration to stamp hearts in similar colors around the oval which was created using oval Nestability die and mounted on another scalloped oval Nestability die cut.  I used an SU punch to create the two hearts out of another d.p. and attached buttons trimmed with twine. The candy stripped twine wrapped around the heart strip has a tag attached that was stamped from a Clear Stamp.  Corners were punched with a scalloped corner punch:

This card was delivered to my next door neighbor who is originally from the South Pacific.  I've had the pleasure of watching her perform the hula and sing with her ukulele so I thought this adorable image for The Greeting Farm was really appropriate. It was colored with Copics, cut out and mounted on the card with dimensionals  Sorry I can't remember the name of this beautiful d.p. I thought the lacy heart in the design was appropriate for the day.  It's trimmed with some beautiful prima flowers with rhinestone brads and a heart punched strip layered with green and pinky-plum satin ribbon.

Hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day. Mine was quiet except for the big excitement of a brief snow storm here in the AZ desert.  It isn't often we get snow let alone rain here so it's a big event when it happens.
Today we're back to blue skies and sunshine and just a bit cooler than normal temps.

Wishing you a blue skies and sunshine day wherever you are! Sending you HUGS AND KISSES!!