Inspiration challenge

Jeanne Streiff posted today’s challenge. She wanted us to get inspired by this purse:

The purse immediately reminded me of the gorgeous Tres Jolie paper I bought when I went shopping back in San Antonio with Jenn. I love that paper and can’t wait to get more when Joy and Daisy finally stock it in their store!!!

I pulled out the paper and decided to put it on my entire card front. I  needed a relatively big image to make the stripes not look overpowering. The sweet Inky Attics turtle I got from Jennifer as a birthday present was still sitting on my table. Rebecca made her birthday invitations yesterday with that image (and lots of bright gel pen colors and big amounts of glitter….she called them their wacky turtles).

I cut out a circle out of watercolor paper, stamped the turtle with black Palette ink and sprayed the paper with my water bottle to wet the paper a little. Then I colored the image with Stampin’ Up!’s classic reinkers. For the bottom part I mixed a drop of bordering blue with a drop of taken with teal to try to match the color of the paper.

My card base is a 5 1/2″ x 11″ chocolate chip retangle folded in half. The front is scored one inch in and folded over. I stamped the fold over with Paisley background in chocolate chip. I used the cutting tool kit from Stampin’ Up! to distress the edges. On the inside of the card is a  5 1/4″ square of the same paper as in the front. It is double sided and I used the other side for the inside.

I paper pierced around the image and on the right side of the inside to tie in the stitches on the purse. The paper piercing looked a little sad on the main image, so I decided to add a kind of Morse code border.

I had planned to place the flower on the right hand side of the image and the saying on the bottom left. Well….while taping the turtle image down I smudged the image with  some chocolate chip ink I had on my fingers (ARRGGHGHHH). So I switched it around. The flower went on the top left of the image, and I had to move the saying to the right. I decided to make a buckle card. I used a 1″ x 3″ strip of watercolor paper, rounded the edges with the round tab punch, stamped paisley with bashful blue and then watercolored over it with the same color. Once it was dry I stamped Thinking of you (Wordsworth) on it. The buckle is only held by the ribbon, which is…of course…May Arts ribbon.