Hello again! I'm posting my Clear Dollar Stamps weekend color challenge card today but first I just have to say I went out to Hobby Lobby today and got some of the most fabulous paper. I'm sure many of you guys like me are paper-holics! I feel like such a geek because I seriously think I could spend an hour in the paper isle looking at all of the beautiful colors and patterns, not to mention touching with all of the great new textures available, glossy, glittery, velvety, even croc embossed! It is a feast for the eyes! Now I'm curios how many of you cringe when you buy the sheets in singles and the check out people shove it into a plastic bag? I do, they need to sandwich it between cardboard or something. Even worse is when they put it in the same bag with hard or heavy objects! Ok enough of that right, now on top the card.

The challenge was to do a monochromatic scheme of any color, which I loved because I see other people do it and love it! Me, I love color so much and could use the full spectrum on every card I make every time, so this was fun and different for me. I used brown, I know this color is in my safety zone and maybe I should have been more adventurous but it seemed right for the stamp set I was using. (I'll have to go about that in a minute.) I had in mind with the browns and the look of the stamp that I wanted to try to imitate the look of carved wood. Things don't always turn out as you think because I think what I ended up with looks more like leather. Like a polished western saddle. What do you think, wood or leather? Either way, I'm pretty pleased with the end results. The darker paper is Chocolate chip. The main paper you see is a tree bark handmade paper you can find at CDS, it is awesome, photographs do not do it justice. If you click on the picture you can see the paper much better, you will love it! The swirl of course is a CB folder. I used the reverse side. It's on natural ivory paper, lots of sponging, them heat emboss, then darker sponging in the deeper areas. The flower stamp was done the same way then layered and topped with a page pebble to give it more dimension.

This is the new Art Deco Medallions at CDS. This is for sure one of my most favorite sets. A must have. It is so beautiful and versatile! For focal points or to make patterned background paper. If you like Making some little stuff for your home it's perfect too. I used it as the focal point on this one, the one I'll be posting tomorrow I used it for both. If you come back to see it you will see what I mean by versatile, I don't think I've ever had to more completely different looking cards come out of the same set! And sometimes it's fun to just stamp, stamp, stamp without all of the coloring in and still come out with something beautiful. If you've seen the other design team members cards done with this one then you also see the different looks you can get out of it.

To be continued tomorrow!