The evolution of a card, aka my random method of creating

This evening (while Sheldon was marking quizzes and we were listening to Car Talk and WWDTM podcasts :D) I was able to make a card for today's SCS Inspiration Challenge. I always love seeing the inspiration pieces for this challenge, and try to participate regularly as time and mojo permits.

I wanted to make my card on a white card base because I love the look of the white solid furniture against the yellow walls in the third inspiration picture. I was flipping through my little box of card bases and found these embossed, square card bases I'd gotten in a grab box from The Angel Company a couple of years ago. Originally I wanted to make a yellow and white card, but upon closer inspection of my yellow-coloured inks and papers, I decided to change my plans and go with the bright pinks in the second photo. The butterfly is of course from the Unity kit Friendship, Love, Miracles, and the use of that image was the only thing I was certain about in this whole design. After colouring in the embossed square frame with my Gelly Roll glaze pen, I decided to trace the pen around the butterfly as well to give it more visual weight. My little card was still a little plain, so I stamped a pattern around the edges the easiest way I could, using wee little flower centre stamps from Technique Tuesday's small Loves Me, Loves Me not stamp set.

After stamping all those little dots, I was ready to call it a card, and Sheldon thought it was pretty cute at that point. BUT, I was not completely happy with it, so I sat back down and grabbed a bottle of Stickles. The most obvious choice would have been my go-to colour, Frosted Lace. I decided to fling caution to the wind and, remembering that pretty yellow bedding set, opted instead for Lemon Ice Stickles. I had NO plan on what I would do with the Stickles; I just started off filling the centres of the largest dots, took a look and decided it needed a little more so filled in the centres of the small hollow dots, took a look and felt I was almost there, and finished up by putting a drop of Stickles in the small solid dots too. After all that dotting, I was in full-on Stickles mode! I was like, "Ok, what else can I Stickle here? Well, there's the empty squares in the frame, and there's the butterfly's wings. Nah, those aren't dotty enough. How about doing the dots in the butterfly's wings? Perfect!" So there it was -- done and done! In retrospect I like my crazy and impulsive little card!

I did spend most of today crafting, but I am waiting for my other project to dry and hopefully will have it up for tomorrow! I am so chuffed about it -- I started working on it a few months ago, hit a stone wall, then had an AHA! moment today looking at an inspiration challenge from a couple of weeks ago and now I'm almost done!

And now for something completely different..... I think it's pretty apparent that I LOVE Unity Stamps. I am so happy to have found them and their awesome products, because they are one of the big things that revitalised my enthusiasm for papercrafting and stamping. Well, not only do I love Unity, but so does my cat Fozzie!! He is soooo appreciative of how they understand his little kitty soul and send him the most perfect gifts! In the pic he is lying on some of the paper my first kit of the month was padded with. He has literally loved that paper to pieces! For a few days, he had also gotten a hold of the padded envelope that my second kit of the month came in, and was using it as a pillow while lying on his paper "bed"! No word of a lie!