PPA209 -- Wetlands meets Handcarved (Paper Artists Pick)

So excited to be a Paper Artist Pick!  Yay!

You know how it is.  You see something and you're just not entirely sure you like it enough to have it.  Then you wind up buying it.  Now, what are you going to do with it?  In my case, I really wasn't sure whether I liked the Handcarved background stamp.  I didn't hate it but I didn't see it and fall in love.  But I wound up buying the stamp anyway.  I couldn't say exactly what brought me to that decision but I'm so glad I have it.  It adds so much character to a card.

For my card I've used it with the Baked Brown Sugar ink but off-stamped it once to lighten the effect.  That made it match the Burlap Ribbon more closely and I had plans for the Burlap Ribbon.  For my complimentary colour I decided to use the Coastal Cabana.  I off-stamped that twice when I used it with the Work of Art stamp just as I off-stamped the Baked Brown Sugar twice for the Work of Art stamp.  Together they made the basis for the seashore onto which I stamped the Wetlands stamp using Early Espresso ink.

For the Burlap Ribbon to work as one solid broad piece I took the stitching out of one side of each of the two pieces I would be using.  Then I cut a rectangular piece of the new Transfer Adhesive Sheets and mounted the ribbon closely together, matching the unstitched sides as carefully as possible.

I decided that the circles with my image looked a bit plain and added loops of Coastal Cabana Thick Baker's Twine.  That seemed to be the touch I was looking for.  A sentiment from the Losts of Thanks stamp set stamped in Early Espresso ink onto vellum finished it off.

You can see more wonderful cards made using this sketch at the Pals Paper Arts blog.