PDCC73 - Choices, Choices

Doing all these challenges lately has made me realise that I'm leaning more towards a CAS style.  The PlayDate Cafe Challenge #73 rather inspired me to dig up the Inkadinkadoo dress stamp I avoided in last week's OLC challenge. So, even though I wanted to rationalise the number of challenges I'm doing, I ended up spending hours creating this entry. Mostly, it's because I couldn't decide between CAS and shabby layers.  Just what we need - a schizophrenic crafter. Seriously, this really did challenge me. I guess that's the point, ain't it?

So much waffle. You came here to see this:

There's a reason the clever PDCC challenge designer arranged those 3 colour samples in that order. If you put orange with red, the lavender is completely drowned out. How do I know this? Well, those 3 dresses have been re-arranged far too many times before I settled on this arrangement.  Oh look, it matches the PDCC one. :-) Having red on the right balances the black mirror frame better, too.

A bit more info, if you're interested...

So now you know, I love balance and symmetry which is also why I had to add the scrunched up purple tissue paper. It helped lift the lavender  plus evoke the "designer stuff wrapped in tissue paper" feeling. I used the striped background for a wallpaper look. I inked around the card with black chalk ink but it was too CAS (ha!). So I added some stamping (I love Stampin Up Bliss - really adorable set). I'm happier with it now.

I knew what sentiment to put but did not have the stamp NOR the inclination to build it using alphabet stamps (what, add another hour?).  I scoured the web for fonts that I thought would go well and in the end settled for the typewriter. I've never actually done this journalling style before.

There had to be a mounted mirror somehow. This was built using nesties and the mirror sandwiched between (yes, it's 3D and safe). And bling, too, of course - I love Stampin Up rhinestones.

Frankly, I'm so GLAD it's done (it's over, yay). I really can't bear to do any more experimentation on one card; it was getting ridiculously all-consuming.

Well, I hope it was worth your while visiting me this time. I hope you picked up something new and inspiring. For the record, here are the new things I tried with this challenge:

1. the colour combination itself - orange, red, lavender  (will probably never use it again)
2. Stampin Up Heat and set powder (with Dazzling Diamonds)
3. Twinkling H20s over the dazzling diamonds
4. cut-up journalling (might do this again)
5. digital sentiment (might do this again)
6. scrunched up tissue paper
7. sandwiched mirror (could do a scrapbooking embellishment)

7, that's a nice number to end with. The list of things I did that got scrapped is much longer than 7 - you don't really want to know about them.

Cheerio. Thanks for stopping by. And if you're one of those who spend a lot of time on your craft, please leave a comment to help me feel normal again.