SNS Monthly Challenge - New Challenges Await

Well Hello again!

 Wow, January has quickly slipped by already – hard to believe.  And February is already coming in like gangbusters around my place.  We had a busy & long first weekend in Feb. with the kids being off on Monday for a teacher in-service day this week.  So with them home an extra day; that meant a slow start to my week.  And it will be a busy week to boot.  It’s Valentine’s week around here!  Our school district always celebrates holidays on Fridays and they’ve decided that they want to celebrate before Valentine’s day instead of the day after.  So…..lots of Valentine preparations going on around here this week-  card’s, mailboxes, party games & treats are all the fare for us this week!  Busy times, but always special memories created for sure!

But here we are in February! And I don’t want you to forget about Sparkle N Sprinkle’s February Creative challenge going on all month; so I wanted to tell you a little about what I did for this month's challenge!

This month, SNS embarks on some new things with their monthly challenges; so you'll definitely want to be sure to go over to the Creative Challenge page to get all the details on what's new! 

One of the biggest changes though is that we will be hosting a wide variety of challenges instead of just sketches this year. How Fun!!

This month is the first non-sketch challenge and it focuses on a swatch from Design Seeds.

 

My take on the swatch was to take both the color (basically blues) and also the gradient in color that you see on the swatch.  Even though my gradient uses different hues; I wanted to build on having a gradient.  It's a little hard to see in my pic, but the glittery colors on the cross go from a rich dark navy in the center out to a soft pale blue near the edges.

Color swatch courtesy of Design Seeds®

For this design, I used one of my favorite SNS techniques - Glittered Stained Glass (video tutorial here March 2011) - it's also referred to as Glitter on Acetate and can be found in the SNS Tip & Technique section under that name. Or click the name to go right there!  Unfortunately, the pics don't do it justice - bad time of year for that up here in the north - I need more SUN lol!.  But I have to say, the sparkle with this technique in real life is just phenomenal! That's why I like it so much ;-)!  

 
Now I have to admit, I don't always design my cards with something specific in mind; but this card was one of those exceptions.  I had a baptism coming up and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  And this card was exactly what I had in mind!  (Everyone loved the card too by the way!  It was so pretty and sparkly; I decided to put it in a clear envie and attach it right to the front of the gift bag instead of putting it inside the bag!)


The other thing I liked about this card is with the versatile saying on it, you could mix up the colors and use it for SO many different special occasions - baptism, 1st communion, confirmation, weddings, even Christmas and Easter.  The possibilities are endless!  (And if you wanted something more specific for a communion or confirmation; the same set that these stamps came from also has two great sayings specific for those events)!

Here's a look at the whole set!  Set 362 - Crosses Floral



Ok, I better get back to those school Valentine's projects I should be working on! Hope you enjoyed today's card!  And I truly hope you'll join us for this month's Creative Challenge at Sparkle N Sprinkle!  We love seeing your work as much as we love sharing ours with you! Thanks so much for visiting today & don't forget to leave a comment so I know you stopped by!

Until next time,

***Julie***