Lawnscaping challenge

This week I have been taking some time out of crafting to visit other blogs. If you read my previous blog post you will know that I have had a slight creative blip over the last week or so, and my work has been all over the place.

On this meander through blog land, I came upon this little site called {Lawn} scaping challenge and I really liked how different it is to the usual style of blog that I follow, and how far out of my comfort zone the crafting examples are!  A challenge indeed.

It is based on the products of the company called Lawn Fawn, who are based in California, and who see their stamps as 'fun and lively': I think their design has a cartoon element to them, and not at all what I usually what I work with, but it has been really refreshing to see a whole new set of design styles and become familiar with another group of crafter's from around the world.  This is an example of the stamps they offer and the bright and colourful style that you can get from using Lawn Fawn stamps .... This card is by one of the Lawn Fawn designers Lynette. (you can view her blog here.)

So I decided to enter the challenge today .... I don't own any of the company stamps, but as the challenge calls for projects that use distressing, I thought I would share two cards I made this week.

  I love them because I used the Papertrey Ink poppies on from the reward set Botanical Silhouettes. Its the only PTI set that I own, and therefore gets a lot of use.  I used my favourite inks for the project .... Versamagic chalk inks.  They are really great because they are so multi-functional. I use them for embossing, distressing, as I did here, or general stamping.  I used the PTI 'with sympathy' sentiment on one the card, and 'with love' from another set on the other, however this set was one of the first that I bought, and the packaging with the brand on is long since gone.

Both the cards were distressed around the edges with ink in 'Sahara Sand' (GD-72), both had black gems as the centres of the poppies, and the sympathy card had some bright red polka dot grosgrain ribbon on.  I like to experiment with sympathy cards, something that I will be blogging about in the near future, and colour is a great way to try something different.  I also like this card because it uses red and green- classic Christmas colours, and sympathy cards around Christmas time can, if done in a subtle way, acknowledge the pain and hardship that will come with the festive holidays.

In terms of the challenge, I kept the distressing to a minimum, and I think that this keeps the simple feel to these two cards, whilst still being interesting and respectful to their purpose.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what you did with distressing challenge, or what projects you have made recently that showcase this technique.  Please feel free to leave your comments or links to your blogs below ... I look forward to seeing them all.

Have a good day everyone, and I'll be back shortly with another challenge that I am starting today!

Shelly X