Challenge Complete!

The final challenge from Alisa on Wednesday night was to make a dahlia fold and use it on a card. Well, let me just say that my 'tea bag fold' technique needs a little work! However, in the end I did manage to come up with something half way respectable....

I needed to make a get well card for my SU! 'sister' Cath, who had surgery on her back this week! She had to have some disc removed at L4/5 (for those of you who know what I'm talking about), and having had the same surgery myself 2 1/2 years ago, I know how the poor girl is feeling!!! Plus she sent me an awesome handmade birthday card so of course I needed to thank her for that as well. So I decided to use the dahlia on a card for her and in the end it turned out rather nice...if I do say so myself.

The paper for the dahlia and the background is the gorgeous 'Fall Flowers'...this paper is soooo yummy in real life, even though it's not really *my* colours, I like it! The card stock is Sahara Sand for the card base, Really Rust and Old olive for the layers. In the middle of the dahlia is a large green Rhinestone brad and the corners of the sentiment panel have gold brads. The sentiment is from "Cheery Chat" and was inked up in VersaMark and then coloured with my Really Rust marker....unfortunately I was a bit challenged there and didn't do such a good job covering all the letters, but after I had embossed it with clear embossing powder I really liked the way it is kind of two toned....in real life it looks cool and like I meant it to be like that! I put a little bit of Bashful Blue grosgrain ribbon behind the flower and it was done! {the actual colour that matches these papers is Soft Sky, but I had the Bashful Blue bit left over from another project I was working on and thought it looked good...see June I was using my 'scraps'}

I'm not sure if I'll be making too many of these dahlias in the future, but if you want to try it the instructions are on a fabulous tutorial at Splitcoaststampers..... http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ee/index.php/resources/tutorials/dahlia_fold/.

I had a very creative night last night and I'm looking forward to showing you some of the gorgeous things I made...unfortunately you'll have to wait a bit until the recipients have them...I'd hate to spoil the surprise!!

Right, I'm off to finish up my swap cards and then I might just make a few things for FUN... I love Saturdays!

Have a fantastic day wherever you are,

Kristie