Monday Morning Heart Song Challenge

      Good Monday morning to ye!  Heart Song Inspirations has a new challenge this week and it even challenged some of us on the DT (me, for sure.)  Fortunately, it's always a two-part challenge at HSI, so I know I got one part of it at least.  We want to see you do Shabby Chic OR Pearls OR both.  I've never tried to do Shabby Chic and had to go find a definition for it.  However, I'm already educated as to what pearls are, so I knew I could do that part.  :-)

     I used a sketch from Going Grey with Scrap-Creations.  

     The image is one of Leah's wonderful butterflies which you can find on the Butterfly Duet at the Heart Song Designs store.  I only used one of the two butterflies there but I printed it four times -- once on white and once each on Periwinkle (blue-purple), lavender, and pink papers.  I fussy cut the pieces I wanted from each of the colored papers, and layered them together to make the butterfly, adhering them only along the butterfly body.  I gently curled up the wings for a little dimension.  I cut the image square and punched the corners to round them.  

     I used scalloped oval die cuts (Spellbinders Nesties) in two sizes, cut in half and layered together on the corners of the card.  I stamped "Thanks" for the sentiment, punched it out with a round hand-punch.  As I went along, I sanded the face of the papers and card stocks, and even the card base to try for a bit of faded/distressed/shabby look.  In addition, not counting the bows or flowers, there are 8 layers on this card.  That's the best I could do -- layers and sanded distress for the shabby look.  However, I got carried away with the flowers so I'm afraid it looks more vintage/Victorian than Shabby Chic.  At least I got pearls in the center of the two satin flowers.  :-)

     There were a few other challenges which influenced this card.  It worked as a Thank You card and both Stamp Something and Do You Stack Up have "Thank You" themes this week.  Fussy and Fancy wants to see us use at least 3 of a favorite embellishment.  I love flowers and bows and that's why I went so overboard, turning this card into Vintage instead of shabby chic.  lol   Pauline reminded me that Ribbon Reel is having a purple theme (plum, green & gray) for their challenge.

     Shopping Our Stash wants us to fess up about our Weakest Link -- the things we just can't resist.  My weak link is nearly anything purple.  I will buy papers I don't need if they are purple or have purple in them.  Same thing with flowers.  In my stash of flowers, I have more purple/lavender/periwinkle/red-violet than anything else, but I just can't walk by purple flower embellies!  That's why I used so many on this card.  lol

     That also goes for bows, twine, and ribbon, too.  More purples than anything else.  In fact, the tiny bows on this card are tied from a thin, coated twine which makes them sparkly.  If you noticed, there is one in the middle of  the butterfly, too.

     OK, time for you to go check out the Heart Song Challenge this week.  I know you can probably do shabby chic but if that's not your thing, then add some pearls or even a pearl flourish.  Heart Song has some great digis you can use, and there's always a freebie available.  You're not required to use HS images but we do love to see them if you have them!  Thanks for stopping by.  NanaConnie