triple-threat sketch challenge!

can you believe it's september already?? holy moly, summer just FLEW by, didn't it?! but it *IS*september...in fact it's the fifth...and you know what that means: time for a brand new CAARDVARKS challenge! this time it's a sketch challenge, for which my wonderful fellow crew-member heidi van laar has devised not one...not *two*...but THREE fabulous sketches from which you can choose to make your card!

we're sponsored by the rather lovely people at DRS designs, who kindly let the design team loose in their online store to choose some of their fab un-mounted stamps. i've been looking for a nice *BIG* happy birthday stamp...and DRS had a grrrrrreeat one: big enough to build a whole card around, or just totally jazz up the inside.

of course you know how i love my texture and pattern stamps, so i selected a cool cross-hatch pattern that can work in pretty much any space, large or small.

finally, a girl cannot have too many cupcakes...in real life OR art supplies...so i could not resist this adorable one! (isn't it cool how all the illustrations on the DRS site show the exact dimensions of each stamp? i found this unbelievably helpful!!!)

for my first card, i've used the first of heidi's three awesome sketches. it looks a bit like this:

i rotated the sketch 90-degrees clockwise, and then somehow it became a bit foreshortened, mostly because both the pink and green panels you see before you were leftovers from other projects...and i decided i reallllllllly liked them together...and they were just not quite big enough to make a taller card. (this card-makin' lark is dead scientific, innit?!) :)

(rubber stamp: cherry top cupcake by DRS designs; patterned paper: sei, prima, basic grey; black glossy cardstock: ranger; bling circle: heidi swapp;diecut journaling flower: urban lily; inks: colorbox & staz-on; pencils: prismacolor; pen: zig;other: manual typewriter; adhesives: tombow mono runner, 3m foam tape)

the rest of the card is pretty self-explanatory: i've typed on a pre-made journaling card, blinged it up a bit, and assembled all my bits according to the sketch, adding layers of foam tape for the flower and various levels of the cupcake for extra dimension. inking just didn't feel quite right for this card, so as a finishing touch i outlined the panels slightly wonkily with a nice thin zig pen. and that's about it, really.

be sure to check out the design team's gorgeous work, and hit the freshly re-vamped 'varks site for details on how to submit your own creation for a shot at some awesome DRS rubber!