amy's friday flashback challenge!

last week my lovely blogging friend amy tsuruta challenged us to re-post the very first card we ever showed on our blogs. hers--which is rather awesome, actually--is here. mine, which is from june 16th, 2007...was from my very first CAARDVARKS challenge; the assignment was to mix papers from at least three different manufacturers. this is the outside:


and this is the inside (even then, it was odd enough for me to decorate the inside of a card that i made sure to scan the proof!):

ok, admittedly, i went a bit overboard on the faux stitching...but i still quite like this card, and i re-post it proudly, with not so much as a cringe! but i do feel it's cheating a bit to leave it at that, because me being me, i had done everything bass-ackwards, and i only started blogging AFTER i was chosen for the CAARDVARKS dt! up until then i had been posting my cards online at lifetime moments (a 2peas-like store/gallery/community for papercrafters) for about a year and a half. unfortunately LM has since closed, so i cannot say definitively what i posted FIRST, but i can tell you that all three of these are from sept/oct 2005, and i was really REALLY into making 100% customized cards, and it was CRUCIAL to me that each one prominently featured the recipient's name on the front of the card!!! :)

this first card was one of my very first collage cards, made for my brother; it was double-sided, so i've showed the front & back side by side; you can see i already loved vintage items, map & newspaper backgrounds, and dymo labels!!! (so not much has changed, eh?!)

the next card i remember quite vividly as being one of the very first times i deliberately set out to copy someone else's style! the artist in question was called "suzy w", she was on the lifetime moments' design team, and i can remember being blown away by both the amount and eclectic-ness of product she used! i wish i had something of hers to show you, b/c this is a poor imitation...but i remember being SO PROUD of it, and i could not wait to scan it and show it in my own newly created LM gallery!!! (it was for my friend cassie, who'd've been 8 or 9 then, i suppose.)

this last card, which i sort of think of as my first "home run", was made for my favorite cousin. i loved it then, and i am not ashamed to say i love it still...though i do wish it was not so horribly crooked! it combines a photo from a magazine, my own computer generated caption, and a few scrappy products, and it still makes me laugh when i look at it:

right, so there you have it: lauren cards...the early days! :) whaddaya say? want to show yours? amy is giving us until midnight on friday (8-20), and if you leave her a link on this post, you have a shot at some fun blog candy! ♥♥♥