a pearl of a girl

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is a real pearl. no seriously! we'd like you to make a project inspired by this quote:

 

and now, here's my card:

background image is an older gel print on top of a collage of vintage paper with a donna downey poppies stencil as centerpiece; sewing pattern lady from an older sewing book, backed with a scrap of plain white cardstock and fussycut, adorned with tiny snips of an  eyelet outlet pearl flourish (the rest of which is an accent on the card); vintage lace from myu stash; scrap of hot pink cardstock as a mat; ancient sewing pattern paper from crate; plain white cardstock: staples; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sookwang scor-tape, sewing machine

i was inspired almost equally by the quote and the lady who said it. thinking about jackie kennedy, i decided an elegantly dressed vintage lady would be a nice starting point for my card. when i found this one, in a book with very creamy pages, i thought i'd probably make something fairly monochrome, in lots of shades of white. i tried out A LOT of different background ideas, from book pages, to patterned papers in every conceivable style. finally, while i was looking for something else entirely, i found this gel print, made last winter, on top of several taped-together vintage papers. it's definitely an offbeat choice, but as soon as i added it into the mix, the rest of the card came together almost immediately. i took the "pearls" part pretty literally, because i knew i had some lovely eyelet outlet pearl flourishes, in a few different colors. for a while, i was torn between bright white and dove grey, but eventually i settled on the cream.

be sure to check out all the other "pearls" of wisdom from the SOS design team! ♥