The Happy Room

If you like Michael Strong Stamps (and who doesn't??? WHO??? Ok, I didn't think I heard anyone say they didn't!!) there's a great YahooGroup just for paper projects made with his stamps!

Ya, all of us groupies are there (um...myself included). So our fearless leader himself posted a challenge for all of us MS'ers to pursue: The Black and White Challenge. Tough parameters for a colorful girly girl like me: Black and White only, 4 1/4" X 5 1/2", one recycled object, any saying or embellishment. Whew. I think I did it!
The base cardstock and the first layer of the card were sewn on my Janome Sew Mini sewing machine. The main 3-D image was created with 3 stamps using the following steps:

*I stamped the small leaf several times and hand cut each one.

*I stamped the flower once, cut it out around the edges, then cut each petal individually to the center of the flower.

*I took each one of these images and molded and shaped them by holding the cardstock in one hand and gently pulling the cardstock between my thumb and middle finger on the other hand. The cardstock naturally bends and curls.

*I took each individual petal on the flower and bent them inward toward the center of the flower to make them "stand up".

*I turned the flower over and put tacky tape on the back of it. Then, I began attaching the leaves inbetween each petal of the flower.

*I turned the flower over and attached it to the black panel of the card.

*I stamped the circle image, punched it with a 1" circle punch, and glued it with fabric glue inside of a bottlecap, then attached the bottlecap with fabric glue to the middle of the flower.

*I punched the fern shapes from a punch and randomly glued them on the left side of the flower along with several decorative ribbons.

*I punched the butterfly from a punch, bent it's wings and attached it to the bottom corner of the card.

The ribbon is from various unknown sources, fern punch and butterfly punch is from Martha Stewart.