Thursday, August 20, 2015

Marcia & Me ~ A Personal Challenge

Hello Marcia and friends~ Last month Marcia and I challenged each other to use a stamp that we were both struggling with how to use it. You can find that post HERE. We enjoyed our little personal challenge so much that we decided to try another challenge to make a card using a style of one of our favorite designers, Melissa Phillips. Melissa has a gift for mixing and matching patterned papers and adding little details to her cards that make them almost as sweet as she is. Even though I love her style, it's not a style of card that comes easy to me so this challenge really stretched me, in a good way! Here's my Melissa Phillips style cards. (don't laugh ;0) )

For this card I started by stamping a script background and flowers from Happiness In Bloom. To soften the background I heat embossed the sentiment onto vellum. Now, looking back at this, I should have cut the vellum smaller than the card itself to allow some of the true colors to come through. (Lesson #1 learned) I stamped and die cut the flowers and added stickles to the centers and attached them to the vellum. I'm more of a CAS card maker so my brain told me to stop here. Again, I think I could have added some ribbon, a bow and button to the top to give it more interest. (Lesson #2 learned)


This card was made using the little pinking square die from Button Boutique, cut out of different patterns of scrap paper. Rosie Posie continues to be one of my favorite flower stamp sets and I thought the generous size made a good focal point for this card. I added button stacks to each of the other squares and a little tag for the sentiment. The polka dotted ribbon and bow is so sweet!


My last card uses papers from My Minds Eye called Find Your Wings & Fly. I added a pink heart border that is hard to see in the photo but shows up better in real life. The flowers are stamped using Just Rite Botanical Medallions and Banners and colored using my copics. The sentiment is stamped and heat embossed on a vellum banner in gold. The gold sequins finish it off.

As I said, it was a super fun and challenging challenge for me and I hope you'll pop over to Marcia's blog to see her Melissa Phillip's style cards. Thanks so much for stopping by! Blessings~ Birgit

4 comments:

Marcia Hill said...

WOW...you did Melissa proud Birgit! I love all 3 of your cards!! LOVE all the color in your first card, and even through the vellum it still POPS! Totally in love with your 2nd card and all those little squares of DSP, which all coordinate beautifully I might add! And how can you go wrong with Rosie Posie...love it! Your 3ed card is my favorite...I love the soft mixture of the DSP papers you used, and then your coloring on the flowers is just beautiful!! I think you captured Melissa's style beautifully, and all 3 of these cards are winners in my mind! Thanks so much for playing along with me on this mini challenge, and getting me out of my little box I tend to stay in!! Absolutely loving this new stamping friendship my friend! :0)

Sue said...

Brigit, I love your cards too! I love the vellum on the 1st card. Card #2 is my favorite. I love the DSP with the buttons and the Rosie Posie flower just pops. I love your coloring on card #3. The DSP looks great on this card too! You and Marcia did Melissa proud! You both have more guts than me. I would really be out of my comfort zone!

Birgit said...

Oh wow-all three are so great and different even though they all have flowers. I love the mini square of the middle one with that bow. the 3rd one has great colouring

Joyce said...


What a fun challenge. I think you succeeded in channelling the best of Melissa Phillips. Her style is gorgeous, but so difficult to emulate--I am duly impressed with your three fantastic cards. Each one is different, and yet each represents Melissa's style so well.