Enjoy Your Special Day!

What day is it?  LOL!   I am on my summer schedule so I lose track.  Not really, but I could!   For some reason this summer I have had a lot of appointments and places to be so I do not feel like I have had just a day of "nothingness" yet where forgetting which day it is could actually happen.  It has only been two weeks, though.  I should give it time.  

Anyway, today is the closest I have come to a "nothingness"  kind of day.  I have stuff scheduled the rest of the week, but today is a crafty day.  Yay!  (Of course, by "nothingness" and "crafty day" I mean laundry, craft, prepare lunch, craft, clean bathrooms, craft..etc. you get the picture).   The first thing I did was head to my craft room and make this card!    

I am playing along with a few challenges today.  This card is for Papertrey's Make It Monday Challenge.  We are to use dies with coordinating stamps as masks.  I am also playing along with this week's Just Us Girls Photo Challenge as well as Simon Monday Challenge - W is for White.

Masking?  Really?  When I first saw this challenge posted I must admit I had some reservations.   I literally just thought about it for a couple of days.  I finally just decided to go for it.  It really helped to use the JUGS photo inspiration.  Gave me a jumping off point for my design and what to mask.  I started with the Front and Center Cover Plate and the Ruby Rose dies cut with just white printer paper to create a mask.  I needed wide lines so I had to adhere two chevrons side by side to create the look from photo.  I used my Ruby Rose dies and created a flower arrangement.  Just so you know this was my third attempt.  The other masks I had the flowers first then the chevrons which makes more sense for masking, but I could not visualize what the arrangment looked like with all those chevrons on top so I did it this way.  Worked for me.  I used some retired Stampin Up going gray ink.  I have several gray inks, but this one looked the most like light gray.

When I removed the mask which was plain paper with some old and not too sticky adhesive, I had to erase the adhesive residue.   In some cases this worked and in others it did not come off which accounts for some blotchy spots in the stamping since ink does not stick to adhesive.  I decided I liked it and kept going.  I also was okay with little imperfections in the gray masked background where seams did not meet and gray ink seeped through.   I did add two die cut flowers and leaves to the center of the arrangement to give the mask some definition.  Other than that  the whole card is masked.   I finished the card with the Think Big Favorites #24.  I thought the big sentiment looked like the black chandelier.  I finished with some clear sequins.

As always thanks so much for stopping by!

Betty