ISMAKI Challenge #2. . .

January 20, 2008

ISMAKI Challenge #2. . .

Expanding horizons is a general theme that seems to be running through a lot of blog challenges right now, and that makes sense, because challenges should be, well, challenging! And if they are, then they are by nature, expansive.

This little offering pictured above is my first attempt at a new challenge. ISMAKI may be easy for most of those participating, but for me, this was close to agony. . .and that means that I had a very difficult time with it. In my book, that means that I probably need it very much. It's definitely outside my comfort zone to work with templates, but I've been an outside the box person for so long now that there's no danger of a template boxing me in. . .it can only broaden my horizons. Add to the mix the fact that I don't scrapbook my family photos (some of them are still in undeveloped 35mm film canisters. . .I'm confessing too much here. . .) and I am not much of a card maker. Very quickly, you'll realize that for me this is a real challenge!

But I do use a lot of scrapping techniques in my collages, altered books, art quilts and journals, and I am positively addicted to the yummy papers and other goodies used (I absolutely *heart* chip board and grunge board), so with all this in mind, I'm hoping to force myself, through this challenge, into a position where I explore layouts and techniques that I would never try in compositions if left to my own devices.

So far, I'm batting 1000. That's 100%. And all this means is that I am happy to be among all these very skillful individuals who excel at something that I have very little experience with.

For this challenge I used scrapbooking papers for the substrate and the circle, and blue vellum and handpainted blue papers in between. The criss-cross lines are paper stamped with PSX tiny heart, and the two larger hearts are HeroArts small block swirl heart, and their large block swirl heart. Writing is in my own hand, and the glitter dots (which look much better and are really much more glimmery than my scan) are made with Art Institute glues and glitters. The silver flower brads are Decorative Details from www.nunndesign.com.

In closing I'll just admit that I took a good hard look at a cross-section of posts to this challenge, and I must say, I have a lot to aspire to! So, if all you seasoned card makers and scrappers will accept my humble offerings, I'd love to join-in on the weeks that I'm able. You guys have an awful lot to teach me, and I'm a very willing student!

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