February Viva la Verve

Today I have two cards because I am catching up with this month's Viva la Verve sketches (VLVFEB2011) posted in their forum over on Splitcoast Stampers. Here are the sketches:

and here are my interpretations of them:

For the first card I used the Cottage Wall collection of dsp, some celery ribbon, and the friend stamp from SU's Simple Friendship set. I embossed the stamp with white powder on pale plum cardstock and then colored in the flowers using my pastels and blender pens. For the second card I went with a vintage look, which is not common for me but I'm trying to get comfortable with it because I like the look so much. I used sahara sand as my base and layered elegant eggplant and a piece of patterned paper that I've had for so long, I don't remember where its from. For my focal point, I stamped the butterfly from the Simple Friendship set in versamark on a piece of vellum and embossed it with white powder. It is layered over a piece of lavender patterned paper from a free pack I received for attending CKC Manchester (woohoo!!). The sentiment is again from the Circular Sayings set from Verve, stamped in elegant eggplant, punched out with a circle punch, and distressed with a sponge and some antique Distress Ink. I then added some lace and pearls to complete the sketch. I'm really happy with the way this one turned out.