"From our home"... or the one that got away!

Have you ever had a project take over and go from being a simple card to one that keeps adding elements to itself? Every now and then that happens to me.

Outside:


Inside:


I had discovered that the Grand Madison Die by Poppy Stamps/Memory Box is a bit large for some of my ideas, so I recently treated myself to the small Madison Window die and shutters, plus some other Memory Box dies. These dies are very popular and as such, they're tough to find! But I got lucky since they were in stock at Susana's Custom Art & Card Designs.

Here's my first card using the smaller dies. I riffed on an earlier card of mine where I showed both the view from the outside looking in on the outside of the card and the interior scene on the inside of the card. This time, I did a view looking out to what one might see if one lived across the street from an über-cute row of shops, such as those in Happy Town, a stamp by Victoria Case for SCACD.

First I stamped Happy Town and colored it with Copic markers. I used a dotty dotting technique for the trees, sky, and sidewalk. The windows were coated with a layer of clear Stardust pen and then a layer of clear Glaze pen. I die cut and matted the stamped scene using Nestabilities.

Then I set out to construct the card. First I die cut the window four times from white cardstock and put them aside. Kraft cardstock was used for the base layer of the card. The patterned paper on the front is from a Haunted pad by MME. Of course, by the time I got done adding stuff, you can barely see it! Anyways, I found some ribby white cardstock, cut it to become "beadboard" and adhered it to the white-on-Kraft patterned paper and cut it to size. It was edged with Ranger's Picket Fence Dabber to make it show a bit more. Then it was adhered to the card front.

Taking inspiration from my dining room windows that are two windows next to each other, I put the two window die cuts together and measured them, did some icky math*, then cut the aperture through the card's front.

I opened up the card and taped my handy-dandy Bricks stencil from The Crafters Workshops to it and dabbed on Picket Fence Paint.

While it was drying, I cut a piece of ink jet transparency to become the window. I then adhered that to the card front, added the window die cuts, and a small strip of white cardstock to cover the seam. The same process was done to the inside of the card.

I positioned the stamped image where I wanted it and then thought to myself, "Self, this looks weird. The window looks lonely up there." So I added gray shutters, a window box, Jolie's flowers (from an EK Success warehouse sale), a tree branch, and punched flowers.

Then I closed the card and said, "Self. The front is too plain." So, I puttered around with papers, crepe paper, and a bunch of other stuff before finding a very, very old MM metal strippy thing that I turned into a curtain rod. But then I couldn't find ribbon that made me happy. So I had to go prospecting through all the ribbbon I've got and found sheer blue ribbon. I hung the curtains, added tiebacks (narrow silver ribbon) and covered up the patterned Kraft paper. Then I said to myself, "Self. You need a sentiment to break up all that white from the "beadboard" and "window frames". So I computer generated a sentiment, die cut it, embossed it even more using a stylus, dottied it up with Copics, then outlined it with Prismacolors.

The card finally declared itself to be done. Now I just need to find someone who would appreciate it. :D

BTW, this card took a while to finish. *rolleyes*

*My grade school teachers were right. I really did need to learn about fractions.

Thanks for reading all this and for visiting today.

I shall be entering this card in the following challenges:
• Simon Says "Anything Goes"
• Craft Your Passion #106 "Diecuts"
• iCopic Lovers Challenge #78 "Spring Colors"
• Oozak Challenges "Anything Goes"
• Fussy & Fancy Challenge #61: Punches & Dies