Materials Swap - Carol's Materials

Usually I start talking about a swap of this nature by showing the materials I was sent - but I forgot to take a picture until I was nearly finished!  So, I'll start with the cards I made & then show what materials I had left.  (And yes, there were enough materials to make more than one card - including 3 of the same stamped images.)

For this first one, I decided to leave the stamped image as is.  I would have loved to somehow add a pop of red, but couldn't figure out how to do that without coloring the flowers (since it would have been against the rules of the swap to bring in a red mat).  At any rate, it's a bit hard to see everything in the picture clearly, so I'll describe it.  There are two mats - one metallic silver, and one striped black (I cut them and most others used here with Spellbinders A2 Cardmaking Basics Rectangles).  The focal was edged with a black sharpie to look like another mat, wrapped with some silver and black ribbon, and added with foam tape for dimension.  The die cut greeting is in two layers - silver matted on black - added with foam squares.  The finishing touch is 5 pearls - 3 at the bottom and one at the center of each rose.

Inside:

Inside is very simple, since I find I don't want as much inside an A2 card - just a narrow frame of the black and white paper.

Card #2:

This time I colored the image with gelatos & a water brush.  Since we weren't supposed to use anything (other than coloring supplies & adhesive) that wasn't in the kit, I didn't use a card blank, but instead made one with the piece of plain white card that had been included.  I scored the top of the colored card and glued it to the back of the plain one.  This made it a bit short in front - which was perfect, allowing the black and white strip from the inside to show through to the outside.  I wrapped ribbon around the whole thing & tied a bow and decided to add another narrow strip of the black & white paper as well.  A small die cut greeting (dies from a puzzle die set I got in a card making magazine), and some little rhinestones - 3 in the center of the first rose & 2 in the other one - completed the card front.

Inside:

Inside I just added a small strip of the black and white striped paper.

This is what I had left - a fairly large piece of silver with a silver frame, two smaller pieces of the black and white paper, 3 green pearls, AND . . .

. . . the 3rd stamped image.  My Mom colored this one with alcohol ink pens (Spectrum Noir).

Here are the two cards that Carol made from the same kit:

Obviously, she too chose to leave one uncolored.  I like the way she fussy cut the colored one.