Welcome to Paris!

Next month, my better half and I will be travelling from Nova Scotia to Europe with several friends. These friends form a group of eight; we often enjoy dinner parties with one another, and our tradition is to spend every New Year's Eve together. So I wanted to create a little "purse-something card" to give the gals at our "Pre-vacation dinner party," coming up soon. We'll be visiting Paris, Nice (French Riviera), Cinque Terre (Italian Riviera) and Rome over a period of nearly a month. Our dinner party's theme is "all things Paris."

Although one of the challenges needed some distressing (which is ALWAYS an extra challenge for me!), I had such FUN with this project! I created four of these, three for gal-friends, and one for a local paper crafting shop.

Sooo...I browsed through all the current challenges, and decided on these:

The Crazy Amigo challenge is "welcome" (to Paris!)
The Cuttlebug challenge is to create a "scene" card (Eiffel Tower)
The Wednesday Stamper challenge is "paisley" (inside pocket)
The Ready Set Stamp challenge is to use the following ingredients: cork, the colour blue, a monument, the Cuttlewax technique, and a metal embellishment

Isa's done an easy tutorial on the Cuttlewax technique, on a post dated Aug 12th. (An added bonus is a pic of her "favourite helper elf," her little daughter Melissa)

So, this is what I did: I used a piece of the new Basic Grey lace medallion paper first.

It was actually nicely distressed as it was, but I Cuttlebugged the Swiss Dots folder on waxed paper, then ironed it onto the lace medallion (sandwiched with another piece of cardstock), then distressed it with Tim Holtz Broken China ink.

Then I stamped this Crafty Individuals stamp on a piece of cork paper with the same colour ink, mounted it on the Basic Grey lace medallion, then mounted that on another cork panel. Crafty Individuals stamps lend themselves so well to distressed work. The tower image is very faint, which is just what I wanted. I used some pretty ribbon from Michael's, the Fleur di lis emblems are glittered with rust...very pretty! I picked up the rust again with a small circle of rust textured paper underneath the stamped image. I added a Fleur di Lis metal embellishment from Frost Creek Charms.

I stamped and embossed a couple of paisleys on an inside pocket, coloured with a little Sakura Glaze ink, added some note paper and a pen, then a greeting on the back...et voila!

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit today.