Wishing You Tranquility

Hey there my crafty friends! I hope you've all had a fantastic week. The weather here has been scorching...blech. On Thursday it was around 37 degrees Celsius, but when you factored in the humidity it felt more like 50. Seriously. That would also be the day that our air conditioner at work decided to go on the fritz. Nice. I work for a cardiologist, so our call to the repairman was placed pretty high on the priority list, but it still took until lunch time before he was able to get there...by then it was around 30 degrees in our office. I'm hoping that next week brings a little relief to this heat wave!

This week, our hostess for the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Challenge is the lovely Tara. She has designed a fabulous sketch for us to play with! Tara always creates gorgeous cards with so many pretty layers and embellishments, so I'm excited to use her sketch! (You can find a picture of her sketch over at the KKS Blog...for some reason, I couldn't get it to upload. I'm a bit technologically challenged! lol)

The stamp I used on my card today is "Akiko"....love her. :) She's so beautiful and serene. I used several papers from the MME Stella and Rose Mabel collection to complete the various layers of Tara's sketch. (SCACD is out of that specific paper pack, but Susana still has the "Hattie" and "Hazel" MME pads in stock...you can find them HERE and they are priced at only $5.99 USD!!) The "Wishing You Tranquility" sentiment comes with Akiko. For the scalloped horizontal component of the sketch, I folded over a piece of dollar store crocheted trim to create the double layer. I think the button may be from Basic Grey, but I can't say for certain as I found it laying all by it's lonesome in the bottom of my ribbon container, lol. The string is some jewelry twine I picked up at Walmart...actually it was in the kids crafts section. :) The little brown pearls are also from the dollar store. Since I did not use cardstock to mat the various paper layers, I inked up the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink to give them a bit of definition. Machine stitching was added for a finishing touch.


"Akiko" was stamped on Neenah cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and coloured with Copic markers. I'm not entirely thrilled with her hair...you know that saying "leave well enough alone"? Well, I didn't. lol I had been working on her hair, and had achieved some decent highlights but thought I should add just a touch more ink to create a few more "strands" of hair. That brilliant move basically resulting in mucking up the highlights...now there is very little contrast in her hair. Lesson learned??? I need to bring in the "hands off" rule! lol For shading her kimono, I used quite a bit of grey for the teal portion and a few different browns for the orange sections. I sponged around the image with Oasis Green Chalk Ink and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.



Skin: E000, E00, E11, R20 Hair: B60, C3, C5, C7, 100 Clothing: BG72, BG75, C5, C7, YR02, YR16, E08, E99, E18 Flute: Y17, E31, E35

If you play along with us this week, you could win "Tori", the stamp Tara used on her gorgeous card! (just make sure to use a Kraftin' Kimmie Stamp to be eligible for the prize) For more inspiration, please visit the Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Blog to see what the rest of the very talented Krafty Girls have created this week!

Oh, and don't forget about the Frugal Friday Sale and July Gimmie Kimmie Kits...you can find them by clicking on the "Specials" link on the left hand side of the KKS Online Store. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps "Akiko" and coordinating sentiment
Paper: Neenah, Bazzill, MME
Ink: Memento, Copics, Chalk Ink, Distress Ink
Embellishments: Button (Basic Grey?), Crocheted trim, twine, Machine Stitching