RAQ's Challenge Cards

We had four sketches for this week at RAQ's. Carolyn made these awesome sketches and it was great to finally put my ideas into paper.




I just had to do a yin-yang card when I saw this sketch. I also wanted to make the cherry blossoms in the Pagoda cart. The symbol was cut at 3" and the flowers at 1 1/2". I accented the smaller flowers with liquid pearls. The gold paper is handmade from India.




I wanted a tropical-looking card for sketch 2, so I used Life's A Beach. The flower is actually the sun, cut at 3" twice with the middle layer cut at 2 1/2". Part of the card challenge was to try a new technique. I have been dabbling with a lot of techniques, but I have not seen anyone try to layer flock with flower soft just yet, so that's what I did for the flower center. I also did some inking, which is something that I have not done yet. The sentiment is from Sweet Treats, cut at 1 1/2". Paper is from K&Co and the border punch is from Martha Stewart. The arrows were drawn freehand and cut manually, since I wasn't sure if I had a cart with an arrow in it.






I made another Valentine's Day card for the third sketch. The cuts are from Love Struck. The striped heart is actually a cut from a swap, and I believe it measures 3". I cut the heart border at 1 1/2". The sentiment is from Plantin' Schoolbook, cut at 3/4". The brackets were cut at 1". The larger brackets are stickers from The Paper Studio. The papers were from MAMBI and the ribbon is from Offray. Liquid pearls and stickles were used to embellish the cuts.






For the fourth sketch, I decided to make another birthday card. The anthuriums were cut at 2" and inked. Flower soft was used for the center. The scalloped circle was made using Nestabilities and embellished with liquid pearls. The dragonfly is a sticker from Jolee's. Handmade paper from India was used for the scalloped circle. The green paper is a scrap.






Here's the scanned file of the kanji that I made for the Pagoda cards. It translates to: "O-tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu", or "Happy Birthday" in Japanese. You can skip the "gozaimasu" if you're greeting a close friend or family member.