It's a Color Throwdown Milestone

I really wanted to make sure that I carved out some stamping time to participate in the Color Throwdown challenge this week.  It's their 200th challenge after all and WOW!.  Just WOW!  To think that these ladies have been hosting and designing for these challenges for nearly four years is staggering!  I had the pleasure of being a guest designer over there back in May 2011 and I still get shivers when I think about it.  I mean really, this is the Color Throwdown and they wanted little ol' me to be a guest designer?  Yikes!!!

As luck would have it the colors for this momentous challenge were quite intimidating.  My first reaction was that I would not attempt a card right away in the hopes that something akin to divine intervention would suddenly give me an IDEA.  Then the UPS man delivered a new box of goodies from Stampin' Up! which just happened to have a DSP pack called Orchard Harvest (SNEAK PEAK ALERT) that had colors so close to this challenge that I thanked the divine intervention and immediately tore into this pack and started making a card.

The challenge actually included a color called Pink Passion that is long retired so I needed a substitution.  I was going to use Melon Mambo even though it's a bit brighter than Pink Passion, but then the divine intervention showed me that Raspberry Ripple would be a nice alternative.  (Of course, it didn't help that the DSP I already used had this color in it)!  So I set to work with the sketch challenge at Deconstructed Sketch and came up with what you see here!

The DSP is gorgeous and I love the diagonal stripes, but looking at this I wish I had made the square with the stripes bigger because the stripes deserve a little time in the limelight too.  And I got to try out my Large Scallop Edgelit and the companion Paper Piercing Essentials.  I love having paper piercing template that matches this exactly.  It adds some interest to what otherwise is just a scalloped edge.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I'm off to the garden for some weeding.  Those pesky plants never seem to get the hint that I don't want them because they keep showing up!