It’s time for the 6th weekly Paper Therapy challenge!  This week was a really tough one for me.  Kristin, the Paper Therapy site owner, picked out an ad for an inspiration challenge.  You’ll have to go to the Paper Therapy challenge board linked in the first sentence to see the ad, which was a *very* interesting photo!  After a lot of thought, I finally decided to create this:

My main objectives were to capture the reflection, the texture, and the colors, especially the black.  My background colors behind the trees ended up more muted than I really wanted, but oh well.  You can’t tell from the photo that the image panel is done on glossy cardstock, which emulates the shine of the ad photo.  I thought the branches of the trees imitated the wispiness of the skirts pretty well.  I have to laugh a little because Kristin used this exact tree image on her challenge card last week! 

Are you wondering how I did the reflection on the image panel?  It honestly wasn’t very difficult.  First I created the background by using a brayer to apply ink from one of my old Stampin’ Up Spectrum multicolored ink pads.  When that was dry, I inked up the stamp with black ink and stamped it on a piece of acetate I use for my Stamp-a-ma-jig imaging sheet, and then used the SAMJ to help position the image onto the panel.  Once the main image was stamped, I took the acetate sheet, turned it over (ink side down), aligned it with the “right way up” image, and then gently pressed the sheet down onto the image panel.  This allowed the ink to smear a tiny bit so the reflection wouldn’t be super-duper crisp.   Because the acetate is such a glossy, smooth surface, the ink hadn’t dried on it.  When I carefully lifted the acetate back up, there was my watery-looking reflection.

So, there it is.   I’ll be hanging onto this card to add to my next package for Operation Write Home. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Lovely As A Tree, Trendy Trees (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Creamy Caramel textured, Basic Black, Glossy White (SU)
Ink: Taffy Spectrum pad (SU); Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: Basic Black grosgrain ribbon (SU); ribbon charm (Making Memories); brayer