Color Throwdown 95 & A Sneak Peak

Hieeee! It's Wednesday! And aside from it being the day I work from home and frantically process payroll (blech), it's an exciting day because it's Color Throwdown Challenge Day!! You might know that I had been the guest designer for May, but did you know I am now a permanent design team member at the Throwdown?? That's right! I'm super excited to be a part of this fabulous team of designers. It's so nice to be part of a team where you feel like you can learn and grow as a paper-crafter but also laugh your bum off in the process. That's so important to me!

On to this week's colors...LeAnne is our hostess this week for CTD95 and has chosen this fresh and summery palette:And here's what I came up with.....


Believe it or not, this Hydrangea blossom stamp is one of the first stamps I ever bought. It's almost 10 years old and I still love it!!
My card is heavily inspired by two cards made by Dawn McVey: Card 1, Card 2. I loved these when I saw them and have been itching to try my hand at something similar for a while now. I wanted to use these fresh, modern colors, but I wanted to dirty them up a bit. I like the idea of a contrast between such bright colors, but adding some vintage tea dye and distressing.
My turquoise background has been distressed with the canvas texture plate from PTI and it has been stamped with with an image from the Text Sytles set in Vintage Tea Dye ink, which is a bit hard to see, admittedly, in this photo. My focal image has been colored with Copics, edges stained with tea dye and layered on a Green Galore mat which has been stitched and distressed. Over it, I layered a pink scallop strip which I made with my corner rounder and some coordinating green ribbon. I added in a little sentiment panel with a little rhinestone accent.

I hope you get a chance to play along this week. I can't wait to see your uploaded cards on the Color Throwdown blog. This one is tougher than it looks, although I will probably look at your cards and say, "Why didn't I think of that?". That always happens!! HA!!
Please make sure you visit the blogs of my fellow design team members and leave them some love.
Tammy Hershberger
Broni Holcombe
Barbara Anders
Danielle Kennedy
Kristin Bueter
LeAnne Pugliese
And please welcome Wanda Cullen,our guest designer for June! Visit her and leave her some love at Cullen-ary Creations!

One quick thing before I go.....don't forget about the Chi Chi Memories blog hop coming up this Thursday, June 3rd! The design team members have some fun things to share and there will be prizes for hopping along!! Here is a sneaky peeky of my card for this week.
Yep, that's all you're getting!! Stay tuned it should be a ton of fun! Sadly, this will be my final creation as a designer for Chi Chi Memories. I've decided to return to my consumer roots and support Natalie as a loyal customer and fan.
See you soon and thanks for stopping by today!

Ingredients
Stamps: Hydrangea(Delta), Three Little Words(SU!), Background Basics: Text Styles(PTI)
Paper: whisper white, gable green, tempting turquoise, pink passion(SU!)
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Vintage Tea Dye Duo(PTI)
Accessories: linen/canvas texture plate(PTI), corner rounder(Marvy), certainly celery ribbon(SU!), rhinestone(A Muse), sewing machine/stitching, sponge