The Featured Stamper Challenge #900 Celebration!

If you haven't seen me around in blog land much recently it's because I've been keeping a "dirty" little secret:  I was asked to become a part of of the "Dirty Dozen" on Splitcoaststampers:  aka, I'm officially now one of the "dirty girls".   And before you start to worry about me, ha ha, "dirty" is just a fun play on words;  we are called the "Dirty Dozen" because our hands are constantly covered in ink from stamping!  Fun pun, heh?  

Now I realize because I'm a lifestyle blogger and not exclusively a card maker blogger, most of my readers don't have a clue about what I'm talking about.  So for those readers let's just say it's like receiving an Oscar for card making.  I honestly never in a million years would have thought of being asked to be a part of this incredible team of crafters.  I'm still pinching myself that's it real.

So what are the requirements of a Dirty Girl you might ask?  Well the main requirement is that I have to make six cards a month for six months which follow a specific theme that changes monthly.  I'm not allowed to post those cards to my blog till after my six month period is over.  The cards are reserved only for the Splitcoaststampers Fan Club members to view.  However, the one I am showing today I can post here because the current Dirty Girl design team was asked to make a make a card for the 900th Featured Stamper Challenge and that gallery is open to the public.

So what is the Featured Stamper challenge you might be wondering?  Well, every week on Splitcoaststampers a stamper's gallery from the community is featured and everyone is asked to pick one of the featured stampers cards and "case" it.  The first challenge post was 2/11/07  and since then has inspired over 9000 cards, 900 weeks later.  To "case" a card, you just create your own card from the inspiration card you picked of the featured stamper's, and change two or more things.  

So, here is MY card:

And here is the card I cased.  You can find the original card with all the details HERE.  

The original card is by Barbara Tarayao.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love how she did the "hello" sentiment.  I chose Barbara's card because I had just purchased a stamp/die set similar to this and wanted to play with it, but I also needed a wedding card so I was trying to catch two birds with one stone.

The major changes I made were the colors, stamp/die set, and theme.  But I also changed little detail's like I sewed around the edge of the card using my sewing machine since I didn't have a "stitched" die.  I also used a white embossing folder for the background and added glitter glue to all the flower centers.  I popped the heart up on dimensionals.

 Being on the Dirty Dozen Design Team is a huge time commitment and is especially rough for me as now is the time of year I need to spend so much time outdoors in my garden.  But I've been planning ahead and working feverishly on rainy/cold days to get my cards done, so that when the weather is nice, I can be outside.  However, I did have to cut back on other things, like blogging, to find the time to do this, so if you haven't seen a lot of posts by me lately, that is the reason why.  But soon, I'll be back to a regular blogging schedule and I will have a lot of cards to share with you from my time as part of the "Dirty Dozen".

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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