Gray Skies

This card is my attempt at the January Week 3 sketch over at Viva La Verve.  I spent way too much time trying to make this work, so I'm going to post it even though I'm not entirely happy with it.  Hehehe, did you catch the pun?   :)

When I looked over the sketch, I thought of doing another sun in place of the circle.  Remember the sunshine card I posted on Friday?  Also, Julee Tilman posted a fun card using sketch 2 over at her blog, Poetic Artistry, which made me think of pairing the sun with the Rain or Shine set I had out earlier this week.  I have to admit, I like her card much better than mine!

I made the sun with a couple of Spellbinders dies.  My colors for the card were pulled from the inspiration photo option that was given with the sketch.  You can see it here.  I used three shades of gray, playing off the whole gray skies theme.  I wanted the yellow sun to really stand out, along with the small splash of purple on the umbrella.

Going Gray cardstock was embossed with the Cloudy Days folder and adhered to a Smokey Shadow card base.  I hand-cut two clouds out of Basic Gray cardstock and then embossed them with a dotted chevron pattern.  I wanted to do something different than swirls.  Perhaps I was thinking lightning bolts?  Shrug.  I lightly rubbed the clouds with silver ink, making it heavier on the bottom edges.  After all, every gray cloud has a silver lining! 

I cut off one side of the sun, glued it down, and covered the edge with a scalloped strip.  I chose scallops to mimic the cloud shapes.  Not sure that really worked though.  I put the two clouds in place of the two squares on the sketch.  For the central square, I used a piece of Going Gray cardstock and stamped it with my sentiment.  I stamped the umbrella over top and paper-pieced it with a print from the Sycamore Street pack.  The three raindrops were done with Basic Gray ink, after stamping it off first on scratch paper.  Then I rounded the edges.  Wish I had done that first!!  I used the wrong end of my corner chomper naturally.  Oh well!  I went ahead and glued it in place.

That's where I stopped and went to bed, still unsatisfied with the card.  In the morning, I got the idea to stamp the word "happy" on the yellow cardstock and then lay it over the gray.  (with a piece of cardstock underneath to raise it up slightly)  I also lifted the edges of the two clouds to give them some dimension.  That helped tremendously.  I do wish I had matted the sentiment with the darker gray, but I didn't want to take apart the card or redo it.  C'est la vie!

It's still a fun card and I'm sure a recipient would enjoy it regardless.  I'm a little too perfectionist for my own good sometimes.   :)   I do like the concept!

Stamps:  Rain or Shine (Verve)
Paper:  Basic Gray, Going Gray, Sycamore Street dp (Stampin' Up); Harvest Gold, Smokey Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Going Gray, Basic Gray (Stampin' Up); Tuxedo Black (Memento); Silver (Encore!)
Misc:  Cloudy Day embossing folder (Stampin' Up); Charles embossing folder (Cuttlebug); Standard Circles Small die; Classic Inverted Scalloped Circle Large die (Spellbinders); Blueprints 4 die (My Favorite Things)