Vintage Plum Star Search Challenge #1 - Fussy Cuts

I am having so much fun participating in Vintage Plum's Star Search Challenge. The talent on this website is amazing, the product is adorable, and the message boards are so much fun to read!!


The Plum Star Search Challenge is an awesome opportunity to become Vintage Plum's July Guest Design Team member!! We have challenges every week for 5 weeks and each week Vintage Plum members get to vote on our offerings. The winner each week gets a prize and then the person with the most cumulative votes at the end of the 5 weeks gets the July Guest Design Team position.

So PLEASE go - become a member on the Vintage Plum website and VOTE FOR ME!! You can find my week #1 submission HERE in the Plum Star Search gallery.


The voting happens every Sunday & Monday for the next 5 weeks...mark your calendars! (**BLOG CANDY ALERT!! See below for info.**)


OK, so on to my week #1 entry. The challenge is fussy cutting. Here's what's fussy cut on this layout: "imagine", the circles border on the left, individual circles that are popped up on the border, the triangles in the "wheels" in the top right corner, and the flower accent in the bottom right corner.

May 2011 issue

The stamped images are embossed and then shaded with Stampin' Up! inks and a blender pen.

I've tried to show in these detail pics the amount of fussy cutting on the stamped images. McSteamy better make room for me at Seattle Grace with the amount of "precision" cutting I did. LOL!

Since the theme of the layout focuses on my son's learning to ride a bicycle without training wheels, I tried to reinforce the wheel theme with lots of circular elements. This detail pic shows all the popped up and dimensional circular details along the side border.

I thought the colors in the paper and the stamped images nicely compliment the bright colors in the pictures. The layout uses Basic Grey's new Lime Rickey collection (can you tell how much I love it?!). The "wheel" accents in the upper right are inspired by BG's print ad for the collection:

The "today you" label stamp at the bottom is an Ali Edwards set by Technique Tuesday. I love the whole set but I mostly got the set for the little border stamp that says, "THIS MOMENT, THIS STORY, THIS DAY, THIS EXPERIENCE, THIS LIFE." The date stamp is a Heidi Swapp stamp - isn't it amazing how similar the "handwriting" is in both sets?




The journaling says, "TODAY YOU decided you were done with training wheels. You set your mind and achieved your goal. With determination like that, you can do anything you can IMAGINE."


Finally, here's a pic of my son "proudly" displaying the finished layout. Is that not the epitome of a hurry-up-Mah-ah-ahm-and-take-the-picture look? There was a much more interesting and pressing Buzz Lightyear Nintendo 64 demo competing for his attention.



Details: Paper - Basic Grey, Stampin' Up!, The Paper Company; Ink - Stampin' Up!, Staz-On; Stamps - Autumn Leaves, Technique Tuesday, Heidi Swapp; Brads - Stampin' Up!, SEI, unknown; Crop-a-dile grommets; Zig Millenium pens; Stampendous embossing powder; foam squares and dots; Cutterbee precision scissors; Stampin' Up! circle punches; Crop-a-dile; bone folder (to set grommet prongs).



Remember -I need your votes!


** BLOG CANDY ALERT !!! **


Check back here on Sunday for the link to my layout waiting for votes over on Vintage Plum. I'll be giving away some yummy blog candy to one of the lovely people who so kindly vote for me. Here's a sneak peak at the candy (look familiar?)...



As always, thank you so much for looking!


Heidi