The actual shoebox swap card

In all the excitement of posting photos yesterday, I forgot to upload the picture of the revised shoebox swap card, so here it is. As you can see, it's pretty similar to the prototype. I just thought with the top right and bottom left corners punched, the flower might look better pointing in the other direction. The cool thing about this card, which I didn't even realize until another stamper, Deb, pointed it out, is that it doesn't use any black ink -- everything is stamped in color, even the outlines of the images you need to color. That and the confetti white card base are what give the card a nice soft look. Just goes to show tat every once in a while it's good to step outside of your comfort zone and experiment. In fact, I found that for me that's essential to improving my stamping skills.

So I'm throwing out this challenge to all my readers -- use this sketch to create your own card. You can use different colors and you don't have to do the corners or the brads if you don't have the brads or corner punch on hand, but just try the color blocking technique with the center image and try to do it without using any black ink. You don't have to show me your creations, but if you'd like you can e-mail them to me at stampwithdiane@comcast.net and if you give me permission I will upload them here. It's just a challenge, not a contest, so there will be no awesome prize, unless one of you wants an assortment of 4 hand stamped cards, which I would be happy to provide. I was thinking of giving everyone a week to e-mail me their creations, thought you can certainly take longer to make one on your own if you don't have time this week. So what do you think? Are you up to the challenge? Ready, set, stamp!