Taheerah Atchia

Hey everyone!

Happy Monday! I know, I know, Mondays are tough. We all need a little tonic to help us get through the day. Luckily there’s a new challenge in town to help us do just that – the Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge!!

This is a challenge which I’ve created myself, yay me! Every Monday I will bring you a photo inspiration challenge, with images that focus on lifting us out of those Monday doldrums and all inspired to create!! I’ll be asking you to play along as well and linking up your creations! At the end of each week I’ll pick a Top 3 who’ll be my Cures For The Monday Blues and receive a special badge to add to your blog!!

Before we get to this week’s challenge I want to thank all of you that submitted entries for the last challenge. They were all truly beautiful entries and you did not make my life easy when choosing the winners!! I really wanted to pick you all!! Here are my Top 3 Cures For The Monday Blues:

Winners please contact me to be sent your challenge winner’s badges!

Seriously, you guys. There were so many great entries and you all seriously made it tough for me to choose! If you didn’t get a chance to check out everyone’s work last week then I really encourage you to! Gorgeous!!

So are you excited to get this week’s challenge under way?! Let’s see what’s up for this week’s inspiration:

I picked this picture because it made me smile and made me feel happy. 🙂 That’s gotta be a good start to curing those Monday Blues, right?! I love the bright sunny colours, all that white space, and the pale woodgrain – so much you can do with those! And the moustache on the egg – gah!

Here’s my take on the inspiration:

This one makes me happy! I feel brighter already!

I started with a Pure White card base and stamped one of the strips from Neat & Tangled’s On The Strip 2 set using Hero Arts ink in Butter Bar. I love using the reverse of strip stamps to get a wider, plain stripe. 🙂 I then added some black thread and tissue paper, adhered in place using Glossy Accents.

Onto that amazing feather now! Have you ever seen a woodgrain feather?! I thought not! I really wanted to combine the feather in the picture with the woodgrain effect, so I blended Distress inks in Antique Linen and Tea Dye onto a strip of Pure White cardstock. I then stamped it with the Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain stamp using a mix of the same Distress inks. I misted the stamp and the cardstock with a mix of water and Perfect Pearls, before stamping the feather from Waltzingmouse Stamps’ Fine Feathers set using Kraft ink and a little Distress ink in Brushed Corduroy. I trimmed the feather out carefully and cut into it as much as possible to give it a more realistic effect! I adhered in place using Pinflair Glue Gel. I punched out some of the woodgrain effect cardstock and used those to add ‘confetti’ across my card, along with some woodgrain hearts I had created before when making another card. Love that touch. 🙂

Next, that hello! I die cut it from Pure White cardstock using the Paper Smooches Quote Tag die, then inked it up with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I then pressed it into my Versamark inkpad and triple embossed using Filigree Black embossing powder. That was also adhered into place using Pinflair.

To finish off I added a scattering of sequins and I was all done!!

So now it’s your turn to cure the Monday Blues! Here’s how to participate in the challenge!

The Rules

• Create a brand new project using the photo inspiration
• Post on your blog or to an online photo album. Ensure you link up to this challenge post in your blog post and include the inspiration photo
• If it is not obvious how the image inspired you then please explain your process in your post
• Link up your creations to this post using the Inlinkz below. Please use the link to your actual post rather than the link to your blog
• You can enter as many times as you like!
• The deadline for linking submissions is Sunday 9th March at 9pm GMT/4pm EST

Supplies:

Pure White Cardstock	On The Strip 2 Stamp Set (Neat & Tangled)	Fine Feathers Stamp Set (Waltzingmouse Stamps)	Designer Woodgrain Background Stamp (Hero Arts)	Hero Arts Shadow Ink – Butter Bar	Distress Ink – Antique Linen	Distress Ink – Tea Dye
Distress Ink – Brushed Corduroy	Kraft Ink	Versafine Onyx Black Ink	Versamark Ink	Filigree Black Embossing Powder	Quote Tag Die Collection	Lime Satin Sequins
Black Sequins	Atlantic Sequins	Pinflair Glue Gel	Glossy Accents

InLinkz.com