Back to Black for As You See It Challenges

As a demonstrator, I'm keenly aware at this time of year of all the Designer Series Paper I haven't used up yet. It's an issue for a demonstrator because almost all the DSP is retiring and there is no point in designing something and blogging about it, if you can't buy it anymore! I could use it for personal use, but I almost always use any cards I give to family and friends as blog entries. There is only so much time in a week! So I welcome opportunities to use up little scraps of DSP that I won't be able to resell at my Rubber Rummage Sale. Thanks to Amanda's sketch for As You See It Challenges #089, I was able to use up a lot of little scraps of Back To Black Designer Series Paper. Here's the great sketch:

And here's what I did with it:

• This card is pretty simple, except for the 3D rose which I made using a five petal template. Here is a video tutorial I did showing you how to create one. I used the now-retired Fancy Flower Punch, which is a perfect size and shape for making these flowers, but you can use any 5 petal flower shape to do it, or even make your own template by punching out 5 one inch circles and overlapping them in a circle, gluing them together, then tracing around them. You'll need a total of three full flowers to get your 5 layers. The leaves are die cut from Basic Black using the Flower Fair Framelits.
• The small squares of paper are punched from various Back To Black designs using the 1" Square punch. I used a punch since I am "square-challenged", but you could cut them on your Stampin' Trimmer without the need of the punch. I find it is just so darned handy, though. Lining them up on the card front evenly required a lightly drawn pencil line (and a good quality eraser!) and having the Whisper White layer centered on my grid paper so that I could measure an even distance between the squares. I always start with the middle square and work toward the sides, trimming off any excess afterwards.
• The sentiment is one of my favourite from And Many More Stamp set and it is such a versatile greeting.
• The layering of Basic Black and Whisper White that I did on the card base, takes the card from "ho-hum" to elegant, especially when you vary the width of the borders. It meant that I had a little less room for my "inchies", but a black and white card needs details like this to keep from being boring.

This is your official countdown for the Retiring Products. 

You have  5 days  left 

to order any retiring product before it is gone for good!

I will be putting in an order this weekend, so make sure you get your orders to me before Sunday afternoon!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the Stampin' Up! products used to make this card today!

Product List

And Many More Clear-Mount Stamp Set [134276]	And Many More Wood-Mount Stamp Set [134273]	Back To Black Designer Series Paper [133700]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708]	Flower Fair Framelits Die [133731]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Fuse Fast Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]
Stampin' Trimmer [126889]