Well the challenge was set yesterday although today is Tuesday. Susan Itell often sets a “Monday Make it Mine” challenge on Mondays and I decided, for the first time today, to try it out. Her challenge sounded simple – create a one layer card using only one stamp set. I’ll point out now that the seeming simplicity of the challenge was completely misleading. And then some.

I started by creating a card with Painted Petals and then had two attempts with Endless Birthday Wishes. I had three goes with Because You Care. I didn’t like any of them. I contemplated a number of other sets and, fearing that I had a pattern going and I was going to make four attempts, pulled out the Stampin’ Up! Sheltering Tree set. Bingo! Which is more than can be said for the photography – and I tried a number of times.

This simple one layer card has whisper white as the base and the grassy bank is stamped in pear pizzazz – my current favourite spring green. The tree is stamped in sahara sand. After using the embossing buddy, I stamped the leaves in versamark and used the blushing bride embossing powder. I pulled the combination of sahara sand and blushing bride from the colour coach. Only then did I decide to add the swing – also stamped in sahara sand – and so I had to carefully blot the ink off the embossed leaves where the swing was stamped over the blushing bride. I decided to add some clumps of flowers, using the pear pizzazz and blushing bride inks. I liked that the sentiment was just the right length to fit in the gentle curve of the bank – that’s stamped in sahara sand. Since this was a Susan challenge, I had to go with the classic envelope lining since it was from reading her blog that I became addicted to this practice!