Havin' a Pow Wow

The Cat's Pajamas had an AWESOME sale last weekend, marking EVERYTHING down 25%. I've been drooling over a number of sets on that site for some time now, and had to indulge (I seriously CANNOT resist a sale!). I bought this Havin' A Pow Wow set, some pirate-y sentiments to go with my Ahoy Matey (SU!) set, and another cute little stamp that I'll be showing you soon.

I made this card for Taylor's Cupcake Challenge this week. There's an acrylic Changito the Monkey set up for grabs this week, so I had to give it a try! And I have to say, I am in LOVE with the results!! I knew I wanted to use this set, so the first thing I did was look through my DP stack to find something that would suit the "Wild West". I chose that paper (Mellow by Basic Grey) because it kind of reminded me of Tumbleweed. From there I picked my colors and finished my base. I used the SU Canvas background on Pumpkin Pie cardstock. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see that the background almost exactly matches the pattern on the orange parts of the DP.

Then I was thinking about the fact that Taylor said she'd choose the most clever and creative entry to be featured on her blog. Dang. I want that! :) I pondered things a bit, and came up with this:

The main image is the actual "card" and everything else is the base. Now if that's not creative, I don't know what is! The card is held closed by slipping it behind the scalloped circle.

For the main image, I stamped the cat, then masked her and stamped the cactus to create a scene. I drew in additional lines for ground with my Chocolate Chip SU! marker (everything is inked in Chocolate Chip as well). The images were colored by pressing the lids into my SU! pads, and then picking it up with my blender pen. Since I used SU! ink for the images, I was afraid to use my Copics for fear the ink would bleed. I did, however, use copics to color the ground and the sky. The teepee is cut out and popped up on dimensionals, and then I added a few random brads around the sentiment just to help fill the space. I also scribbled some stickles on the ground (I've found this gives a great texture for dirt or sand) and also on the cat's eyes for a little mischievous glimmer *wink*.

The finished size of the card is 5 3/8 square, which fits perfectly into the square envies that Stampin' Up! sells.

Cute, right? Tell me what you think!

Details:
Stamps: Havin' A Pow Wow (The Cat's Pajamas), Canvas (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Ruby Red, Creamy Caramel
Paper: Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla
Other: Scalloped Circle Punch (Marvy), Fiskars Circle Cutter, Brown (HL) Grosgrain Ribbon, Tarnished Brads, Copic Markers, Stickles