Sunset Relaxation - Stampin' Up! Palms Dies

   Sometimes a mistake in shipping can be a royal pain and other times a happy accident.  My big mini catalog preorder mistakenly included the Palms dies instead of another die set which I ordered.  Stampin' Up! was of course very quick to fix the mistake and let me keep the Palms dies so I figured I should have some fun with it!

  In the last few months I discovered a new to me challenge which is all CAS.  The Perfectly CAS challenge is a fun one that really makes a stamper pare down a design to 1/3 or less of the card front and really keep to the spirit of a clean and simple card.  Easier said than done most of the time but I wanted to give their current challenge a go with these new surprise dies!  The theme is Sky or Sea so I decided a beautiful sky to complement the palm tree die was a great challenge.

  I started with a narrow strip of Basic White and blended colors with blending brushes starting in the lower corner with Daffodil Delight and then working my way up getting darker as I went and ending with Misty Moonlight.  I layered the colored strip onto a Basic White thick base.

  I cut the palm tree and grassy hill out of Basic Black and adhered them on top of the colored strip.  Finally I added a small sentiment from Many Happenings in black.

  In the spirit of Clean and Simple I refrained from adding any ribbon, twine or rhinestones which was hard but less is more sometimes and I'm pleased with how this card turned out.   

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Many Happenings 

Ink: Daffodil Delight, Mango Melody, Pumpkin Pie, Rich Razzleberry, Misty Moonlight, Memento Black

Paper: Basic White thick, Basic Black 

Accessories: Palms dies, blending brushes