Hello there!

Warning: Lengthy post ahead!

October is here and with it we have a new muse at CASE Study! It is Elena Roussakis;  a very sweet and talented paper-crafter, and I am thrilled to have her work as inspiration. Wait till you see the them, for they are not your regular cards!

And as for our month long guest designer, we have the Amazing Michelle from Amusing Micheele. Welcome aboard! So happy you are our guest this month!

Here is our first inspiration:

Well, it is time for the truth to come out. The cards that I post in this blog are not always my first attempted cards. Usually I do not finish those initial cards, and if I do, I throw them in the bin of my “failed design” cards. however, in this case, I made THREE fully thought-out cards before I was satisfied with my fourth and final one.

Here is the card that I submitted to the CASE Study design team:

A bit of an unusual design for me. But I must say, this the first time I have been happy with my attempt at collage style. It is probably not much for many of you talented ladies out there, but it is a big step for me 🙂

Now, the sentiment and the spoon may look confusing, but this is how I see it: the spoon represents a helping hand, and I believe in us being able to do great things and help our community.

Now let me walk you through the other three cards in the order that I made them:

Seeing the inspiration I immediately thought of this washi tape from Target. Then I did something I almost never do; pick up a stamp set and work with it! So I picked this Hero Arts/Studio Calico set and came up with this card using the colors from the inspiration photo. Why did I not like it? Well, to begin, the design didn’t seem too creative; it looked more like a traditional card. Then that washi tape along the bottom edge, and then a bird on one side while everything else is centered just didn’t seem like something I would do…well I did do it…but you know, it didn’t feel right.

Onto the second card (sorry about the blurry picture!) :

Here I used colors, layout and some elements from the inspiration photo. I was happy that it was a fully stamped card, but once again, it didn’t look too creative. I was sure I had seen a similar card somewhere!

my third card:

I was actually pretty happy with this card, and thought this was it. But looking back, I felt that I gave far too much attention to gold and not enough to red and blue given the inspiration photo. Also, even thought I thought that negative “A” snuggled between the y’s was creative, it wasn’t really that attractive!

I hope I didn’t bore you, and that you enjoyed going through my design process. Do stop by the CASE Study Challenge blog and check out the projects that our uber-talented design team has cooked up 🙂

Before I leave I would like to mention that next week I will be leaving for Hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah). I am SO grateful for this opportunity (praise to our Lord), but at the same time I have a lot of mixed feelings; happiness and excitement to be visiting His house, and a little anxiety for leaving my 2 year old daughter behind. I just hope that I can make the most out of it.

For those of you who do not know about Hajj, it is the fifth pillar of Islam, and it consists of religious rites following in the footsteps of our forefather Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him. There is a time frame within which Hajj must be performed, so it can only be done once a year. If you are interested to learn more, here is an article that gives a short history of Hajj. And here is a more detailed description and significance of the Rites of Hajj.

And finally here is a nasheed (song/poetry/words of praise sung without musical instruments) that is somewhat related to hajj 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!