LEAVES ON WOOD

I subscribe to quite a few lovely blogs, enjoying tremendously perusing what they have to offer. 

Recently I was looking at all the beauty on https://heartshugsandflowers.blogspot.com/. Lin's cards are always extraordinary, and the one on this particular day was no exception. I was immediately taken with the looks of this card. 

Without reading how Lin created her card, I proceeded to head down to my Creation Station to see what I could come up with. I just had her card in my mind and that's what I worked from. Huh, now that I look back at her card, there is quite a difference. I like Lin's so much better.

However, it was sort of fun coming up with my own take on Lin's card. I actually created two cards, doing the background a bit differently on each of them.

The first one, below, I think resembles hers the more of my two. First of all, my background sponging was a little darker. Not sure why I did that. But done is done. 

For this one, after the sponging, I ran the piece through the Big Shot inside our woodgrain embossing folder, which, unfortunately, is retired. 

Once the embossing was done, I used a Sponge Dauber and Soft Suede ink to try to carefully make the raised lines of the woodgrain brown. Ugh. So much easier said than done.

For my second card, my sponging was a bit more light-handed. As I said previously, I'm not sure why. Maybe I was tired after all that sponging?? Nope. I dunno.

Anyway, for this card, after I completed the sponging, I took the Soft Suede ink pad directly to the side of the embossing folder that has the words on it. Once I thought I'd covered these lines adequately and evenly. I placed my sponged piece inside the folder and ran it through the Big Shot.

This gave me a pretty contrasting look. 

I then finished off both cards the same way.

My creations are almost always completely original ideas of mine. This time, although I didn't try to repeat her process, it was directly inspired by Lin's lovely card. 

What are your feelings about the need for originality? Or do you agree with the concept of C.A.S.E.? Which stands for Copy and Share Everything. Stampin' Up! encourages C.A.S.E.ing, feeling that their catalog is so full of inspiration, they are pleased when we copy our own things exactly as they are in the catalog. 

Share your opinion on Original versus C.A.S.E. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Woodgrain

Smiles.