Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop: Black Backgrounds

This month's blog hop challenge from Papertrey Ink is to work with a black background. This is definitely NOT a go-to color for me, so well out of my comfort zone... but I am pleased with the results! Yay for challenges to get you to try something new!

I used a black card base with Orange Zest and Hawaiian Shores - a favorite color combo of mine, and I thought the colors would pop nicely against the black. I used a Smokey Shadow panel, stamped in black with Background Basics: Inspiration, for a subtle tone-on-tone background effect.

Also used: Fancy Flourishes and dies (I cut one swirl off the large flourish so that I could position it differently under the tag); Celebrations and die; and the "Sending a Big Thank You" that was a limited time gift from PTI last year. I added the "sweet friend" from Heart-2-Heart #4.

The sentiment panel and one of the flourishes is popped up on foam tape (yes, it was tedious to cut little bits of that tape to go under the skinny flourish, but worth it for the effect... lol!). The last touch is the little row of gems, which are from Kaisercraft and then colored with a Copic marker to match the Orange Zest.

Thanks for the challenge, Nichole! It's good to get out of one's comfort zone now and then! And thanks for stopping by!