adventures with Cajun Craze

When Stampin' Up!® refreshed their colors some years ago, one of the best changes was from Really Rust to Cajun Craze - it's such a rich color, I love it, but I seem to love it best in autumn.  It's one of two colors in a great combination at ColorMe! this week, but I couldn't get them to work together while I was working with the Freshly Made sketch, so instead I kept the rest of the palette neutral and pulled out some retired ribbon so I could play along at Use Your Stuff without interfering with the masculine feel the rest of the card has. The only current ribbon I have that worked at all was lace and just didn't look right - I know, I tried it and removed it:

stamp sets: Tin of Cards, Serene Silhouettes; ink - Versamark, Cajun Craze; Stampin' emboss powder - Clear; card stock - Cajun Craze, Basic Black, Very Vanilla; specialty designer series paper - Typeset; ribbon - 7/16" Natural Trim (retired)

I thought it was going to be a Clean And Simple design, but the background is a little busy - it is an interesting toile-like look, isn't it?

I couldn't give up that easily on the ColorMe! combination, so I used this print from one of my random PC wallpaper screens as inspiration and tried again:

stamp set - Wetlands; ink - Hello Honey, Cajun Craze; Stampin' Write marker - Hello Honey; card stock - Very Vanilla, Cajun Craze, Hello Honey; stampin' sponge

This time I think I got a Clean And Simple look that will work for the masculine challenge at Less is More, but if I had really thought it through, I might have been able to keep it to one layer.