The Sketch Challenge and My Stamping Spot

Good morning everyone. Today's challenge is the sketch challenge. Roxie (Rox71) posts a sketch on SCS and we create a card using that sketch. I need a birthday card for one of the little boys I babysit for, so I thought that this was a good opportunity to do it. This is a pretty simple card. The main image is stamped on a 1 1/4 x 3 1/2 inch piece of whisper white card stock. This is a very small area to use for a main image (there in lies the challenge). Since I am making a birthday card for a little boy I opted to us the Wild about You stamp set, which is a current favorite of mine, and will still be in the fall/winter Stampin' Up! catalog. The giraffe is stamped in Pumpkin Pie classic ink, the bird in Tempting Turquoise and the grass in Old Olive. The grass stamp is from the Because of You stamp set that will be retiring in the end of June. I usually sell most of my retired sets but I will be holding on to this one just for the grass stamp. The flower in the giraffe's mouth was inked with Real Red and Old Olive markers. I omitted coloring part of the flower stem then stamped over the giraffe's head so it looked like the flower is in his mouth. The main image was then layered on Real Red and Pumpkin Pie card stock. The embossed white background was made using a Cuttlebug embossing machine (a product SU does not sell but I could not resist) and the birthday embossing folder. The embossed background is layered on Pumpkin Pie card stock then I tied red and pumpkin ribbon around the layers. The background layers are attached to the Real Red card body and the main image is attached using dimesionals (small pieces of foam tape)

This is a picture of my new stamping spot. Officially this is my laundry room and my washer/dryer are in this room as well as my freezer BUT it is REALLY my new studio/office. The white cabinets and counter top (from Lowe's) were my birthday/mother's day present (since they were both on the same day this year). The dresser is one that I trash picked then painted white. My stamp pad storage is actually a cassette rack that I also painted white (you gotta love that $.98 spray paint from Lowe's) and the canvas bins (I also have larger ones on top of the cabinets over my washer/dryer and on top of my freezer) that I finally used the Walmart gift cards I got for Christmas on. The walls are painted a really lovely shade of ruby red. It took three coats of paint to get this shade. The paint goes on the most alarming coral color and I am soooo not a pink person. Thankfully it dries this wonderful color. Can you tell I really like this color? My floor and baseboard is a commercial grade porcelain tile (left over from a side job) that a friend of Jeff's and Jeff put down for me.