Hot Stuff Art Impressions contest AND Come Sail Away...

I've been down and out following a knee surgery -FINALLY got the nerve to try the stairs down to my craft room. I've been missing my left brain creative outlet!!
My first card is one of 2 that I have to submit for the Art Impressions' Aug. contest with the theme...It's Hot! I tried to choose an AI stamp that no one else would think of - most everyone has been submitting beach scenes. I thought I'd do more of a play on words. Sure hope they like it and I win some freebee stamps to play with! Woot! Woot! I have another week to complete my 2nd one. There are a lot of elements with this card - more than it looks like. Whadda ya think?

Followed 3 different challenges: SC346 layout sketch WT336 - use versamark Art Impressions Aug. It's Hot! contest recipe: stazon black ink for image, colored with markers, added white gel pen as accents on peppers, typed word art sentiment, mini red brads. red star brads, versamark and clear ep from the background dotty stamp to add some texture, scored around the edges of the brown mat using bone folder and trimmer, used dimensionals to pop up the image over the darker brown mat underneath. Sentiment and it's mat cut using nestabilities. Card base is Kraft.

This next card is for MOJO204 - a layout challenge sponsored by Verve, to help you get your MOJO going every Monday. There's always a new, cool sketch - they are very creative with these card layouts.

<>I got to use some of the prettiest gold embossed paper that my friend, Beverly (aka Beestamper) gave me from a matstack she had. Recipe: SU! Not Quite Navy for the ship image paper: SU! Ivory and Navy, and the gold / navy embossed mat stack paper Cut it and the navy mat using nestabilities, twine, key charm, dimensionals, corner punch, gold brads, square lattice embossing folder

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