A sketch and an upcycled product

Here I go combining challeneges again.  This time it was Crop Chocolate's weekly challenge that was due March 20 - create a project using an upcycled flower.  And the other was the current Paper Girls challenge that is due today - use the sketch they gave.  Here is the sketch.

Something about this sketch spoke to me and said "one of those circles can be a flower"!!!  LOL

Then I had to figure out what I was going to use to make the upcycled flower.  A lot of the CC ladies used the packaging paper that comes with our CC orders, or soda cans, but I wanted to use something different.  Then when I saw one use a ribbon, and another use wire, it dawned on me that I could use....a SHOELACE.  And then I knew exactly what I was going to do. 

The first year I did the SGK 3-day walk, I had orderd SGK 3-day shoelaces.  Well they ended up being too short, so I stashed them away in my box of SGK stuff to save as momentos.  Luckily I knew exactly where that box was, and I pulled one out.  It worked perfectly (in my humble opinion).

Here is the LO I ended up with.  I ended up rotating the sketch 90 degrees because the picture I wanted to use was horizontal.  The CC bought products I used were: MME quite contrary Little Miss Muffet paper pack (including 12x12 paper, "Celebrate" die-cut (HIP HIP HOORAY), die cut stickers (arrow, butterfly, leaves and buttons), matching alpha, "Delight" journal spot).  Then I added MAMBI breast cancer cardstock (the one with writing), Queen & Co felt fusion border, and of course the shoelace.

When I first finished this LO, I didn't really like it because the title blended into the background too much, especially the darker letters.  So I posted it on the CC chat page, and asked for advice.  As expected, I got some awesome ideas - outline it with pen (black or white), use glossy accent, and stickles.  Since I didn't have much time to play around with it, I chose the quickest and easiest option - I pulled out my white gel pen and outlined all the letters.  I think it really helps make it work - it really lightens up the left side of the page.

To make the flower, I simply used my glue dots, and twisted the shoelace.  I did "mount" it on a piece of vellum to reduce the exposure to the paper below.  Hope you enjoyed this.  I had fun creating it.