OLW88 - Mini Masterpiece

So this weeks One Layer Wednesday challenge was to create a mini masterpiece, limited to a 2 inch square, but with a sentiment allowed outside this limit. I'll be honest, I was inspired by Susan over at Simplicity to give this a go, and I'm so pleased I did, because I really enjoyed playing around a little with this challenge. Here I'm sharing 2 cards which use the same stamps, but highlight how small changes can completely change the look of the card.

Up first is the portrait version in mainly blue. I die cut the stamp shape in a piece of card using my cuttlebug stamp die. I then used it as a mask to sponge and stamp inside. I used Cracked Sapphire, Broken china and Tea Dye distress inks to sponge my background. I then used a music note stamp in broken china at a diagonal. I have a beautiful Papertrey stamp set called Postmarks, and it has these tiny little images that mostly I never use, but thought they would be perfect for such a small area. I also used a sentiment from this set.

Here is a close up of the 2 inch image. 

Here's the landscape version of the same card, with the sentiment going into the little frame.

I tried stamping the music notes in versamark this time, but it didn't show up very well at all. Inks this time were Tea Dye and Walnut stain.

I hope you're inspired by this mini masterpiece, I will definitely be using this technique again very soon. I might venture a little bit bigger than 2 inches, and choose a Spellbinders label for the shape!