Happy Saturday

Where have I been? I've been buried under a pile of fruits and veggies. I spent all day Thursday blanching, drying and freezing all this produce. Today I have to finish off the batch of plum jam that is waiting to be made. See, I can cook....I just don't like to do it. So this morning is the first I have been able to stamp in a few days. I also had to clean out my downstairs freezer a bit to make room and found this bag of frozen bread. It had an expiration date of 2007 so I thought we should probably dispose of that! I had forgotten all about it until I was sitting talking to my daughter yesterday about camp. All of a sudden we heard this giant BOOM. It sounded like a gunshot I tell ya! Guess what is was?! That bag of bread had thawed and risen to a ginormous state and blew out of the bag. There is never a dull moment around here! Another of my "Lucy" moments. We have a lot of those.

So this morning I tried to combine a few challenges. On Splicoast we were to use the colors: Pacific Point, Certainly Celery and Basic Gray. Also, a challenge was to use only Acrylic Stamps. Not such a big fan of the acrylic so I only have the Micheal's $1 spot set. Not much to choose from. But, this is what I came up with:


I used a flower from this "set". It is stamped 3 times. Instead of masking I chose to stamp the flower a fourth time on scrap paper and then cut out and pop it with dimensionals over the center flower as you can see in the photo. I stamped using Black Brilliance ink onto Whisper White cardstock. This is colored in with my blender pen and the Pacific Point ink. I also used my Celery marker for the center of the flower. I decided to create some dimension by filling in the flowers with Crystal Effects and then stickles for the center. This close up of the flowers will hopefully show that better.

The set didn't have stems so I freehanded that little feature. All this is mounted on a strip of celery and tied with my own "self dyed" basic gray Taffetta ribbon. I simply layed my white taffeta onto my ink pad and saturated it with ink. I then placed it into a cup of water to dilute the look. I don't have a reinker for my basic gray yet. Otherwise I would just put the ribbon into a cup of watered down reinker. I have an order for the ACTUAL ribbon on it's way. So much easier, but in a pinch the DIY method is great to be able to do. I "quilted the base piece of Pacific Point by scoring on a diagonal every 1/2" both ways. It is hard to see unless you look closely at the picture. Then I stitched the edges with my sewing machine. My sewing machine has never seen so much activity. I never would have guessed I'd be using it for cards. But, I'm getting a bit addicted to doing it. If only I actually knew how to sew...sigh! Then I'd probably have about 10 other projects sitting around waiting to get finished. Thank God for small favors. Sometimes knowledge is NOT bliss! That silver little sentiment at the bottom was clearanced at Joann's. In case you can't tell, I'm a clearance bin diver. LOVE CLEARANCE!

Well, I'm off to clean my basement. If you don't hear from me for a few days now you know why. And for all you hunting widows like me out there....GO DO SOMETHING FUN TODAY!
Have a good one!