Early one morning, just as the sun was rising...

I heard a maiden singing in the valley below. (Blog candy surprise to the first commenter who guesses why that's been stuck in my head for weeks now.)

The dogs got me up early this morning, so I figured I'd knock out a card that's been rattling around in my head for a while. I saw a card set using the emboss-resist technique with Twinkling H2Os the other day, and really wanted to try it.



Heat embossing is the very first technique I learned in stamping - it's surprisingly versatile, since it creates images that resist other mediums (like when you use a wax crayon on an Easter egg before you dye it). I love using Twinkling H2Os as well - they have just a little shimmer, which is why the photos came out a little weird - the color isn't actually that teal, it's just the reflection of the flash on the shimmer.



I painted the watercolors over the embossed menorah - very simple and quick - and attached some silver-edged ribbon to a strip of silver shimmer paper from Papertrey. I punched out the sentiment with my 1 3/4" circle punch (same punch I use for my JustRite monogram stamper), and edged it with a Pentel silver gel pen. (Even though this is a terrible photo, I included it because it's the truest to the actual color of the paint - that gorgeous royal blue.)



This is the finished cardfront - I didn't attach it to anything for now - I'll pick a base to put it on later. The sentiment circle is popped up on Pop Dots to give it a little dimension.

Neat finds

We went yesterday to Waxahachie to have lunch at the Catfish Plantation, which was a lot of fun - but then, we drove down to check out the historic downtown area, and went to the Dove's Nest - wow, such a great place. It was a fantastic grouping of lovely little antiques collections and gifts and soaps... I could have spent hours there, and I didn't even get to check out the scrapbooking store next door. I think there's definitely another visit in order some time soon.







I picked up this nice little collection of bits and bobs that I can't wait to put into some cards - a couple of vintage velvety flowers, some pretty fall leaves, a few yards of perfectly faded ribbon, and several little sections of old lace. I love the little glass bottle full of tiny purple flowers - I almost don't want to open it and use them.









We stopped at a bakery on the way back, and I ran into the antique store on the other side of the square - there were SO many wonderful little items there, including a gorgeous purple Tiffany-style lamp, which would have come home with me if I could have justified spending the money. I'm still tempted - for some reason that little square is my truly bizarre place to spend too much money on things. There are only about five stores, but one of the few other times I've been there, I bought my wedding cake topper. It's still one of my favorite wedding keepsakes.




They had a set of pink glass dishes that I fell in love with, too - I really wish I'd taken my camera, even though I only have the big one now. I did pick up this sweet green jug for my paintbrushes - the flower in it came from the Dove's Nest findings grab-bag. I love lilies of the valley. I can't wait to put some of my new treats to use - I have to fight the inclination to stockpile them and not use them, but I love the challenge of making something pretty when I only have the one shot with a limited resource. The little vintage notebook should be fun to alter.

Mad rush

Sorry I don't have a card to share today - I actually made a ton yesterday, but it wasn't under the best of circumstances. See, I'd promised someone I'd make a bunch of stuff for them, and completely forgot that they needed it first thing today. Till I went into my office around 10 last night to work on another card I'd promised someone today. So when I realized it was mass-production time, I buckled down and ran through them, without taking pictures. Some of what I was working on is actually a few posts down - the purple and blue tags. I had to alter the designs a little bit to fit text and because one of my cutting systems was acting up, and I had to recruit my husband to help with adhering things together, but I got it done.

I wish I'd gotten a picture of the other card I made, which was a really quick thing (actually made it in 5 minutes this morning before I left), but turned out looking really elegant. It was a wedding card, and I just did a basic white base, with a black layer and then a white layer on top - the white layer was textured with the Cuttlebug, and I put a punched-out sentiment on it over a black velvet ribbon. I used my favorite "Textile" Cuttlebug folder, which always looks really classy, and I think that and the velvet ribbon made it look really polished, even for such a quick card.

Terrifying

The three most frightening words in the stamping language are "man's birthday card." It's really such a female-centric hobby, it's very hard to come up with ideas for a man's card. In this case, I figured I'd start out with a color scheme, so I pulled out some very basic-patterned Always Artichoke paper (Stampin' Up), with Papertrey's Kraft, white, and Dark Chocolate.

I searched Splitcoast for masculine cards and found this one - I like the basic layout quite a bit, so I made up a little chart to change the colors. I know that's weird, but since this has so many layers, I wanted to write out from the beginning which colors would land where and what sizes they needed to be. Since the base is A2 (5.5"x4.25"), the next layers in are 5.25"x4" and 5"x3.75". And so on - I pretty much always use quarter-inch increments for layers.

I switched the punched circles for stars, since I had a teeny star punch, and then looked around for a bigger star. I came up with a chipboard one, which was slightly lighter brown than the kraft I'd used for the tiny stars... I have a "thing" about matching, so I embossed it with white. The larger chipboard "celebrate" piece is covered with white paper so that I could stamp on it. I think it turned out well!

Rosh Hashanah card

I received my Mazel Tov and Mazel Tov Additions sets from Papertrey the other day, and since Rosh Hashanah is coming up, I thought I'd try my hand at a card. I really appreciate the research that Papertrey put in to this set, and they also put together a chart on which symbols go with which holidays, and when those holidays are. Very helpful!

For this card, I know that blue and silver are Chanukah colors, but Papertrey also came out this week with beautiful shimmery silver and navy cardstock, so I had those colors on my mind. I actually didn't open up the Papertrey cardstock yet, because I had a textured silver stock left over from something else. I was so happy that the sentiment for this card fit so perfectly in one of the tags from my Cuttlebug tag die set - very convenient! This ended up being a really simple card - the ribbon is also new from Papertrey, and I think it's really pretty.

Odds & Ends & Beginnings

I have yet to hook up the card reader to get photos of what I worked on this weekend, but I have some bits and pieces of other projects that I've taken with the other camera. This is one of 30 tags in two styles that I'm making for my aunt - she's selling some items at a craft fair (and taking some of my stock), and wanted nice little tags for them. This one has the flourish from SU's "Priceless" set (one of my favorite go-tos - classic, versatile images) stamped in Aqua Mist ink on Aqua Mist cardstock (both from Papertrey), then the butterfly from Priceless stamped straight onto the cardstock and also in Aqua Mist on white and cut out - that gives it some nice depth. The flower is one of my little Primas with a clear plastic dewdrop in the middle. It is a little small... for the actual text, I may print it on a larger piece of printer paper and fold it to put it on the back.

This is the other tag I'm making - it's an embossed flourish from Fancy Pants's "Pollen Dust" set on Papertrey's Lavender Moon cardstock. I die cut the scalloped ovals with my Nestabilities - the larger one is Papertrey's Plum Pudding. It's a very simple design, and I think it will work well for putting text on the back.

This is my favorite ongoing project - I brought bagels in to work one day, and had the brilliant idea of making the Einstein Bros. box into a haunted house for Halloween, to hold fun seasonal goodies. I painted the box black, and right now I'm working on the roof. It needs to be removable, so that you can get to the stuff inside, but I want it to look good. I painted a piece of 12 x 12 chipboard purple, and I still have plans to dress it up a little more - you can still see some black under the purple from when I was using the piece as a painting mat. I love the little windows - I have this great gold translucent paper that I love using for windows, because it looks so warm, like you're looking in on a room full of candlelight. These little glittery stickers from Martha Stewart's craft line work really well for the windows, too. I'm probably going to end up using them all over the house - I have a set of birds and trees, and a set of witches and cats. I'll show more as I get more done.

This is a little sneak peek of my Christmas cards - to be honest, I haven't even halfway finished designing them yet, but I like what I have so far. Papertrey released a holiday addition to their Boards and Beams set, and already I love how wonderfully the snow fits on to the house. It looks so good embossed in white! I can't wait to get more of it finished.

R.I.P.

I'd like to take a moment to remember my trusty little PowerShot. It served me well for more than four years, and has now snapped its last. It was a good camera.

And it had my latest project's photos on it. Dangit. Now I have to hook up the card reader.