Abbey's candy

I thought, for the prize for yesterday's winner, it'd be fun to decorate that little French notebook I picked up this weekend. I started out by chalking the flowers - the cover is slick, so I first sanded the area a bit to give myself some traction.


I then used my Versamark pen to fill in the areas as I chalked them - Versamark is a nice medium for this kind of thing, because it gives the chalk a little "stick". I picked up a bunch of eyeshadow applicators at the beauty supply store last night - they're cheap in bulk and easy to use for this kind of thing.


For the lettering and design, I filled certain parts in with a glitter gel pen - just a little shine to make them stand out. I thought, at this stage, that I'd be using a spray fixative on the chalked parts to make sure the chalk would stick, and even made a mask for it, but I think using the Versamark made that unnecessary. (Abbey, if it starts to come off on your hands, let me know and I'll spray it.)

To finish, I wanted to use the little bottle of flowers that I bought this weekend - when I took out the stopper, I found out that it was really just flower petals, which was actually better - there were several little circles on the cover that I thought would make a nice pattern for "scattered" petals. I glued those on with a Martha Stewart glue pen - it's like a ballpoint pen for glue, and it goes on blue and dries clear so you can see where you've covered.

Time out

I'm working on Abbey's blog candy and want to finish it and give it to her before I post about it, so instead I'll link you to some adorable stuff on a great shabby-chic crafty blog: Sugar*Sugar - this blogger and Amy at Inspireco make me desperately want to attend Silver Bella - they all have a style that I'd love to co-opt, but I'm too much of a perfectionist sometimes for the torn/shabby/vintage style - I'd LOVE to have a weekend with those amazingly talented women to get inspiration, ideas, and motivation. I may at least sign up for Sweet Six Studio next time they do it.

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.