Back to mah rootz....

No, this isn't anything about genealogy or even getting my hair dyed again!

It's all about the March Dirty Dozen Challenge: Everything Old is New Again. In this challenge we were told we had to use stamps and supplies on hand for 6 months or longer, the older the better. And we have to send this card as a RAK to another DD member.

Now, I've been stamping for almost 12 years. 12 YEARS! So I have a bunch of old stuff that doesn't see the light of day anymore, but I have a hard time getting rid of because I still LOVE them. So this was right up my alley! I went back to my stampin' roots for this card!

I knew exactly which sets I was going to use, the first ever Stampin' Up! sets I ever bought. You would have to pry these out of my cold dead hands before I'd ever put them on Ebay. But the paper was a little harder, because I didn't keep any of the old colors that were around back then and are now retired. So I decided to use last year's In Colors, because they are far more country (and my old set was very country!) than anything else we have. Are ya ready?

Ingredients: Stampin' Up! Definitely Decorative Wildflowers, Everyday Expressions, Stipple Plaid, Itty Bitty Backgrounds; Paper - Cranberry Crisp, Buckaroo Blue, Very Vanilla, Marigold Morning; Ink - Cranberry Crisp, Buckaroo Blue, Cool Caribbean, Marigold Morning, Vintage Violet, True Thyme, Going Grey, Basic Grey, Really Rust, More Mustard, Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Always Artichoke, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel; Other - EK Success 1 3/4" circle punch, dimensionals, Hodgepodge Hardware Aged Copper, True Thyme & Vintage Violet Stitched Grosgrain, wide Vanilla organdy ribbon, sponge wedges, lots and lots of sponge wedges!

Isn't it GOJUS!!!! (YILM!) This set was my first Stampin' Up! love...but I found it incredibly hard to use due to it's size, so it did not see ink very often. And the Everyday Expressions I have is mounted on foam, THAT is how old it really is! I love the "Oh Happy Day!" stamp because it reminds me of a gospel song by the Edward Hawkins Singers that my dad used to play every Sunday. Mom and Dad don't go to church and never did, but my dad adored this song and would crank it up really loud. So after I made this card, I went up to the Real Player store and was thrilled to find that I could buy the whole album. YAY! It's downloading at this very minute.

Anyway, with the 5 1/4" square format that we have envelopes for now, I decided that this set would probably work in the square format better than it ever did in a standard A4 configuration and I was right!

There's a whole lot of sponging going on in this card. I inked the watering can with Going Grey, then sponged Basic Grey and Creamy Caramel right on the stamp. The last step before stamping it was to ink up my speckle stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds and stamp it on the watering can stamp before I took the watering can stamp to the paper. It gives a look of rust speckles that make it look more realistic and old (kind of like the freckles on my arms do to me, LOL!) I sponged almost every stamp with a second color before stamping to build up the depth of the colors, then went over everything with Vintage Violet on my speckle stamp, stamped off at least twice before I committed the stamp to the paper.

Then, of course, I sponged all over with the Marigold Morning and used Cranberry Crisp to sponge the edges!

The interesting shape that the greeting is stamped on was created after I stamped. I decided I wanted a shape that followed the contours of the greeting. So I cut the greeting into a rectangle and used my favorite trick of slipping the top and bottom into the underside of my large circle punch to create the rounded top and bottom. Then I decided I wanted to nip the sides in a bit, so I used the same punch to do that. I like this look and I think I'll try using this shape again with my smaller greetings and circle punches.

Finally, what is an old stamp set without an old background? I pulled out my Stipple Plaid, loved very well when it was new and still loved dearly, to make a background that just peeks out on the side of the card. Of course, it wasn't wide enough to really stamp a square, so I stamped twice and concealed the seam with my ribbon.

I had so much fun doing this! I'm thrilled with my card and now I have to figure out which of the Dirty Dozen will be getting this...it's going to be hard to say goodbye to it! Okay, my secret is out! I love to stamp...but I have a hard time saying good-bye to my favorite creations, so I don't...ahem...cough...send out too many of my cards. Maybe if I had more chocolate....