Stamps, Paper, Scissors

So long and thanks for all the stamps!

This is the end of my term as a design team member for Flourishes LLC. I have had a marvellous time! The ladies at Flourishes really know how to pamper a stamper! Just recently they sent us all a complete set of Just Rite Monogram stamps. All of the ones they carry, plus lots of uninked pads so we can create all kinds of goodies! This is one of the first things I made:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Damask, Just Rite Special Occasions Monogram Stamper; Paper - Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, Whisper White; Ink - Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke; Other - 1 3/4" circle punch (EK Success), Scallop Circle Spellbinders Nestabilities, paper piercing tool, 5/8" Certainly Celery Grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals, sponge wedges, Ticket Corner Punch

Isn't this GOJUS?!?!? (YILM!) And it was dead easy to stamp! Just a background and a monogram...yeah and a few punches and twiddling to add more, LOL! I just can't leave well enough alone, is the problem!

I'll miss designing for Flourishes, but I can't wait to see what they come up with next! Thanks again, ladies, you are the best!

And the wackiness that is my life continues...

I really meant to post yesterday, I really did! I was crankin' on a post, trying to get it all in before I went on the field trip with my kids' school and the whole shebang just frozed up on me...I ended up having to reboot the computer AFTER I got home because it was still locked up...sigh...and after that, I just was too tired...oh, poor me...are you crying yet? I bet you're just snickering on the other side of that screen, aren't you?

Well, first I'll try to give you the fun news I was going to post about yesterday:

Flourishes announced yesterday that Sharon Johnson (notimetostamp on SCS) is now a partner in Flourishes LLC! You can check out Sharon's blog here. Plus there are some new sets!

Here's a card using one of the new sets, Rock-A-Bye:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Rock-A-Bye; Paper - PapertreyInk Sweet Blush, Spring Moss, Text-Style Pink Patterns, SU! Cameo Coral; Ink - SU! Basic Brown, Adirondack Espresso, Papertrey Ink Sweet Blush, Raspberry Sorbet; Other - White gel pen, SU! white taffeta ribbon, flower (unknown), green button brad (Making Memories), dimensionals, scallop circle punch, Prismacolor Pencils, sponge wedges

Isn't this STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? (YILM!) I used Friday Sketch #16 from Amy Rysavy's blog, Prairie Paper & Ink.

And if that isn't enough, here's ANOTHER card using one of Flourishes new sets, this time Lilac:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Lilac, Flourished Words; Paper - Basic Grey Lily Kate 6 x 6 pad, Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White, SU! Elegant Eggplant, Lavender Lace; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Elegant Eggplant, River Rock; Other- ribbed velvet ribbon (American Crafts), purple gingham (Doodlebug Designs), Elegant Eggplant marker, antique brass eyelets (SU!), ticket corner punch (SU!), Prismacolor Pencils, Goo Gone

This uses another one of Julee Tilman's Mojo Monday sketches, this time #37. You'll remember last week I made a card  using sketch #36 and guess what? I WON, I WON, I WON!!!! I won Julee's monthly Mojo contest and I'm getting some free stamps! Woohoo!!! (shameless self-promotion now over)

Anyway, isn't this just the most GOJUS set, which translates into a really GOJUS card (YILM!!!)

Oh, you were wondering where the wackiness that is my life comes in? Well, yesterday was a BEAST of a day, a BEAST I tell you! First, I had to go chaperone this field trip with the 3rd, 4th and 5th grades in my kids' school at Greenfield Village. It turned into a field trip to Henry Ford Museum instead since it was raining and thundering outside. It was hard to amuse the three kids in my charge for 5 hours in a museum. They have many cool displays, but not enough to keep the kids interested for that long. We shopped in the museum shops, looked around, ate lunch at the Wienermobile Cafe, looked around some more, shopped some more, looked around some more, then finally got ice cream at the Michigan Cafe. Thankfully it was time to leave after that. Then after I got the kids home, I took a little nap while I was waiting for Dan to get home since he wanted me to go with him to a doctor's appointment (why is it that when women go to the doctor, they go alone, but men have to have company?!?!?) After that I had to come home and take Emily to her softball game. And it rained and I sat in the car and watched as well as I could. By the time that was over, I was very very tired.

But the main wackiness of yesterday had to do with what happened when I got up. I usually get up around 6:15ish, shuffle out to the kitchen, put the dishwasher away, take my Synthroid, then turn on the television and fall asleep until 7 o'clock. But something entirely different happened yesterday morning. I shuffled out to the kitchen, reached up in the cabinet, grabbed my pills and slugged one down. Then for some reason, it occurs to me to look at what I had just taken...and it wasn't MY pills I had grabbed. Instead it was my husband's prescription sleep aid that he takes. I had just taken a sleeping pill!

Now, on any other day, I would have woken up Dan and said, "Guess what? You're taking these kids to school because I have to go back to bed!" But I was going on this field trip, so I had to get rid of this sleeping pill. I tried to coax it out of my stomach using a time-honored method which I'm not going to describe to you...some of you just might have sensitive gag reflexes (obviously, I didn't!) and it just wouldn't happen. Finally had to resort to taking ipecac and hoping my bottle wasn't so old that it wouldn't work any more. At last, after about 20 minutes, it did work. I'll spare you the details. There was still a little of the medication in my system, which meant I was very sleepy for about an hour, but that was the worst of it.

Needless to say, my prescriptions and my husband's prescriptions are going to be strictly quarantined from each other from now on and I am going to LOOK to make sure that I am grabbing my own pills in the morning!

Well, my house looks like a disaster area this morning. I suspect that I am going to be the one to clean it up...there isn't anyone lined up outside ready to take it on...amazing that the ad I placed for a "cleaning person who would work for free, cook dinner, take kids to softball and allow me to have the life of Riley" didn't have any takers. Ta!

Didja miss me? Didja?!?!?

Let me tell ya, this past week was a killer...a mojo killer!

My kids started softball practice for the new league they are playing on and practices, between the three of them, are 4 nights per week! Dan and I are planning on tag-teaming these, with me taking the girls and him taking William, but when he doesn't feel well, guess who gets to go? You got it...so I did three practices this week and only got out of the fourth because I had to go to a meeting for the graduation committee for 8th grade graduation.

The girls are old enough to be dropped off and picked back up from practice, but with the price of gas, I'm not too sure I'm going to do that often. And I need to get another cell-phone for them so they can call in case they need to be picked up immediately. Sigh...

Then we had new phone/internet/cable installed yesterday and that took up a bunch of time, during which I could not stamp, surf on the internet or even watch television. And since strangers were coming into my home, I felt a need to do some cleaning and since I have been TENSE (oh, my that came out in all caps!) it really was the only thing to do. So my bedroom is cleaner than it has been in...in...a long time, anyway! I cleaned the bathroom to a fare-thee-well while they were here and did laundry...my life...so fun.

Now I have more channels on the television than I know what to do with, a DVR, voice mail and call waiting (desperately needed as children turn into teenagers) PLUS my internet connection is super fast, really the only benefit I will probably get out of the whole thing (though listening to my voice mail online is kinda cool!) Just glad it's done and I have a clean house to show for it.

Of course, it is not absolutely clean yet. The kitchen still needs more work and there are a couple of closets I need to reorganize (believe me, I've been tossing and cleaning stuff for weeks with the stress of everything, so there isn't a whole lot to do.) This morning, my husband, bless him, asked me "So, what are you going to do today?" I said I was going to the chiropractor and then I was going to stamp because it had been days, DAYS, I tell ya! since I was able to do any at all.

"Aren't you going to finish cleaning the house?" he said.

All I can say is it's lucky he isn't feeling well...or I'd make sure he wasn't.

ANYWAY, I did finally get downstairs and made a card. It felt good...felt DANG GOOD! Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Siberian Iris; Paper - PapertreyInk Spring Moss, SU! Rose Red, SU! Soft Sky, SU! Always Artichoke, D'Arches Watercolor Paper, Basic Grey Boxer 6 x 6 pad; Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Always Artichoke; Other - PapertreyInk Spring Moss twill, 3/16" corner rounding punch (SU!), sewing machine, Making Memories metallic flower brads, dimensionals, SU! Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Cuttlebug Paisley Embossing Folder (Provocraft)

Is it not GOJUS?!?!? (YILM!!) This is  using the sketch challenge from Splitcoast (SCS173). I had a fun time using my watercolor crayons to color in the little topiary stamp from the Siberian Iris set from Flourishes LLC. I got the Boxer paper from Flourishes with my last batch of stamps and I just love the rich colors it contains.

Okay, I can hear you saying, "What kind of stitch is that you did on the artichoke mat and the focal piece?!?!? I don't have that stitch on my sewing machine!!!"

Well...it's called "I set my top tension too high so this is what I got instead of zig zag stitch!" And I liked it, so I decided not to start over. I was just too lazy to look for the instructions for my SewMini...I know I threaded the top wrong somehow, but I didn't want to do it over so there it is. If you want to duplicate it, you need to tighten the tension on your thread on your machine...experiment a bit to see what you get.

The other thing I have a tip for is the brads. I decided after the layers were all stitched together that I wanted these brads in the corner of the artichoke mat. But I hate, really hate, brad butts (the backside of the brad) showing on the inside of my card and will do almost anything to avoid it. So I took a wire cutter, cut off the poor little brads legs (did you hear them scream?), rolled up a glue dot and adhered them to the corners instead!

And now, as promised, here are the birthday RAK's I received:

These cards are from the SCS RAK user group. The card on the left is from Amy (g33kgr1) ...thank you Amy! The card on the right is from Melanie (Batgirl)...thank you, Melanie!!!

The card on the left is from Simone (*spazzgirl*) of the SCS Blogger RAK group and her blog is located here. Thank you Simone!

And the card on the right is from my good friend and sideline, Connie Seifert (conniestamper)...it had the added bonus of having some Dove Chocolates in it...had is the operative word. They were delicious! Thank you Connie!

And here are the last two! The one on the left is from Jen (VCJORDI) from the SCS BRAK Committee. Thank you Jen! The one on the right is from Stephanie Sebren (StephStamps1982) from SCS. Thank you Stephanie!

Well, time's a wastin' and stamping costs money...must dash and see if I can squeeze another card in before I get kicked out this evening for the big recording session my DH is having. The kids are going with their Sunday School to play laser tag...maybe I'm going to be doing some fun shopping for ME tonight? Ta!

Dum dum dah dum...dum dum dah dum....

No, it's not a post about my intelligence! I'm humming the Wedding March! Why? Lookie:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Wedding Party, Wedding Essentials; Paper - Papertrey Stampers White Select, Brushed Silver (SU!), Basic Grey Lily Kate 6 x 6; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, Inkssentials white gel pen, Pretties Kit (SU!), lace ribbon (May Arts), white satin (unknown), Spellbinder's Scalloped Circle and Classic Circle Nestabilities, dimensionals (SU!), ticket corner punch (SU!)

Isn't this just absolutely SPLENDIFEROUS?!?!?! (YILM!) I used two of the latest releases from Flourishes, Wedding Party (drawn by Sophie LaFontaine) and Wedding Essentials. Some details:

I colored the veil a very light grey, colored her hair lighter for the parts under the veil, then used my white gel pen to make the veil look transparent. I also added white dots to her bodice to make the gown look lacy.

Did the same to the hem of the gown to create the look of lace.

I created a mini bouquet of flowers from the SU! Pretties kit. This was the last touch I added to the card and it just lifted it up from the fairly wonderful to the sublime (YILM!)

So, now that you've viewed this lovely card, which could be an invitation if you had a small intimate wedding (unless you wanted to prostrate yourself in making invitations) or could be used as a congratulations card for a friend or relative who just tied the knot (but you'd have to really really love them to give them something this nice), don't you think I deserve some chocolate?!?!? I certainly do and I have none! So I'm declaring today Restock My Chocolate Reserves Day...amazing how many of those I've had lately! In the meantime, I've got a box from SU! that came yesterday that I have not even OPENED, so I'll be dashing off! Ta!

New stamps at Flourishes!

Three beautiful sets are now available at Flourishes: Wedding Essentials, Wedding Party and Siberian Iris! Here's a card I did with Siberian Iris:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Siberian Iris; Paper - SU! Barely Banana, Almost Amethyst, Certainly Celery, Lavender Lace, d'Arches watercolor paper; Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, SU! Certainly Celery, SU! Barely Banana; Other - 1 1/4 & 1 3/8" circle punches (SU!), clipiola (Making Memories), Orchid grosgrain (SU! retired), purple gingham (Doodlebug designs), Textile pattern Cuttlebug embossing folder (Provocraft), SU! Watercolor Wonder crayons, white gel pen

Isn't this GOJUS!!! (YILM!) And it wasn't hard with this GOJUS set designed by Marcella Hawley! We were sent a link to a Siberian Iris gallery online and the variety of colors was very inspiring. I always think of purple for irises, but there were blue, pink, and white ones as well. I decided to add the white veining to my image after seeing many beautiful irises with this pattern on their petals.

I'm excited as well to announce that the guest designer for April is Sharon Harnist! Sharon is a very talented designer and I was delighted when they told us she was joining the team.

Now, if you love this set (or any other Flourishes set!) be sure to check out this thread on SCS. There is a contest for winning a free Flourishes set of your choice going on from now until April 11th!

And that's not all the excitement...the SCS Inkling turns 2 this month and there is a ton of excitement (and prizes!) Check out Daven's announcement here.

OMGosh...now I'm exhausted from all this excitement! How will I stamp today? How?...Guess I need to get me some chocolate, 'cause I have a bunch of stuff to do, including playing with my new Wedding Essentials and Wedding Party sets! Ta!

Gettin' shirty with ya!

But only in the nicest way!

I've had this set from Flourishes LLC for a while now and it's just been a matter of gettin' to it! Finally, my workshop last week entered, my last class of the month over and all the credit cards put through, among other things and it was time to be jammin' on my Menswear set!

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Menswear; Paper - Basic Grey Skate Party patterned paper, SU! Certainly Celery, Bravo Burgundy, Sahara Sand; Ink - Palette Noir, SU! Certainly Celery, Vintage Violet (retired), Bravo Burgundy; Other - Metallic Eyelets (SU!), natural hemp (SU!), Word Window punch (SU!), Vintage Brads (SU!), dimensionals, Copic grey marker, Copic colorless blending pen, white gel pen, wire

Yes, it's so GOJUS (in the most MANLY way, of course!) (YILM!)

Now, I'm way behind the other members of the Flourishes design team in getting a card out on this set. So everyone else has already DONE everything I would normally come up with for this set. So I decided my card had to have something different that NOBODY else has, because that is just the competitive kind person that I am. It's all part of being the youngest in my family, YOU know, I want everyone to look at ME! Look at ME, look at ME!!! (younger siblings are all nodding their heads, but you older and  middle sibs are rolling your eyes! I can tell!)

ANYWAY, I came up with the idea of putting the shirt on a hanger. I have one of those Jewelry Jig things bought at Michael's long ago, so I set it up with it's little pegs and made a little wire hanger. I could feel Joan Crawford rolling over in her grave (NO WIRE HANGERS, EVER!!...oh shut up, Joan!) but I persisted!

But first, I had to find paper for this bad boy of a card. I have a bunch of Basic Grey and since we design types love our Basic Grey (because you can be sure it will stay current for a LOOOONG time instead of hitting the scrapbook store shelves and barely leaving a mark in the dust as it is replaced quickly by something else) I decided to actually USE some of my hoard. This Skate Party stuff was perfect.

I stamped the shirt stamp on my striped paper with Palette Noir ink, then carefully cut the shirt out. I used a grey Copic marker and blender to create some shading on the shirt and used a white gel pen to make the buttons pop a bit.

Finally I carefully took my craft knife and cut a slit along the opening of the collar so I could insert the hanger. I put a piece of scotch tape on the back to keep the hanger in place and to close the slit. Brilliant, yes? (YILM!)

Now, on to other business. I have been given an AWARD by Julie Buhler over at Paper Pleasing Ideas. It's called the Arte Y Pico award. This is what it looks like:

Needless to say, I'm very flattered and also grateful that this is not an actual physical award, because it looks like it would take up a lot of room on what serves as a mantlepiece in my home, namely my Sauder entertainment center (yes, we have exquisite taste in furniture in THIS house!) And right now, my son's Pinewood derby trophy is commanding front and center there and I just can't move it aside for this one.

But I have to ask, Julie: What in heck does Arte Y Pico mean, anyway? I can get the "Arte" part all right, so I had to turn to an online Spanish/English dictionary for the rest. "Y", I learned means "and" or "with". So what is "Pico"?

pico

          

pico translated from Spanish to English

Babylon English to Spanish Dictionary

pico

(pref.) pico, prefijo la trillonésima parte

SpanishDict Spanish to English Dictionary

pico

beak

peak

spout

General Spanish to English Dictionary

pico

beak, bill

Babylon Spanish to English Dictionary

pico

(n.) pick, pickax; spout; beak; extremity; peak, pinnacle; lip; capstan

Grenada Spanish to English Dictionary

pico

spike, icepick, peak

       

 

Now that I've read the definition, I'm wondering if this is an "Art and Beak" award. Now, Julie...my nose is bigger than some, but it is not a beak. Not a beak at all. Or is it "Art and Pickax" award (sounds dangerous)? "Art and Lip" award (that would make more sense! I'm always being told I have a lot of lip!)?

But I finally decided that it must be "Art and Spout". Because spouting is just another name for blathering and that is what this blog is all about! Booyah!

As usual with this sort of thing, there are RULES. Look at em:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language. (Seriously, I'm flattered, but I'm still wondering where that spout comes in!)

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone. Click on her name above to visit her blog.

3)Each award winner has to show the award that she has been given, by the one aforementioned.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) To show these rules.The 5 blogs that I choose are:

And this is where I come to a screeching halt. I don't want to tag anybody, because everyone I would nominate for this award has already been nominated by someone else! The madness must end somewhere and I say it ends HERE and NOW!

But thank you, Julie, for thinking of me, though I remain deeply suspicious of the Pico thing. You can make up for that by sending chocolate, by the way.

One more Easter card

Well, my friends, the BFF's rode again yesterday!

After my thrilling ultrasound and check x-ray out in Ypsi (just a standard once-per-year recheck, 4 years cancer-free, woohoo!) Mary, Paula and I went out to Paper Tales to raid the ribbon wall and enjoy ourselves immensely.

So I ended up buying a beautiful satin yellow ribbon with chicks on it that I just KNEW would be perfect to use with the Easter Bunnies set from Flourishes, which I had not played with yet. I remedied that this morning:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Easter Bunnies; Paper - Basic Grey Blush 6 x 6 paper pad, Pretty in Pink, Wild Wasabi, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White; Ink - Basic Brown, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Creamy Caramel; Other - Close to Cocoa marker, gold brads, May Arts yellow satin chickie ribbon, Sponge wedges, dimensionals, Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol.

Isn't it STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? (YILM!)

I wanted a soft vintage look and figured these Basic Grey Blush papers fit the bill. I used the sketch from this weeks SCS sketch challenge (SC168). I sponged the edges of all the patterned papers and the Wild Wasabi mat with Creamy Caramel and dragged my Pretty in Pink ink pad on the card base to distress it to match. A little bit of faux stitching (yes, I know I have that sewing machine, but grabbing a marker is so much easier!) completes the look.

Well, today we woke up to yet more snow, something like 5 to 6 inches. At least Dan is blowing out the driveway this time! Our church service last night was canceled yet AGAIN, making 4 services this year that we have canceled due to snow or freezing rain. I think it's a record! Today is shopping with Laurel; we are going to look for an Easter dress for her that will double as her 8th grade graduation dress. Ta!

Alleluia!

I got my beautiful new stuff from Flourishes the other day and finally inked it up today to make a card! I would have done it yesterday, after snatching victory from the jaws of defeat with the tissue box, but it was one of those evenings...I went down and moved a few things around in my stamp room, but couldn't settle to anything, so I decided to take a break.

JanMarie asked if we wanted anything in the paper or ribbons they carry to work with when they sent our new stamps and I jumped at the chanced to try a 6 x 6 Basic Grey LilyKate pad, plus any of the May Arts sheer polka dot ribbon they thought would match it. Not only did the ladies at Flourishes send me those items, but they also sent some of the new Crystal Clear Card Stock for making cards that they now carry and a no-wrinkle glue stick! I love Happy Mail!

I decided to start with the beautiful new Easter Blessings set and I also added some of my new ribbon and paper. Lookie!

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Easter Blessings; Paper - Basic Grey LilyKate 6 x 6, SU Brushed Gold, Pale Plum, Blush Blossom, Whisper White; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Pretty in Pink; Other - Ticket Corner Punch (SU!), May Arts white sheer polka dot ribbon, Prismacolor Pencils, gamsol, Sakura Clear Glaze pen, dimensionals, sponge wedge

I know, I know, this is SO GOJUS! (YILM!) And yes, I cut out the image and yes it took some time and patience...I really loved the idea of floating it above the yellow panel on top of the mosaicked pink and yellow background. I did cheat just a bit...where the rose stem goes down next to the cross and where the two white flowers are next to the cross, I didn't want to cut that out with an exacto knife and possibly rip the rose's stem since it is so thin. So I carefully colored those spaces to match the yellow panel, using several different shades to get an almost exact match.

I added some clear glaze with my Sakura glaze pen on the flower centers, plus one dot on one of the rose's leaves to look like a water droplet.

I'm thrilled with the result, which looks about how I had pictured it. It's not often that happens, so when it does, I must cherish it.

Well, another thing I cherish is sleep. It's 11 PM and I need my beauty sleep. I don't know why it doesn't work, since I always wake up looking like the pudgy semi-attractive suburban housewife that I am, but without it I look like a very tired pudgy semi-attractive suburban housewife with dark circles under her eyes. Better be off! G'night!

New sets at Flourishes!

Normally, at this point, I'd be showing you some GOJUS creations I made myself, preening myself in the most ungodly manner, and inviting you to drool all over them! But the manufacturer is running a bit behind on the design team copies of the new sets and the ladies at Flourishes want to kick off the debut of these sets today! So instead, I have two lovely cards made by Jan Marie to show you:

THis beautiful card uses the Easter Blessings set available now on the Flourishes website. Isn't it GOJUS?!?!? If you'd like to know the background of this stamp set, feel free to visit JanMarie's blog, The Caruso Manor.

This sweet creation is an ATC (Artist's Trading Card) made with the new Easter Bunnies Set. I think it's STINKIN' CUTE!! I can't wait until I get one of my very own!

Well, it's time to head down to the stamp room and away from the Girl Scout cookies calling me with an alluring siren sound. Why do I buy them? WHY? (you know why...they taste good,LOL!) See ya!

Okay, I bit, like so many...

And bought the new Papertrey colors!

And I love them both! I'm a fool for any shade of blue green and Aqua Mist  doesn't disappoint! It's much greener than Soft Sky...in fact, the color it comes closer to is Mint Melody, a color I had a heck of a time coming up with uses for! Aqua Mist, luckily, is much prettier. I bought the ink pads, the cardstock, the patterned paper, reinkers and all the ribbon for both Aqua Mist and Spring Moss. Spring Moss is also very pretty, more yellow than Certainly Celery. It's close to a shade of Archivers cardstock I picked up with my coupon for the free cardstock there, but I have to figure out where I put that cardstock before I can really compare!

As far as the weight of the cardstock, it is not as heavy as I was expecting. It's slightly lighter in weight than the white cardstock they sell and only slightly heavier feeling than Stampin' Up! cardstock.  Very nice, in fact. I also have to say that the service I received from Papertrey was exemplary!

The ink is nice, pads are juicy. I was expecting something more opaque, since my Palette Noir pad is very opaque, but the colors are more translucent...not quite like chalk ink, in fact.

So I decided after I pulled it out all this new stuff to play with it, that I wanted to try making a card with just these colors. Not easy, since Spring Moss and Aqua Mist are fairly equal if you are looking at color values. So adding white was necessary if I wanted to have any contrast going on.

Now, I don't have any Papertrey stamps except the ones made for the Avery labels and the Christmas greetings, so instead, I turned to my Flourishes stamps, which also have been neglected this past week. I hadn't played nearly enough with the new Harlequin background set, so I went to town and here is the result:

Ingredients: Stamps - Flourishes LLC Harlequin and Accessories, Many Sentiments; Paper - PapertreyInk Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Stampers Select White; Ink -  PapertreyInk Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Stampin' Up! Whisper White; Other - Aqua Mist dotted satin ribbon - PapertreyInk, white brads - Queen & Co., white gel pen, 3/16" corner rounding punch (SU!)

Isn't it GOJUS?!?!? (YILM!) I had to hunt for white brads in my stash...I have never understood why SU! does not make them.

I really love that Harlequin with the accessories; makes it so easy to customize! Oh, and I have to tell you that Flourishes is having a sale on Friday! Check out their home page for all the deets! AND they are going to now have free shipping on all orders over $45, even if you are in Canada! COOL!

Well, yesterday I didn't get to have Chinese, because when I went to leave for the school, my car tried to slide right into my house! We had all that snow, you know, and I had blown off the driveway right after I took the kids to school, but more had fallen in the interval. So I had to cancel listening to all those fifth graders chewing and blow it off AGAIN. Then before I left in the afternoon, I ended up scraping a lot of slush off where the wheels had packed it down before; 'cause if you don't, it just turns to ice when it gets colder, which it did immediately.

So today will be lunch out day (along with closing my workshop and going to the bank) and I hope to get some more stamping done since I have a swap to do for our monthly meeting. And I need to clean up my stamp room and figure out where I'm going to put that new Janome Sew Mini I just ordered and which will be here FRIDAY!!! I already have a basic Janome machine, but it's too big and clunky to keep out all the time. And I also will be getting some of the new Cuttlebug folders...well, let's be honest, MOST of the new Cuttlebug folders!!! from All That Scraps. I can't wait to play with those! Ta!