K.I.S.S.

Having a great weekend? Yesterday was a busy day...had a friend come over with his tiller/aerator & help with some trouble spots in the backyard, supervised the boys weeding my front flower beds, laundry...typical crazy Saturday. I've been kinda lazy today...blog surfing & looking at furniture re-dos, recycling & up-cycling, vintage thrifting, and just sitting, listening to the birds outside & coloring digital images for later projects. I did make a card for you using the items pictured here:

The paper (TAC's Rustic Chic) was more of an inspiration than an actual part of the project. I love the colors in it & the grungy feel, but wanted something a little bit softer....more shabby chic. I used my "flourish" Impressability, some white card stock, pink & blue Dew Drops by Tsukeniko & stenciled them onto the card base. Then I rounded the corners & grunged up the card using wheat, sahara sand, jumbo java, & rich cocoa Dew Drops. While those dried, I took one of MS's little round tags (they remind me of doilies!) and colored it with the pink Dew Drop completely, then did the edges lightly with jumbo java.

I stamped the sentiment from "Ordinary Greetings" in two parts with rich cocoa, and....DONE! Quick, easy, grungy, shabby and oh, so pretty! I love it!

A bit of sad news...over the next day or so, I'll be removing the link to my online store with The Angel Company (the shopping cart in the upper left sidebar). I'll still have my wings & will happily take your orders via e-mail, but can't afford right now to extend my store for another year...the economy just won't let me. Hopefully, things will improve to a point that I can reopen it...I just pray that it's sooner than later!

A bit of good news ~~ it's time for the Final Farewells at The Angel Company. From now till June 25th, we are retiring 75 sets, ALL of the purchase-with-purchase sets, AND the hostess sets from the 09-10 Big Book so we can make room for all of the UBER~YUMMY new goodies coming the first of July. I've seen some peeky-poos & CANNOT WAIT to share them with y'all...I'm pretty sure you'll love 'em! You can place your orders online through my store while it's still running, or you can e-mail me (you can qualify for free and 1/2 price items via e-mail).

Off to color some more...thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

K.I.S.S.

I can hear some of you now..."this isn't SIMPLE!" Actually, yes, it is & it only took about 30 minutes to put together. I'll walk you through the steps...
(1) pre-made 5x7 black card base; (2) a/c foil tape (LOVE this stuff!!) - cut out {14} 1" squares with either your Nesties or a punch (I used my Nesties this go round); (3) emboss foil squares with Textile Texture Cuttlebug folder (or whatever you'd prefer); (4) peel off backing and place as evenly as possible around perimeter of the card; (5) take piece of black cardstock (about 3 1/2" square) & emboss in Cuttlebug with Impressabilities "flourish" (or a Cuttlebug folder of your choice); (6) mount square to center of card with foam tape; (7) take 1 1/2" square punch or Nestie & cut out piece of watercolor paper; (8) stamp image in navy ink (stamp used TAC's "watercolor plants"); (9) mount watercolor paper onto some powder blue cardstock & cut about 1/4" around the square; (10) mount onto black cardstock slightly off-center (toward the top) with pop dots; (11) emboss small strip of black cardstock with Cuttlebug border folder; (12) mount onto powder blue cardstock & cut 1/4" around to make matting; (13) using glue pen lightly go over letters & swirl of the embossing & cover with sterling MS glitter, let dry; (14) dust off excess glitter & center-mount to the bottom portion of the black embossed square.
Okay, so it's more than 4 steps, but it IS simple to do and the effect...well, just look at all of the TEXTURE (below).

I really like how it turned out & I hope you do too! Thanks for stopping by & have a fantastic evening! I'm off to fix myself some supper then polish up the last bits of this tutorial for you.

Vintage? Yes. Valentine? Ummmmm....

Well, it WAS going to be a vintage Valentine. At least, that's the direction I started off in. I even had some color inspiration to play with - soft pink, soft blue, white, & silver - courtesy of the Colour Create Challenge Blog.

Somehow, it took a turn at a fork in the road that I don't remember, then another turn yet, meandered through a lovely little village and became this...It still has that pink, blue, white, and silver FEEL to it, only it's really not white, but more CREAM, and the "soft" of the pink and blue has turned out to be more "dusty." It DEFINITELY has that vintage, shabby chic flavor though. Oh and it has dimension...
LOADS of dimension. Something I'm not normally very good at. I've used 1/2 pearls, Ranger Distress Inks (tattered rose, faded jeans, & antique linen), button brads, rhinestone brads, 2 different MS branch punches, Prima flowers (roses, fabric, sweet peas, sugar-coated), some little posy-style flowers that I punched and stacked...speaking of "punched and stacked"...
See that pink flower there? That's my very first layered flower that I built all by myself! *LOL* I used my Cuttlebug flower dies & cut it out of the same stamped pink cardstock that I used to cut out the butterfly. The stamp is from a Level A hostess set called "Build a Background" from The Angel Company & I stamped it onto the pink cardstock with Versamark ink. After it was dry, I used my butterfly & flower dies from ProvoCraft, then inked 'em up with Ranger Inks. I also ran the butterfly through the Cuttlebug with my new "flourish" Impressabilities.
Didn't really end up where I expected to, but hey! The journey was a blast & I'm pretty happy with where I landed. Hope you like it, too!

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!