Back in the Saddle

My March workshops are behind me, I've actually put almost everything away already, tabletops are ... well, they were clean, but it's been two days! C'mon!

First, let me take a moment to quote Jan Tink. She had the most wonderful few sentences in one of her blog posts earlier this week, and every time I repeated them to someone (a stamper, of course, because who else would understand?!), that person was in awe of the wisdom there-in. The quote:

"At least half of the things you buy, you buy just because you LIKE 'EM, not because you have any particular project in mind. You're not buying the material or object, you are buying POTENTIAL."

Yeah, POTENTIAL, that's it! I have a whole wanna-be-craft-room full of POTENTIAL! That certainly made me feel a LOT better about my, um, ... recent purchases. HEY, you must support your local stamp store ... and I was invited to a special sale ... not everyone was invited ... so I was special...and I had to go ... and it was ON SALE!

But I guess that does not explain the, er, Emerson stamps I bought because of a darn enabling ad on SCS. But seriously, who could resist an image of a woman wearing a t-shirt that says "Objects inside shirt are larger than they appear." or "Ever since I went on that pretend diet I feel thinner." Oh, and an American Art Stamp sentiment that I have plans to use for Mother's Day: "Mom, I will always love you, but I will never forgive you for cleaning my face off with your spit." Soon to be a classic, I am sure. I had to buy them...I just had to! I say they have potential to be cards I plan to sell this summer at the Market. Yeah, that works! :-)

Given the plethora of goods coming to my door in the next few weeks, I decided to get off my butt...well, move my butt from the couch to the table, and stamp something! I get inspiration from all sorts of weird places. One of the ideas flittering around inside my head this past week was inspired by a cake done for one of the cake challenges on the Food Network. What these people do with cakes is amazing! The one that stuck in my brain was a white layer of a large cake, and this layer had black stripes coming from the top of the layer down the sides. At the end of each strip of black was a white flower. It was GORgeous! So my sicko brain decided for some reason this would make a good card, and I finally got around to it yesterday. Here is my first pass:


Recipe: Paper - Basic Black, Whisper White; Other - 1/2 pearls from the Pretties Kit, Red grosgrain ribbon, Fiskars embossing plate, Cuttlebug.

I must have also been influenced by a Black & White & Red card I made last Summer that looked like a tuxedo, which is where the idea for the red bow came from. I think the card has potential (!), but it needs some more work. I am very proud of my resourcefulness, though (past self on back.) I originally had a piece of striped vellum on there, but it totally disappeared into the white card stock, so I got the idea to use one of my Fiskars embossing plates and my Cuttlebug to add the stripes to the white card stock so they actually stand out more. Like I said, it still needs work.

I have a few more card ideas floating in my head that I hope to get to paper this week. And if you have any suggestions for improving that Black & White number, feel free to suggest away! :-)