On A Mission

Turbo Tax threw a hissy fit yesterday. Well, not really. Turbo Tax is my friend...it just told me I'd messed up somewhere and to go back and check it, or consult an accountant before I proceeded. Bah. So I decided to stamp something instead.

I thought maybe I'd start using my last stash of Papertrey stuff I had so carfully placed into the bowels of the Craft Room prior to my workshops last weekend. I caved when they came out with their first release of their Perfect Match papers, ribbons and inks and bought all of it, as well as a few stamp sets...to justify the shipping, of course.

So I grabbed the box out of my Storage/Wanna-be-Craft Room and set to work. The original idea for this project came from one of the many blogs I read this past week. I spent 1/2 hour this morning looking for it, but alas, I cannot find it. It was a basic card with a single flower on it, and she'd made several cards and a whole set of matching tags with sentiments and stuck them on a piece of acetate (I think). The person who got the cards could use whatever sentiment they wanted by taking it off the acetate and sticking it on the card. I thought this was a very clever idea, and wanted to try a variation of it to sell at my Farmers Markets this summer. If you know whose blog it was, please let me know so I can give direct credit for the idea.

I seem to be incapable of using the two Perfect Match colors of green together, even with the coordinating patterned paper (see, I told you I bought a lot of stuff!), so I gave up and went with just the Moss.

I did not buy the Out on a Limb set, but I did buy a similar Hero Arts stamp on my last LSS binge, so I used that, inked with SU Choc Chip and Mellow Moss markers.

Recipe: Stamps - limb by Hero Arts, sentiments by Papertrey, Ink; Paper - SU Whisper White, Papertrey Spring Moss c/s and Everyday Blessings patterned paper; Ink - SU Choc Chip and Mellow Moss markers, SU Basic Brown; Other - Papertrey Spring Moss dotted ribbon, SU gold cord, Cuttlebug and CB scallop dies.

I decided to make a set of five cards with five different sentiments, so the cards are all the same except for the sentiment on the tag. I used one of my clear boxes I got a few years ago, so I am actually using something from my stash! :-) When I first got into this biz, I had thought about offering gift boxes of cards, or card sets like this one, but it's never worked out. This may be the year!

Below is the box all assembled and holding the five cards plus envelopes. The ribbon made a pretty hefty knot, so I turned every other card backwards in the box to distribute the bulk.

The last thing I did before assembling the box was apply one of the SU rub-ons to the bottom right corner of the box, just to dress it up a bit. This rub-on is Olive, even though it looks white in the photo. Just blame the photographer.

I got two sets of five cards out of one roll of PTI ribbon. I'm making all sorts of progress today! :-) But there's more!

Next I actually tried (again) to use the two greens together. I think the only reason this one almost works is the background paper contains so much of both colors, and I mounted it on white. Okay, maybe I can do this, but it is way easier to work with one color only.

Recipe: Stamps - Figures of Speech by SU; Paper - Whisper White, PTI Aqua Mist c/s and Everyday Blessings patterned paper; Ink - PTI Spring Moss; Other - PTI ribbon, 1 1/2" circle punch, blue Marvy circle punch, Coluzzle.

On to the Aqua Mist color. I was rummaging through my box of white scraps looking for something I could salvage and use to hold a sentiment for the Aqua Mist card, and I discovered a piece of card stock with a whole bunch of preprinted sentiments! How convenient was that!?!? I remember printing these last year, but in the whirlwind that is my Craft Room, yeah ... like I'd ever find anything in there I was actually looking for (for which I was looking, for you grammar geeks.) This discovery reminded me of a saying someone at work has on their desk: "Neat people never make the exciting kinds of discoveries I do." Amen to that!

Recipe: Paper - Whisper White, PTI Aqua Mist c/s and Everyday Blessings patterned paper; Ink - Aqua Mist; Other - PTI ribbon, computer-printed sentiment.

When you have an irreverent sentiment, why not dress it up a bit? If the card looks like it is classy, people certainly would not expect a sassy statement, now would they? It's cards like this that keep my Farmers Market customers coming back to read and laugh, and sometime they even buy!

Well, I am fading. I was up at 3:45 am this morning to go to work (one of the hazards of working with computer systems) and I was home by 7:00 am, which is pretty good, and started stamping! I think all the caffeine and sugar have worn off, though, and now I cannot keep my eyes open. Might be time for a little nap. I think I'll go curl up with the cat and take a little snooze, then do a Stampin' Up! version of one of these cards that I can use for my April workshops.