Finally Satisfied

The third time is definitely the charm.  While I was happier with my second version, I had pieces for a third try on my desk simply calling my name:  "Try again ... try again ..."   So I played with a couple of different colors of Distress Ink on some scrap paper and decided to switch the embossing up with Tumbled Glass.  This time I also ended up with a more subtle streaking on the paper.  I'm not sure if was just working a little faster, the change in color or I used less or more pressure, or a combination of all those factors, but I really liked how the background came out this time. It's a nice subtle texture to the card.  Then I did pretty much all the same things I had done on version two, but I used shorter pieces of baker's twine so I had to do a lot less fiddling to bring it all together.  When I had it finally all together, I was finally very pleased with the result. 

Flying By Inspiration from the Lawn Fawn blog

I recently purchased the Flying By set and matching dies from Lawn Fawn.  Have I mentioned they are my absolute favorite?  So I did a Google search of images where I discovered the original video introducing the set when it first came out.  You can watch that here and a blog post on the Lawn Fawn blog with a post with a super clean looking card that you can find here. 

It inspired me to try may hand at it.  Well, it turned out to be a little trickier to do it in real life than it was in my head.  The airplanes were super fast and easy to stamp on three sheets of paper form the Jillibean Soup Blossom Soup 6x6 paper pad.  I ran into trouble, however, when I started building the background.  I chose not to cut the sentiment apart, but rather to selectively ink the stamp.  I couldn't seem to get my pressure even and I really had a hard time when it came time to stamp those little dotted lines.  I guess I haven't spent enough time in my craft room lately and my skills are a bit rusty.  But eventually I got a version I was willing to live with, even with it's imperfections (note I did not say a I was happy with it).  I used some yellow striped paper from the Snap Collection from Simple Stories to mat it and called it good.   

Another 50th Anniversary Card

I guess I am very blessed to have many great role models for marriage as this weekend we attended another 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  I needed a card for the event.  I haven't really felt like being in my craft room this week so I thought I might just pull one from my stash like I have for every event the last week or so, but I sat in my craft room for a bit and found a card on Pinterest that I thought I might lift.  While I was sifting through my Lawn Fawn stamp sets, I saw the Cruisin' Through Life set in my stash and it inspired me to go a wholly different direction.  For this card, I used a mask to add two bouquets of flowers to the basket of the bicycle, all of which I stamped using Versafine Ink that I heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I added selectively stamped a bit of one of the sentiments from the Cruising Through Life set and then put together the word together using letters from Lawn Fawn's Harold's ABCs set.  I then colored the whole thing with Spectrum Noir markers and added a bit of sparkle with Wink of Stella.  I matted the colored piece with a piece of paper from the Southern Chicken Dumpling Soup 6x6 pad from Jillibean Soup.

For the inside of the card, I used a sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Sophie's Sentiments set, but cut apart so I could add the 50th from the Creative Imaginations Wedded Bliss set stamping the 50th in Tsunineko Galaxy Gold and the rest in Versafine ink.  I then just had to add this cute little strip of bicycles from the Blossom Soup 6x6 pad from Jillibean Soup to finish it off. 

Here's a shot of the sparkle from the Wink of Stella:

 

 Here's a shot of the inside: