Life is Good!

I lived through my very first Open House and loved it.  Yes, it was hectic.  Yes, I was disorganized.  Yes, I had a good attendance.  Yes, my make-n-takes were all enjoyed.  In other words, it was a very positive day.  I'm glad it's over.

It got my stamping juices flowing.

And so on Sunday I relaxed.  I did not do a total clean-up of my Craft Room but instead, wallowed in the enjoyment of am Open House well done and used a new product.  I made a card just for the enjoyment of it.  It was great.  My "toy" of choice was the brand new, just introduced in the new Holiday Catalogue, Bigz Autumn Accents die.  Since the wonderful fall colours are all around us now and since it was a gloriously bright day, I chose to use cardstock that fell into the warm fall range:  More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso and Naturals Ivory.  The inks I used were So Saffron, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso and Old Olive.

I cut maple leaves out in the More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Naturals Ivory and the new Core'dinations Early Espresso.  Then I went to work on them.  I took the More Mustard leaf and used daubers with More Mustard, Cajun Craze and Old Olive to give it a mottled effect and then sponged the edges with Early Espresso.  I did the same to the Cajun Craze leaf.  The Core'dinations leaf was left uninked but I ran it through the Big Shot in the Fancy Fan embossing folder.

For the next step I spread out some newspaper and spread out the three leaves and spritzed them thoroughly with the mixture of Champagne Mist shimmer paint and alcohol that I had shaken up in my new Stampin' Spritzer.  I love that thing!  It's so nice not having to try to find the colour I want in a spritzer.  I can make it when I need it.  Anyway, I sprayed those three leaves until they were wet.  Then I did the unthinkable.  I picked them up one at a time and crunched and folded and crunched some more until each one was a sad little wad of paper.  Carefully, I straightened them out and the resulting texture was remarkable.  I was so happy!  The Core'dinations paper is a bit less sturdy than the normal cardstock and the embossing had already broken the surface somewhat so I wound up with a few spots of the surface breaking of, but the result was actually really stunning.

If you've kept track, you'll remember that I still had one maple leaf, the one cut from the Naturals Ivory, which had not been touched.  I decided to emboss one of the lovely images from the Full of Blessings stamp set on the leaf along with "Thank You".  Of course I used the brand new Early Espresso embossing powder introduced in the Holiday Catalogue for that.  The colour was great: strong enough to show up the image and words really well but less harsh than black would have been.  I'm going to be using that Early Espresso embossing powder often.

I used my daubers over the image on the leaf, adding some So Saffron, More Mustard and Cajun Craze and finished the leaf off by colouring the bird and then brushing some Crystal Effects over the bird.

Time to assemble.  My base cardstock is Early Espresso.  The next layer is 4" x 5 1/4" Cajun Craze.  The next layer is 3 3/4" x 5" More Mustard which I ran through the Big Shot in that beautiful new Woodgrain embossing folder.  Once I had adhered the three textured leaves to the card, I knew I wanted some ribbon and when I saw the new 7/8" Natural Cotton Ribbon it all fell into place.  I used my dauber to add some Cajun Craze to the edges and then adhered some So Saffron 3/8" Taffeta Ribbon to its centre.  Then came the embossed leaf which I adhered with Dimensionals and to finish up, two of the small Naturals Designer buttons with a small bow in the Linen Thread in each.

And this is a close-up of the buttons and leaves so that you can really see the texture.

I love this card.  It was fun to make.  It was great to relax and just play with my new products.  Most of all, it was wonderful to wind up with a card that I truly love looking at.  I hope you like it, too.