Scrap Stash Saturday

Morning everybody!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I wasn't much feeling like it. I was in my craft room making lots of cards (yipee!), but didn't have the energy to actually post anything. I think it's because I was in a downer of a mood. Duh. I didn't shower (I just wanted to veg all day and not be responsible for putting makeup on and fixing my hair!), so that made me feel grungy. Note to self: shower just to feel better!!!!

Doug heard about a few job opportunities yesterday that sound interesting. For one of them the pay is just average, but it provides great benny's and a pension! Do some companies still offer pensions? I thought they were long gone! A collegue is speaking to the hiring contact today and will put in a good word for Doug. Another one would be on a contract basis, and he'll have coffee with that guy next week. This week was spent just getting his bearings as opposed to serious job searching. He'll start up with that next week. He needed to take a break from the rat race for a few days!

I was relatively lucky in the blind scrap pull yesterday! All four papers I dug out with my eyes closed were pretty much in the same color families. There wasn't anything too obnoxious to work with! Here are the papers I pulled......one is Christmas, one is Valentines Day, and the other two are pretty basic (one is plain, the other is a floral pattern with some "sewing" guidelines on it (Basic Grey). The only thing that really troubled me about these papers is the ruby red color of the flowers on the Christmas paper. The paper is bold and the flowers are bright, which conflicts with the burgandy plain paper.

To try and mute the brightness of the flowers, I sponged Rangers Distress Ink in Walnut Stain (it's really dark stain!) all over the paper to try and tone it down. It worked a TINY bit, but it certainly didn't turn the ruby red burgandy!!! Bummer. I hate when things don't work out the way I want them to!

Surprisingly, the card came together pretty quickly. The size of the card is 4.75x4.75". The very first thing I did was lay a square piece of the burgandy paper down in the bottom right hand corner of the card. The Basic Grey paper (the muted green floral with sewing guidelines on it) was already torn diagonally across the corner, so I made it my main paper, and laid it right over the burgandy paper, but you could see it peek through due to the torn corner on the Basic Grey. The next paper I worked with was the Christmas paper (also Basic Grey). I cut a small rectangle and laid it on top of the muted green floral (I first sewed a straight stitch border around it first and distressed the edges).

My main image, the Stampendous Agapanthas (? spelling) flowers, were stamped on Very Vanilla using Cranberry Crisp ink. I sewed a straight stitch around this image as well, and distressed it using Ranger Distress Ink in Tea Stain.

The word "Family" is from my brand new (before JL-"job loss") acrylic stamp set by....I can't remember who makes them! They come in a silver tin, with a see through top. There is no logo/lable on the box, so I can't look at it to find out who made them. How silly is that? It's a fall collection of acrylic stamps. They are really cool, but for the life of me, I have no idea who made them. I'm wondering if it's not Paper Salon? Strange.

The last paper I needed to add to the card was the Valentine's Day (Basic Grey-Blush) paper. I distressed this paper too to try and bring down the brightness of it, but it didn't work so well either! I decided to just cut two strips of the paper and lay one out vertically and one horizontally on the front of the card. That worked. The final detail added to the card was the ribbon. It sat for a while without the ribbon, but I really felt the card was missing something. You have to be careful when adding embellishments to these scrap cards because there is so much drama already with all the different patterns involved! In the end, I liked how the muted olive green satin ribbon looked. It wasn't too overwhelming.

I hope you like this weeks card. I just love the Scrap Stash Saturday challenge. It really stretches me, I hope some of you give it a try sometime! A huge THANK YOU is going out to my good friend Julee Tilman (Poetic Artistry) who sent me this RAK last week filled with Hero Arts Christmas birid images! This is the card Julee won the {Caardvarks} beaded card challenge with last month! Julee sent it to me as congrats for being invited to join the {Caardvarks} Design Team! How special is that? It's GORGEOUS, of course. We all know Julee doesn't make anything other than perfect cards! I feel so blessed to have received this card that Julee hand beaded! Thanks friend!

Hugs,
Amy