Baroque Cut-out

It's been a very busy day! In fact, I've been busy since Wednesday, trying to cram in as much as I can during my 4 day weekend. Really, is it even possible for a woman to have an EMPTY "To-Do" list?



Tommorrow my day will be dedicated to making Christmas cards and decorating the house for the Holidays. I really should have worked on those Christmas cards tonight but I took a trip to the fabric store and purchase from the 50% off big-bolts (what you typically use for covering pillows, sofas, etc.). I have NO idea what I'm going to do with it...but it's Ga-orgeous and had to have it! We'll see if my husband feels the same way when I show it to him. He's learned to accept my "gotta have it for the future" purchases, LOL, (honestly, if you only knew). Actually, I do have a few ideas for putting the fabric to good use, but it'll have to wait. For now, it's going on the bottom of my "Future Projects" To-Do list.

A trip to the Bead store was fit into tonights outing. I walked into that store and had no clue as to where to start. That is, until I found the "Vintage" beads section. Drooooooool!

Beads from the 30's, 40's and even Germany. I can think of many uses these little beauties, but none of them include using them for jewelry.

Now, on to stamping business. Here's my latest card using the Baroque background stamp. This is one of my favorite stamps of the the year!

I stamped in Artichoke Ink onto Artichoke cardstock and cut out the big flourish. Then I stamped the entire cut-out with the Floral background.

The Soft Sky cardstock was stamped with Soft Sky ink using the Linen background and Finest Flourishes stamp set. The gold lines were created using a gold Zig pen.



The entire cut-out was lifted with dimensionals.

Baroque ~ All My Love

A quick post of what I did today; well, I did lots but this is what I STAMPED today. It uses the Baroque Backgroud stamp set, River Rock cardstock, Shimmery White and a Chocolate Chip marker.

Think Pink ~ Baroque Kit

Apparently Mother Nature is still hesitant to flip the Winter switch. I'm one of those people who believe things happen for a reason, even in nature, so I'm anxious to see why we are experiencing 80 degree temps in the tail end of October! A cool front did come in last night and lowered temps to the 50's, but I'm not getting too excited because it jumps right back up to the 80's during the day.

I've had the Baroque Background stamp set now for over a month and still have not utilized it like I have wanted. So, with the cool breeze of air that arrived this weekend (even if it was for a short time) I sat down and created something nice (I think) in honor of Breast Cancer awareness month.

The "Think Pink ~ Baroque Kit" includes the wonderful Baroque Background stamp set, dye pad and paper supplies to create cards, treat boxes and a cute little Dove chocolate holder. Adhesive and punches used for embellishments are available for an additional 'add-on' if you do not currently have these items (I find that most stampers do as we use them constantly in our artwork). Kit cost is $45 and is mailed directly to your home. Contact me today for more information MELANIE

FALL NOTES.

Here's something I created for the grey walls in my office space. Apparently the 'cool front' works wonders for getting movtivated to create fall arrangments.

I purchased all these flowers at Wal-mart. Yep, Wal-mart, and the corn came from our local fresh market ($.99). Great deal! The wire basket I purchased 3 (maybe 5) years ago at a garage sale. I was going through a 'wire' stage, LOL! Hey, whatever makes you happy.

Fall is nearing....

It's HOT outside! I'm trying to do as little outdoors as possible (luckily for me stamping is an INDOOR activity).

This weekend my focus was to catch up on swaps, design projects for upcoming classes (lots of big events coming my way) and do a little stamping from ideas stored in my head. In fact, here is one of those ideas. This card uses the beautiful Baroque background stamp. I ordered this because I thought it had lots of possibilities with it's bold design.

The first thing that came to mind was using it several times to replicate velvet wallpaper. You know, the wallpaper that one finds in an old Victorian home. The problem is how do I get those bold images to look and feel like velvet? Hum. Flocking is an option; unfortunately I don't have black, nor do I have the patience to look for it online much less wait for it to come in. Looks like my velvet card idea is out! Sooooooooo, I decided to simply stamp with a Black Staz-on dye pad onto Pumpkin cardstock and again on a peice of acetate. The acetate is raised with dimensionals in select spots (obviously under the solid black images).


I went back and forth as to whether or not to add more to this. A mini bow would look great (if it was velvet). Nope...covered to much of the bold images I wanted to show off. So, I settled for simple black brads.

Oddly, the Staz-on made gaps on the acetate where the ink did not cover; so I took a watercolor brush and a bottle of Staz-on reinker and simply filled the gaps.

Here's the final result. What do you think?



In between making cards and swaps I decided to take a little break and water the glorious garden I spent 4 weeks in Spring preparing. Well, it WAS glorious, before the heat of July and August arrived. This is the 2nd year we tried a vegetable/fruit garden. Can you guess what this was supposed to be?




It's a cantelope! Yep, that's what it is. I cropped part of the photo where the fruit looked bad (yes...it looks WORSE than this).

Leaves were falling everywhere with Fall approaching. As I watered one garden in the back yard a twig fell on top of my shoulder. I kept watering figuring the movement of my arm with the hose would make it fall, but no. I turned around to brush it off myself to find it wasn't a branch at all!!! It was THIS..........

ACK!

I ran around shaking my shirt and screaming. The dog was completely confused! This thing would NOT shake loose. It's feet were stuck to my shirt and it would not budge. Finally I finger plucked him off from underneath my shirt (becuase I was NOT touching it). He plopped loose and fell at the tree base.

Yuck! That's when I decided to get back to my stamping room. I'd rather deal with rubber locust than the real thing.