In my thoughts. . .

Hello everyone - I hope you had a fabulous holiday and New Year.  In case you missed my last post I am on a new Design Team! This is my first card for House of Cards, a monthly challenge, which typically involves your choice of a color scheme as well as a theme - you can choose which one you'd like to play with.  This months challenge is:

You can use either the Colors or use a Building, or both, in your creation. 

For this challenge I chose to work with the colors.  I have been cleaning out my craft room and I literally just gave away a perfect stamp set that I could have used for this, but, such is life.  Here is my card:

What I Used to Make my Card:
Kraft Card Base
Maroon Cardstock
Scrap Silver Cardstock
Unity Stamp Co. "Bunches of Love", UK-669A (739) - sentiment
Unity Stamp Co. "Blossoming thoughts & wishes", UK-754A (930)- flourish
Embossing Fluid
Stampin' Up Sterling Silver Embossing Powder (disc, but they still have silver)

I recently was able to buy a few sentiment sets from Unity Stamp Company so I broke those open to use on this card as well as trying my MISTI (that I am embarrassed to say I have had for months!) after studying many You Tube Videos (how did we ever learn anything before You Tube?!?) anyway. . . 

I started this card by lining up the sentiment and the flourish with each other, inking them up with the embossing fluid, stamping, then taking the flourish and repeating the steps.  I finished off with the silver embossing powder.

Another look

After trimming the maroon panel, I attached it to the silver panel.  Now, that might seem like an easy step.  Should be an easy step.  Was it easy? Not the first time.  I didn't realize the maroon card was thinner stock than I'm used to using. And I typically use a wet glue when making my cards because I get a bit of grace time to wiggle stuff around before it dries.  Well, I put my glue on the back of the maroon card and slipped it under the tile I have on my desk so it would dry nice and straight.  I checked on the card a while later and was horrified to discover that the maroon panel had a HUGE blob of glue right under the sentiment and nothing I did helped.  I ripped the card apart, hoping I could somehow spread the glue.  Nope.  Dried it with my heat gun to try to lessen the buckle the blob of glue had created.  Nope.  Only one thing to do - start over.  I took a long break (as I am prone to do as opposed to wrecking my craft room like a crazy person) and made another maroon panel.  This time I used a dry adhesive and it worked. I'd rather not learn these little lessons but it could have been worse.  I didn't save the panel, or the other two I made with another embossing powder or the one I made with a different sentiment.  I did fussy cut the pretty flourish out before I trashed the other tries - who knows, they may show up on a different project.  

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and read through my trials.  I do hope to see you entering in the challenge at House of Cards.  Honestly, there is a whole month and you could win a cute badge to display as well as some well earned bragging rights.  As for me, I am off to shop for some glue dots, double stick tape or something like it.  Fondly, Christi

PS: Since I am entering so many challenges were the subject is NEW I thought I would make it simple and tell you what I used that is new.  The stamps are new, both sets that I used were just bought and while I have had the MISTI for a while, it's new to me as this is the first time I've used it :) 

I would like to enter my In My Thoughts Card in the following challenges:
Just For Fun Rubber Stamps (January) - Anything Goes 

Just Us Girls - Word Week - Word is NEW 

Sweet Stampin' - Something New 
Simon Says Stamp, Wednesday Challenge - New
Little Red Wagon - #375, Something New
The Artistic Stamper (January) - Anything Goes
Craft Stamper Magazine - (January) - Anything Goes

The Purrfect Friend

As I watch the snow fall here in Colorado, I'm thinking of how much fun snow days were. I was lucky to grow up in a neighborhood with tons of kids. And even luckier that my best friend lived right next door to me - our parents even connected our backyards for us.  I don't even remember a life before her! She is an amazing person, and loves cats as much as I do.  Unfortunately,  she has recently gotten a fairly serious health diagnosis - not life threatening, thank goodness, but painful none the less.  I have been sending her the plastic boxes from my old Stampin' Up! sets because she loves them and uses them to store her own bunch of little trinket obsessions. Since I now live halfway across the country from her we don't talk that often, but we message each other daily - actually we message each other a ton of times daily.  I am very grateful to still have her in my life as I have watched time steal away too many good friendships. I made this card to put into the next shipment of goodies:

What I Used to Make my Card:

Stampendous Set, Cat Sayings #SSC1222
Newton's Nook Newton's Antics Stamps
Newton's Nook Newton's Antics Dies
Ranger Archival Ink Pad in Jet Black
Spellbinders Labels Seventeen
Authentique Remembrance 6x6 pad, REM006 (retired but available)
Scraps of Green Paper (from the Remembrance pad above)
Corner Rounder Punch
Pop Dots

I can't recall what I used to color the cats with as I found this duo in my already colored pile, but, I would guess I used my Zig Clean Color markers judging by how they look.  I put the kitties on a scrap of green to anchor them - without the paper, they floated around and looked like they need to be grounded.  After I grounded the cats, I stamped the sentiment on another scrap of green in the same color that the cats sat on.  That is one of the many reasons I love working with coordinated paper - you can always find the exact color you need! I die cut the sentiment with Spellbinders and set it aside.

The Dimension

I trimmed a piece of the purple background paper and then rounded the corners with a corner rounder.  I glued the paper onto the card base, then pop dotted the cats and the sentiment.  That's when I realized I had put the whole thing together upside down - yup, that is what happens at 11:30 at night.  So, I cut the card apart and mounted the panel, with pop dots, onto another card base, this time right side up.  If I had a nickle for every project I've messed up on I could buy the entire Ranger company.  But, I try to look at those mistakes as opportunities to try to figure out how to solve them.  And this mistake was easy to fix and one I have done a million times. 

I really enjoyed making this card and I hope it brings a smile to her face.  I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and I appreciate your stopping by.  Fondly, Christi

I am humbly entering my Purrfect Friend Card in the following challenges:
ModSquad - Anything but Christmas
ScrappyLand - #57, Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday - #264/265, Anything Goes
Lost Coast Portal (Jan) - #32, Anything Goes
Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge (Jan) - Anything Goes w Patterned Paper