Modern Heart meets Strong & Beautiful

Happy Sunday!

It IS Sunday, isn't it??  I have lost ALL concept of what day it is! ... and it's wonderful!

I truly haven't been this relaxed in I don't know HOW long!  The kids have been off school since last Friday afternoon ... and so has Craig!  The kids have another week off and Craig is off until Thursday!  As much as the man drives me CRAZY with his constant moving (her seriously only ever sits still for about 5 minutes at a time) I am VERY grateful for his neurotic tendencies *lol*.  My house is never as clean as when he has lots of days off in a row!  I also gain at least an hour a day by him always taking care of dinner!  It seriously feels like I have SO much more time in the day just by not having to deal with that one task every day!

So what have I been doing?  Well ... Christmas prep had me busy right up until Wednesday, of course ... but since then I have been just "putzing".  Yes, it's generally work related but I'm doing what I WANT to do, not what I feel I HAVE to do .. and I'm loving it!  Catching up on paperwork, planning classes, organizing my craft cave ... just getting caught up and trying to breath!  I don't have much time to keep that up, though, as I have my New Catalogue Class this Friday night and my New Catalogue Open House Saturday morning! ... and there is always a lot I want to do for those.  I'm going to TRY not to get all crazy prepping, though.  I'm MUCH more fun when I'm relaxed!

Today I'm going to share a project I made for a Canadian card swap I took part in.  It uses a new stamp set called "Forever Blossoms".  Trust me when I say this bundle is a MUST for you to own.  It makes quick and easy cards ... well ... quick and easy! ... but also stunning!  You CAN make it more complicated but you don't have to.  That's MY kind of set!  Check out what I made:

I just LOVE it!  I got a real muted, vintage look by stamping the image in Versamark then heat setting Gold embossing powder over it.  Heat embossing was my very first technique I ever tried and it's still my favourite, watching that powder melt!

To colour the images I used a fairly dry Aqua Painter.  I squeezed the closed Pear Pizazz and Blushing Bride ink pads really hard, to transfer a bit of ink into the closed lid.  I then used the aquapainter to paint the leaves and centres of the flowers.  An OLD aquapainter works well for this technique as the brush bristles give a feathers, realiztic look to the colouring, if that makes sense.

 I stamped the sentiment with Soft Sued ink and punched it out with my "Timeless Label" punch - and popped it up on dimensionals.

I added some Metallic Pearls for that finishing touch.  Love love love! 

I can't wait for the 2020 Occasions (Mini) Catalogue to go live January 3rd. This beautiful bundle (stamp set and dies) is $72.00 Canadian .... so when you purchase it you will also get a FREE Sale-a-bration item of your choice.  BONUS!

That's it for now - I'm off to finish off some projects I started MONTHS ago!  Whatever you get up to today, I hope it's a stampy one ... and I wish you all a very Happy New Year!



Tam