BRAYERING CHALLENGED

I left off Friday's post with the delivery of my SU! order by the UPS man. The shipment arrived in full and intact and I was pleasantly surprised to realize I had ordered three stamp sets - not just one. The one I was most excited about however is Nature Silhouettes. I have wanted this stamp set since the new catty came out and I knew EXACTLY how I was going to create a card with it. I envisioned a beautiful sunset in golds and oranges with the deer standing regally in front of a line of tall pine trees. The photo of the card is at the bottom of the post - BUT PLEASE KEEP READING you've got to hear this story!

I quickly mounted the deer stamp to the wood block (don't we love the new die cut stamp sets????) and set it aside while I created the background. First I cut a piece of glossy card stock to fit the front of my card. Then I inked up my brayer with Summer Sun, More Mustard and Pumpkin Pie and ran it back and forth across the card stock and VOILA! A TOTAL MESS!!!! I thought I had cleaned all the dust off the brayer (which hasn't been used in more than a year) but there were dust bunnies and fibers ALL OVER the paper - and they wouldn't come off! Worse than that my brayering looked like a beginner and we just can't have that! An SU! demonstrator should know how to brayer. The ink just "stuck" to the glossy surface and wouldn't move. What's up with that????

Okay - into the circular file. Obviously brayering is not my forte. Let's try sponging - I'm pretty good at sponging. I decided to change the look completely at this point and create a winter scene. I cut a second small piece of glossy card stock from the same 8.5x11 sheet I used earlier, pulled out my sponge, Not Quite Navy Inkpad and set out to work. It started out okay as I lightly dobbed the ink onto the paper - but the more I dobbed the sponge began sticking to the surface. Then - the surface of the paper actually began lifting off in areas. This was becoming as BIG A MESS as the brayering. Into the circular file???? Definitely not! I will NOT be defeated by a piece of glossy cardstock!

I stopped sponging and decided to try 'hiding' most of the disastorous sky with a line of tall pines from "Lovely as a Tree". I used Night of Navy and stamped the first tree. Hey - this might just work. Without reinking I stamped the next tree to the right, lifted the stamp and half the branches 'lifted off' the surface of the paper leaving bare white spots. WHAT IS GOING ON???? Keep going - maybe it will just look like snow on the branches. I finished sponging the line of trees and it looked decent enough to continue. All I needed to do now was stamp the deer in Night of Navy and I could then put the card together.

I stamped the deer - oooops - a new silhouette stamp - forgot to rough it up a bit - half the deer didn't stamp. I reinked at this point - decided so what if I can't hit the deer a second time - I'm throwing this away anyway - and what do you know - RIGHT ON TARGET! His body was a little lighter in the middle so I colored him in with Night of Navy marker. This really wasn't looking to bad by this point - but I wanted to add a little bit of glitter for falling snow - so using a glue pad and little dots from the Itty Bitty Backgrounds I made the snow dots and the applied SU! Diamond Dust glitter. When I shook off the excess - NOTHING SHOOK OFF. The entire surface of the card was sticky and the glitter "stuck" everywhere. I ended up using a soft paint brush to remove as much of the excess as I could.

It wasn't until I turned the piece over to apply adhesive that the reason for all my sticky problems became clear. Instead of using SU! Glossy White cardstock I had grabbled up a piece of my Kodak Glossy Photographic paper!!!! Just for the record, you cannot brayer or sponge successfully on photo paper. It becomes a sticky mess. LOL! I was so happy to finally realize I wasn't losing my touch - only my MIND!!!!

This is the final creation from all that turmoil. I actually LIKE the way it turned out - but I certainly don't think I could recreate it on purpose!

Thanks for visiting and being patient enough to read this long account. Maybe you can all learn from my mistake and save yourself some time and trouble.

Jill