A TOUCH OF CUTWORK

I got up at 7:30 this morning to a quiet house. The men were still in bed so I decided that it probably wan't a good time to vacuum or start clanging around in the kitchen putting away the dishes and cleaning up from the night before. In fact, maybe I shouldn't try to clean house at all until AFTER they woke up. One in particular is not a happy camper if he doesn't get ALL his beauty sleep - and I wasn't in the mood for unhappiness on my Saturday morning!

So, I decided to engage in a quiet task: brusing out our Chow/Malamute/Collie mix, Samson. He's blowing coat horribly and I've needed to do it for quite some time but it's always such an undertaking so I keep putting it off. I knew I would have bribe him with treats to get him to sit still. I managed to keep him quiet for about 15 minutes. Then he thought we were playing a game so he started running around the living room and barking at the top of his lungs!!!! No, Samson, do not wake the men!!!! Half a kitchen garbage bag full of fur and I've only finished his head, back and shoulders! Obviously I couldn't do that 'quiet' chore so the only option left to me: STAMP!

I started by embossing a MARIANNE DESIGN stencil onto STAMPIN'UP! WHHISPER WHITE cardstock. Once I finished embossing I cut-out portions of the embossed design. Next I used my STAMPIN'UP! EMBOSSING BUDDY over the cardstock before stamping an image from STAMPIN'UP! WINGS OF FRIENDSHIP in VERSAMARK and heat embossing with a fine detail gold powder.

I used another image from the same stamp set to stamp and emboss the flowers. I colored them using STAMPIN'UP! PRETTY IN PINK ink and an AQUA PAINTER, then cut them out and attached them to the stenciled image.

The pink background was created using STAMPIN'UP! PINK PIROUETTE. I cut the cardstock then used the STAMPIN'UP! SCALLPERD CORNER PUNCH. After punching the corners, I used a CUTTLEBUG embossing folder: TEXTILE to emboss the background. The white mat was also given the same corner treatment.

Each piece was edged in gold using a METALLIC GOLD KRYLON pen before layering the pieces together.

TIP: Make sure to let the pieces completely dry before layering as some gold ink
will pick up on the back of the pieces. (Ask me how I know this!!!!!)

The finishing touches were the little gold beads for the flower centers and the STAMPIN'UP! PRETTY IN PINK satin ribbon (newly released in the current mini catalog).

I'm happy with the way this turned out and will probably use the technique to make more - but you can bet my Christmas Cards won't use this technique. This card took me 3 hours from start to finish. Of course I doubt it would take that long to make another just like it. I couldn't decide for a while on the layout so I played with several papers before coming up with this design. All in all though, it IS very labor intensive so if you don't like detail work - this technique is probably NOT for you.

Thanks for visiting -

Until Next Time -
Happy Stamping!

Jill