Another weekend has come and gone...

I hope you all had a good weekend! It was COLD here today, but COLD to me is anything less than 65 degrees. Actually, I don't think it made it out of the 30's today, so it was SUPER-DUPER COLD!! I can't decide if I admire my family in Iowa or just think they're plain crazy!! :) ...Maybe a little of both!

Yesterday, I made a little trip to Branson. One of my favorite stores, called "Unique Impressions" was having a 50% off sale on some of their items. I bought a few sale items and I bought a few non-sale items. It was all I could do to tear myself away from the store when I did. While I was there, I discovered some stamps by a company called "Northwoods Rubber Stamps, Inc." I don't think I had ever seen their stamps before, but I fell in love with them as soon as I saw them (that figures... since they weren't on sale). The detail in their images is just unbelievable and the card samples I saw just seemed to be alive. I only bought one of their stamps because I wanted to play with it a little to see if I could make the image come to life like the samples I'd seen.
This card was made using that stamp. The stamp measures 4 3/4"h X 4"w, so the image fits beautifully on a full-sized card. I stamped it with Basic Black craft ink on Stampin' Up! watercolor paper and then heat embossed it using clear detail embossing powder. Then the time consuming part...
I watercolored the image using Twinkling H2O watercolors. Then I used my glue pen to add Dazzling Diamonds glitter to all the tulips. Once everything was dry, I mounted my watercolor paper on a card base of Ballet Blue. The pictures really don't do this card justice. It is absolutely gorgeous in real life! I'm looking forward to my next Northwoods stamp.



This is a stamp that WAS in the 50% off sale. It's a "Great Impressions" stamp. I used Bashful Blue and Basic Black cardstock on this card. The card base is Basic Black and the Bashful Blue layer on top of that was embossed using my brand-spankin' new Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder. The image was stamped with Whisper White craft ink on Basic Black cardstock and was heat embossed with white detail embossing powder. I colored the car and the cats with my Stampin' Up! metallic pencils. I REALLY like the way those pencils look on the black cardstock. I just wish there were more colors. The "Happy Valentine's Day" image is from the 'Holidays & Wishes' stamp set and the ribbon is the black grosgrain ribbon from SU.

I spent today stamping, cleaning, reading, and shopping (the boring, necessary household stuff at Sam's). It was a relaxing day. I'm still looking forward to the day when I'm independently wealthy so I can stay home and create things ALL the time! Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as I enjoyed mine!! TTFN and happy stamping!