Gettin' My Mojo Back

Many of you know that I've been in the process of moving since August 15th. I know that's been a LONG time, but I've had a few setbacks during that time. The same day of my last post, I found out that the chimney in the new house leaked. I got that fixed and on that same day, my attic fan sucked one of the shutter louvres into the attic and basically tied it in a knot. It is NOT salvagable. I haven't had any major catastrophes since then, so HOPEFULLY that's the last of it for a while.

My friend, Amy, came over yesterday so we could work on getting some swaps done for our upcoming Stampin' Up! Regional Seminar in Kansas City on the 26th of this month. Amy accomplished a LOT more than I did. After taking a break from card-making, it's taking a while to get my mojo back. Here are a few things I've worked on lately...



This card has a Pretty In Pink card base. The DSP on the bottom of the card is Berry Bliss from the Spring Summer 2008 collection and retired with the release of the current Idea Book & Catalog. I stamped the hippo from "Bundled In Love" three times - twice on Berry Bliss paper and once on Purely Pomegranate Cardstock. I cut each of the three pieces out (body, head, and ribbon) and pieced them together. The head was mounted on dimensionals, giving it a 3-D look. The ribbon is "traitor" ribbon from Hobby Lobby. I used my Spellbinders Nestabilities to cut the rectangles for matting.

It seems like I always need a masculine birthday card and never seem to have a stash. I have plenty of cards stashed that would be great for anyone EXCEPT a man, so I made several of these the other day to keep on hand. The card base is Chocolate Chip. I used the Outlaw DSP (retired a year ago) and matted it on Sage Shadow cardstock. The ribbon is Chocolate Chip Twill. I stamped the mustang from the "Wanted" stamp set once on Very Vanilla cardstock (image on the far right). I inked the same stamp up again and stamped it off once on my grid paper and then again just behind my first image. I inked that stamp up again and stamped it off twice on grid paper before stamping it behind the second image. It gives the card the appearance of motion and is my favorite technique for this stamp set. The sentiment was stamped in Chocolate Chip Classic ink using the "Happy Everything" stamp set.

This was an attempt at a swap. I don't know if it will be a swap or not. It was fairly time consuming, although I really like the way it turned out. The base of the card is Pumpkin Pie cardstock. I used Summer Picnic DSP and added it to a layer of Old Olive. The ribbon is striped Pumpkin Pie Grosgrain. The images were stamped on watercolor paper using Jet Black StazOn Ink. I used markers and an AquaPainter to watercolor the pumpkins. The image was matted on a piece of Old Olive cardstock and adhered to the front of the card. The leaf is from the "Seasonal Icons" set. I colored the stamp directly with my Pumpkin Pie marker. I then "thumped" the stamp with Old Olive and Close to Cocoa markers so the leaf would be multi-colored. I stamped that image on watercolor paper and punched it out using the 1" circle punch. I stamped the leaf again, directly over the original image, using Versamark ink and added Iridescent Ice embossing powder. I heat set the powder and then layered the image over a 1 1/4" circle of Old Olive and a 1 3/8" circle of Pumpkin Pie cardstock. That piece was added to my card front using Stampin' Dimensionals. Turned out pretty cutie-patootie if you ask me.

Guess I'll head back to the stamp room to work on gettin' my mojo back. Toodles!