Thursday, December 4, 2014

Crunch Time

(Click on any photo to view a larger image.)

Thanksgiving has come and gone and my head is still reeling from the speed with which the holiday season arrived. You would think that by now I would get the hang of this seasonal timing but I seem to be slipping backwards each year. I can almost feel Christmas sitting in my lap already and I haven't done a thing about it yet.


As my To Do list gets longer and longer, it's becoming more difficult to carve out time to make cards but I was able to eke out two simple ones in the last week. When my time gets crunched, I have to do away with frou-frous and work simply and quickly.

First, there is a birthday card for my purple-loving daughter in the Coast Guard who loves all things aquatic. The color choice and theme were obvious and it gave me the opportunity to play with a die set I had not used before, Spellbinders Shapeabilities Nautical Frame and Accents. It features a frame sized for an ATC (Artist Trading Card: 2.5" x 3.5") with a cute little sand castle in one corner, as well as other dies related to the nautical theme such as the wave pattern along the bottom of the card. I embossed the background with Spellbinders M-Bossabilities Sea Beauty embossing folder, then stamped and embossed the sentiment. Simple.

The other card was created for a swap with Oriental Stamp Art (OSA) Yahoo group, of which I am a member. This was part of the monthly Black and One Color swap. Participants make a card using only black and shades of a second color. This month is was red. Again I had the opportunity to play with a stamp set that I had actually forgotten about and never used before, Floral Vine (CS220G) by Forever in Time. I had a small piece of the black and red dragonfly washi paper and layered it onto red cardstock. Stamped the dragonfly from the Floral Vine set onto the red circle with VersaFine Onyx Black ink, then stamped a portion of a swirl from the same stamp set in VersaMark watermark ink and dusted it with PearlEx pigment powder (one of my favorite techniques). I lightly sponged VersaFine Smokey Grey ink around the edges of the circle, layered it onto the card then stuck on some red rhinestone bling in one corner. Again, very simple yet effective.

I'm still hoping to find time to make some Christmas cards to send out. Oh well, one more thing for my To So list.

Ballo ergo sum .
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

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