Heather in Florida

I am pretty proud of myself today. The card pictured here uses several things that are new to me, whether it's the product or technique or both.

I have an admission to make. I don't like to practice at anything. I have a tendency to give up on something if I don't get it right away. It's not this way with everything, of course. Just things that don't "matter" in the grand scheme of things, like piano lessons -- I'm not going to die if I don't practice. Of course, I won't be good either, but I HATED practicing piano when I was younger.With schoolwork, "practice" -- aka homework -- is necessary, and you have to work at relationships and such. But crafty techniques...not so important. :-)

So anyway...the card... This one is for a guy at work whose parents will be celebrating their 64th anniversary this year. He had seen some of my cards at work, so he asked me to make one for his parents. When I asked him what they liked, he said his mom's favorite flower is the sunflower since she's from Kansas. I've admired Lori Tecler's use of Kitchen Sink stamps (among other things), and I was pretty sure I'd seen a sunflower a while back, so I headed over to Kitchen Sink Stamps and found the Giant Sunflower set. It seemed a simple enough process. Looks can be SOOO deceiving! :-)

I received my stamps on Thursday and sat down this morning to try it out. First problem -- I didn't have enough colors in the same families. What to do, what to do? I tried it with the colors I had -- it was close, but not close enough. Plus, I was having SUCH a hard time positioning all the layers. So I went searching for tips and found Tammy Hershberger's tutorial. I tried the Kitchen Sink tutorials, but I only "got it" after reading Tammy's tutorial. I tried another couple of times (there's the practice!) and finally got a good one! Yay! The leaves were much easier, and I think that now that I've done one well, I should be able to do it again. So lesson learned: practice can be good! Perseverance, too.

So, I also received my Waltzingmouse stamps today. I was so excited because they came all the way from Ireland and I wasn't sure how long it would take to get here. Laurie Schmidlin and Ashley Cannon Newell had both been showing off cute stuff made with Waltzingmouse stamps, so I had to get some of my own. I had already decided to use my Labels 4, but when I got my stamps today, I knew I could use my Very Vintage Labels No. 4 as well. Yay!

The other thing my friend from work was thinking was to have a sky and I started thinking of Kansas' rolling hills. Kansas is flat, but I never really knew flat until I moved to Florida, lol! Kansas is NOT flat! So I decided to give the front some rolling hills. I freehanded some curves and stitched them with my sewing machine (another first for me). Next, for the sky, I was thinking maybe I could finally make use of my Copic Airbrush System. I practiced on scrap paper, and came up with what I thought might look sort of like dusk. I hope I was successful in representing that.

Last new thing was including the butterfly charm hanging from the bow. Michaels has a bunch of stuff on clearance, and I got several cards of charms, thinking I could do exactly what I did with the butterfly.

Anyhoo...it took a while, but I'm pleased with the result. Thanks for looking and reading my rambling. This experience was great in terms of showing me exactly why practice can be so helpful. (Not that I didn't know, but it's good to be reminded every so often.) :-)

Supplies: (There are so many I hope I don't forget anything!) Paper: Rustic White, Dark Chocolate, and Lemon Tart from PTI, green from Bazzill; Dark Chocolate ink and Vintage Touch Tea Dye Duo from PTI, Versamagic chalk ink in Thatched Straw, Mango Madness (stamped off), Pumpkin Spice (stamped off), Sage, Spanish Olive, Hint of Pesto, Sahara Sand, and Jumbo Java; Labels 4 and Ribbon Tags Nestabilities, Copic Airbrush System and Copics (sorry, don't ask what colors!); Plaid Petals a Plenty charm; Rustic Cream Button Twine from PTI.