Under the wire…

I’m just squeaking by today in a couple of ways. First, tomorrow is my dad’s birthday so I decided I’d better make a card for him!! You know me—the ultimate procrastinator. I’m also squeaking by using said card for the Gingersnap Creations GC39 Color Challenge—Metallics (the deadline is tomorrow). First, let me say that the picture sucks! I’ll try to post a better one tomorrow when I have natural light. I also noticed that the whole thing has kind of slid down a bit—guess I’d better fix that, too!!

Let me just say that EVERYTHING on this card is metallic! The base of the card is Stampin’ Up! Brushed Gold cardstock—it’s also used as a mat. The other layers are metallic bronze and metallic copper. I bought these papers right after Christmas at Marco’s, but didn’t realize until I got home that they were text weight and not cardstock. So, for this card I’ve mounted the papers onto cardstock to give them some weight. The rearmost layer is the bronze with Rock Candy crackle paint and then gold metallic rub-on massaged into the cracks. The next bronze layer was run through the Cuttlebug with the distressed stripe embossing folder, and then I rubbed some of the gold rub-on onto the raised areas. The image is from the Artistic Outpost “The Outpost” set. I embossed with copper metallic embossing powder on the copper metallic paper. The coppers didn’t match real well, so I took some of the metallic rub-on stuff—this time in a brown color—and rubbed all over the whole thing to blend everything together. I wanted to do some sort of funky embellishing, so I stitched a random mixture of copper and gold seed beads around the bottom gold mat using copper craft wire. It was finished off with a Tim Holtz thingy. Whew! It doesn’t look that special considering all that work, does it??  Oh well—my dad will like it. He is probably the biggest fan of my cards—he loves to get them.

The Marco’s Rundown

OK—now that I’m back from getting my hair cut and colored and braving the Saturday crowds at Stehlin’s Meat Market and Jungle Jim’s, let me fill you in on my foray to Marco’s yesterday. Like every other visit I’ve made to Marco’s, this one was a treasure hunt. As anyone who has been there knows, there are goodies jammed into every possible space! I initially went looking for blog candy, but that was an earlier post!
As soon as I got in the door, I picked up the latest issues of a bunch of stamping magazines. I don’t know why I get sucked into that—I usually thumb through them once and that’s it. Oh well. I headed towards the area where the snowflake dies would be, but got distracted on the way by a whole end cap of Tim Holtz products. It seems like most places carry a handful of idea-ology items, but not as many as Marco’s. The Foliage was calling my name—I’ve wanted some for awhile, but hadn’t been able to find it. I also picked up a pack of plain, uncut grungeboard. OK—enough Tim Holtz stuff. Let’s get on to the dies! So, I headed in that direction, but got waylaid by a whole display of embossing folders. Hmmm… haven’t seen the fleur-de-lis one before, so into my basket it went! There were others that were new to me, but I resisted. Now—off to the dies. I finally made it there, and found the Create A Flake 1 for the blog. Of course, I couldn’t give it away and not get one for myself, so into the basket two Create a Flakes went! As I was digging through the packages of dies, I found Labels Six nesties. I have Labels One through Four and want to get the rest of the labels, so this one jumped into my basket. After all, they were on sale for $19.99! I moseyed over to my favorite corner where the green grocer products are. I LOVE the brown bag paper envelopes. I have square ones, but decided to pick up some #10 size, too. I poked around a little more and ended up with some JudiKins detail black embossing powder, a huge jar of UTEE (35% off!), and a package of Ten Seconds Studio Humungo Killer Tape, and decided it was time to get the heck out of there! We won’t discuss the painful grand total. Oh well. Guess I’d better get busy using this stuff, though!
The other thing for those of you who have been to Marco’s either in Dayton or to their booth at a convention—you probably know Karen and know that she recently had a stroke. Well, I’m happy to report that she checked me out and is doing fine!
OK—I’m off to do some cookin’ before I turn out all the lights this evening and watch scary movies! Have a Happy Halloween and be sure to leave a comment!!!!

Friday fun…

Every month the Gingersnap Creations blog publishes a list of reasons to stamp for every day of the month. The November list is now posted. Check it out! My eventual goal is to make something for every single day—unfortunately, it’s not going to happen in November, which is shaping up to be a pretty busy month for me! But that doesn’t mean you can’t play along. I challenge you to make something inspired by the list. When you do, be sure to share it with me—I’d love to post your work to inspire everyone else!

I also want to make sure you see something that has had me drooling for days—this stunning work of art created by Linda Elbourne, that wacky gal from the UK who can make art with the best of them! For those of you who may have seen the Valentine I made for my sister earlier this year, you know that something like this is right up my alley. I think there may be a really special Christmas card lurking on the horizon for my dad. Guess I’d better get busy!!!!! In the meantime, have a fabulous weekend. I’m off to get my hearing aid adjusted and then tutoring at Rosa Parks Elementary in Middletown. I’m also thinking a trip to Marco’s Paper might also be in order this afternoon… Stay tuned for more info on that.