Hmmmmmmm when checking out the challenge for my last Guest Designer spot at the Crafter's Companion Challenge I must have been half asleep as I really didn't spot the 'Christmas with a twist' element to the challenge. Silly me just dived straight into working on the fab sketch to make a card for Laura to send her Gran, who will be 87 in a few weeks time.
As you can see the card is very pink (to suit Laura) and full of flowers (to suit Gran). The main image is Popcorn the bear of course and is one of the large stamps so another of my 8" x 8" card blanks from QVC came in very handy. Check out the top right corner! Oh my - it only took me about 3 hours to do that circle and I know I'm prone to exaggerating, but this time I'm not. Honestly! Making that special message on the circle involved using my Just Rite stamp set that I bought at the NEC last November. Hmm took me quite a long time to get round to using it and it may be a great deal longer before it sees the light of day again! Oh my goodness I was an only child and brought up at a time when John Bull printing sets were a really good Christmas present (saddo), but my eyes were far sharper then and maybe 3 hours didn't seem an excessive amount of time to spend creating two short sentences.While creating my special personalised circle I discovered a few very useful things to remember when using these kind of stamps...
- you need incredibly good eyesight and the patience of a saint to pick the letters up
- decide at the beginning if you want something in the middle otherwise it's almost like having to start all over again.
- try not to let the one letter that is in the right place when you ink up but as soon as you start to stamp decides to move into another word annoy you
- tap the stamp very gently with the ink pad aware of the fact that some of the letters might decide to migrate to the ink pad when you are not looking
- have plenty of spare card on hand cause there is a strong likilyhood that you won't be happy until you've stamped the piece about 30 times.
- under no circumstances drop any letters on a dark carpet - I know this for a fact (guess why?)
- if one of the letters (100% guarantee on this happening) does drop out and you have to replace it - check and double check that you have replaced it the right way up as it is very annoying to attach the circle to card only to realise that the 'U' in Laura is upside down. (again I know from experience)
Having said all that I am pleased with the result and Laura was thrilled with the pinkness of it all.
My card is also for the challenges at...
- Stamp Something - something to celebrate (Gran's birthday)
- Oldie but Goldie - Pink and Girly (all the stamps I've used are over 6 months old)
- The Sisterhood of Crafters - at least 3 flowers
- A Spoon Full of Sugar - Spots and stripes.
Have a great weekend everyone - I'm going to be busy taking out the letters one by one and replacing them in my printing set. Oh really looking forward to that!
Ann xxx
