A Little Dab Will Do Ya

Hi, everyone! Hope the week has been a good one so far.

During Oprah's heyday, she convinced a lot of us to take the Simple Abundance journey with her and book author Sarah Ban Breathnach. I went along on the journey, and found it to be a rather enlightening path. I've even made periodic return trips over the years. Now that I'm embarking on this new path called retirement, it seemed like a good idea to revisit this journey in earnest.

So, I went out today in search of a new "gratitude" journal. Nothing was speaking to me until I found the journal pictured at the right. Since I'm in my CREATE (craft-read-exercise-assist-travel-embrace) phase of defining this new life, I was drawn to the words on this pretty cover. Planning on starting tomorrow by reading the day's reflection and making the first entry in this lovely journal.

Now for today's cards. Yep, cards! I have two creations to share -- both of which involved starts and restarts.  :)

A Dab (or Two or Three...) of Distress Inks

The current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge is to make something that has an inky background. So, I used Distress Inks and a couple of stencils to change two plain white sheets of paper into some nifty patterns, if I do say so myself. 

Distress Ink core paper (spun sugar);  Recollections white and black cardstock
Distress Inks scattered straw, peacock feathers, spun sugar
Distress Inks applied with Ranger blending tool using Stampin' Up! stencils
SU tag punch; Really Reasonable Ribbon ribbon
Winnie & Walter big, bold, happy cutaway; sequins
adhesives: Glue Dots, foam squares

Distress Inks/SU stencils inky background

Distress Ink core paper;  Recollections white and black cardstock
Winnie & Walter big, bold, happy sentiment in 3rd generation imprint in StazOn

Because this card is going to Operation Write Home, I wanted to add a little something to the inside while leaving plenty of room for one of our heroes to write a note.

 

 

2 Dabs of Acrylic Paint and 1 Dab of Dishwasher Detergent

The current Shopping Our Stash challenge is include a hidden element on a card/project. Truth be told, I've been wanting to try a scratch-off technique on a kiddie knock-knock-joke card for a while now. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try.

Happy Caption paper pad; Distress Ink core;
Recollections black and white cardstock; Stampin' Up! neutral cardstock
computer-generated sentiments; detergent-acrylic paint scratch-off mixture
rabbit: Creative Memories circle and oval cutting system
SU word bubble and film dies; SU small heart and owl builder punches
white sequins; glue dot adhesives
hidden text: "Some Bunny" and "Some Bunny Who?"

Happy Caption paper pad; Distress Ink core;
Recollections black and white cardstock; Stampin' Up! neutral cardstock
computer-generated sentiments; detergent-acrylic paint scratch-off mixture
rabbit: Creative Memories circle and oval cutting system
SU word bubble and film dies; SU owl builder punch
dot adhesives
hidden text: "Some Bunny Loves You"

My thanks to Nancy and Trish for sharing this great tutorial that was posted on OWH in November 2013. The photo at the right shows my scratch-off-mixture station. The detergent and paint have already been mixed. And, if you have a sponge brush, I'd recommend going that route. Seems like my stash was all out of those. So, I went with a much nicer brush than I had planned on using. However, the mixture seems to have washed out just fine. Luckily, my basement-teacher supply stash contained a few still new transparency sheets!

One word to the wise: It's okay to carefully use a heat gun to dry the scratch-off mixture after it's been applied to the transparency surface.... but not after you've adhered it to the card. See that little curved up surface of the top right corner on the card's front bottom element? Yep, thought it was a good idea to touch up the scratch-off surface after I had applied the element. Not a good idea! But, an idea that I caught before I had done too much damage.  :)

Parting Thoughts

Hats off to those Buckeyes!!! Who would've ever thunk it?! And, hats off to Marcus Mariota. As happy as I was for the Bucks, I felt so sorry for him. What a fine young man -- such a wonderful ambassador for college athletics.

January Challenge
Jan. 1 - Jan. 21

A quick reminder that the Words 2 Scrap By challenge is up and running through January 21. So, there are still a few days left to link up an entry.

Okay, gotta go now. It's time for Project Runway. Any PR fans out there?

Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!