Sunday, May 31, 2009

no energy, but lots of buttons

Hello, everyone. Needless to say, I've been missing. Why, you ask? 'Cause I have I have a nasty head cold that just doesn't want to go away. You know, the kind that makes it hard to breathe through your nose. And along with it, I seem to be zapped of energy. Just don't feel like doing much of anything. And that includes stamping. I do, however, have a card to show you that I made Thursday for the ways to use it challenge on SCS -- yup -- Thursday, and I'm just now posting it. That just shows you how little energy I have. I was going to post on Friday night and couldn't keep awake. Then I actually started a post yesterday, again having trouble keeping my eyes open in the middle of the day... arrrrggh! I had typed a paragraph or two and then it just disappeared. So I gave up. So here it is Sunday morning and I am going to try again.

The challenge was to use buttons. Well, I have buttons, several large jars. Buttons are fun and interesting. Mom always had Velveeta boxes full of buttons (that was when the cheese still came in a nice solid box). I remember playing with her buttons as a child and my children have done the same with mine. I think I've collected buttons forever, from old worn out clothes, from rummages, etc. You never know when you'll need a replacement on some garment and maybe, you just might have a match. When Mom passed away, my oldest sister and I got her buttons. In order to be fair in splitting them up, we dumped them all together -- a huge dishpan full -- and then split them by weight. Fun!

OK, I digress. On to the card. I knew that I wanted to use buttons for a butterfly body. I've seen people use beads, or flat pearls, or glitter, and I th0ught buttons would be fun. So I chose some really rust, groovy guava and blush blossom card stock and went to work. I wanted to use a lot of texture on my card, since I tend to forget that I have all those embossing folders (you know the ones I just had to have).

I started by stamping a music background on the blush blossom. Since I accidentally stamped it a bit crooked, I decided to just tear off the edges and distress it a bit. I have a distressing tool, but a scissor was handy, so I used that. I sponged the edges with chocolate chip.

Next I die cut and embossed two butterflies with my cuttlebug butterfly combo die on groovy guava card stock. I sponged some rust on the embossing to highlight it and chocolate chip around the edges. Then I decided to try a new to me product, bronze glimmer mist, and spritzed it. Impatience made me dry it with my heat gun. It gave a really nice shimmer. I bent up the wings and glued the butterflies together along the center and then added the buttons. I wanted to have thread in the buttons, so I pierced holes to make it easier to sew through the card stock.

I embossed a piece of groovy guava card stock with my CB textile folder, sponged the embossing with rust and the edges with chocolate chip. Then to add a bit of interest, I punched each corner with my Martha Stewart leaf punch.

I sponged the really rust card base along the edges with chocolate chip. And then on all these layers I spritzed with the bronze glimmer mist. Can you tell I like this stuff?

I decided I wanted to use a couple of my crocheted flowers, but wanted something behind them. Last week I bought a clear Hero Arts set of flowers. Since I really prefer wood mounted stamps, I rarely purchase clear ones, but I really like this set and it only comes in clear, so I caved and got it. I stamped one of the flowers twice with chocolate chip on guava, cut them out and sponged the edges and spritzed with the glimmer mist. Ahhh, back to the button jar. I found a couple of brown buttons for the flower centers and sewed the buttons, crochet flower and stamped flowers together.

I was going to use a different sentiment, but it was just too long, so I pulled out an old favorite, stamped in chocolate chip, punched out with my large oval punch, sponged the edges, and backed with a guava scalloped oval punch, also sponged.

Now I was ready to assemble the card. The textured layer was glued to the card base. The music is popped up at an angle. The butterfly, the sentiment and the lowest flower are all popped up.

One last little addition was the flat back pearls along the sentiment piece and in the corners.

What's in it?
stamps: small script (SU), music background (Judikins), flowers (Hero Arts)
ink: basic black, really rust, chocolate chip
paper: really rust, groovy guava, blush blossom
other: cuttlebug, CB textile embossing folder, CB butterfly combo die, buttons, needle, brown thread, crochet flowers, bronze glimmer mist (Tattered Angels), flat back pearls, sponge daubers, large oval and scalloped oval punches, leaf punch (Martha Stewart), foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by. Until next time, be blessed.

3 comments:

Starla said...

OOOOO!!I'm liking the look of that glimmer mist too!! And I KNOW that is one thing my LSS carries!
Love all the texture on this card (need to remember all my embossing folders too....)

Jan Hennings said...

Beautiful card, love the crocheted flowers!

Deelite said...

Your crocheted flowers look even better with those darling Hero Art flowers behind them. I was impressed with that idea, but then to add the glimmer mist, now you really have my attention. There are so many wonderful things to look at on this card, but the buttons on the butterfly just have to be my fav. Glad you are feeling better now. My hubby had that horrible virus, and he had no energy for weeks. Rest and drink lots, and oh yes, please keep stamping.