Hip and offbeat

(greeting card -- front, inside and back -- created by me, using Bazzill card stock, Gin X papers, Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous stamps, Leave Memories XO stamp on inside background, Marah Johnson for CI bird adhered in bottlecap with Diamond Glaze and gel Passion sentiment embellie, Spellbinders heart and scalloped heart dies, wide vintage lace from my stash, Doodlebug brads)

Do you think it's the weather that makes me want to fully clothe my cards lately?

Last month, I had to rely on a previously-done piece to be in the GPP street team and I didn't want to repeat that this month, so when I noticed that the inside of my card looked a little too open, I thought to use my Leave Memories XO stamp as a background element. February's GPP crusade is to use the letters of love, x's and o's in a background.

And I think it really adds a lot to it. It's sorta hot and trendy right now to stamp on patterned paper. And if you think about it, you could do this to make paper you have fit your theme more, or coordinate two diverse elements by combining one or both in a background similar to mine.

So, I'm hoping to be able to get a journal page background done by month's end but if I don't, at least I've tried in some way with what art I'm doing. This is one reason why I love GPP so much. Michelle and the team are all very open to adaptation, so I really try to keep participating. I also enjoy checking out the other team members' crusade pieces. (On the GPP page, top left of sidebar under the music controls, click on each name and it opens in a new window.)

I was really happy with how my bottlecap came out. I first flattened it with my Big Red Sizzix machine, then I chose a round bird image that fit perfectly into the cap. It was a sticker so I just adhered it. Then, I took my Diamond Glaze and a toothpick, and I very gingerly and delicately poured a bit into / onto the cap, just enough to think it might be too much maybe. Then, I used the toothpick to nudge the floating glue around until it was all evenly applied and even on top. Then, I put it on a piece of wax paper and left it to dry overnight. And voila, rock-hard and ready to roll. I used a piece of foam tape to adhere to the card front.

This card is for our wonderful daughter Missy and I must be getting sentimental for turning it into an inspirational theme. I cannot even begin to convey how proud of her I am, or how much I am in awe of her. She's at a really neat time in her life but a pretty stressful one, too. She graduates from college in a little over 3 months and so that might help make more sense of my sentiments on her card. I also included a nice little monetary gift, so I'm really hoping she likes it. I know she will dig the little Chaplinesque silhouette I stamped, and she has liked the MJ embellies in the past.

I'll let you know if I bombed or not on the Hip and Offbeat theme. Missy is a unique blend of tastes...not real easy to please. I feel pretty good that at least I passed and that's fine with me. :-))

A little Darkness never hurts

I've been up all night, creating, packaging traded mail art to new homes, working on 3 different projects an hour here, an hour there. And then it occurred to me that October was almost over and I hadn't done Michelle's GPP Street Team Challenge #34, which was to start with a black journal page.

Since I had my inks and embossing powders already out, I decided to use them. I took my Ranger Inksentials white gel pen, hurriedly wrote what was on my mind in a stream-of-consciousness way, unedited and in very sloppy handwriting, until the page was filled with white cursive. Then I rubbed in some watersoluble oil pastels, and stamped over that with pigment inks and heat embossed.

I like the results so much that I scanned it in to use in the future as a background. Click on the photo to enlarge it -- you can really see all the embossing and different colors. And if you like it, you are more than welcome to snag it for yourself. It's my Dark Side gift to you.

It seems like only yesterday it was the beginning of the month -- time is moving much faster to me than it used to -- and I had planned to do dry pastels or embossing ink and Perfect Pearls for the challenge. So much for that.

I still want to do dry chalk pastels on black paper someday soon. I recently read you can *burn them in* with rubbing alcohol so that they won't rub off. Don't know if that is true, haven't tried it yet (I did manage to have fun doing that with a charcoal pencil the other day, though, so the alcohol does do something along those lines).

Black paper definitely has possiblities I never seem to remember to utilize. I'm glad I took a few moments to *Challenge 34* myself and Come Over to the Dark Side. :-)))