Stop the presses.......

........I stamped a card! Waaahooooooo! I know its been a bit and I'm so sorry for that. Life has just been a wee bit busy and the first thing a lack of energy seems to zap, is my creativity. Grrr... Now, even though, I still feel as if I am a cat chasing her tail some days, I decided to craft some time for myself to ink up a stamp that I've had sitting out for awhile now. I absolutely love the detailed images of Mostly Animals stamps and this sunflower is from my stash from back in my early stamping days......about fifteen years ago.

Did you know that you can emboss with your Distress Inks?? Remembering hearing (okay, so I didn't hear it...I read it!) on the 2Peas stamping board (a couple of years ago) that you can emboss with Distress Inks, I thought it was about time I finally try it out for myself! Even though they are dye inks, they do stay wet long enough to pour on embossing powder and heat. Sooooooo....add another dozen ink colors for me to emboss with....yay! (There are way more than a dozen colors....but that's about the number that I own.) Does this add to your collection of colors to emboss with? Or are you an uber cool stamping encyclopedia and already have this knowledge incorporated into all those fun files in your brain?

Even though I had much more elaborate plans for this beautiful stamp, once I stamped and embossed her, I found that I liked the detailed line image so much that I chose to leave it as is. Wanting a bit of color on the card, I punched a trio of butterflies to flit up the card from some Stampin' Up! DSP left overs I had on my table, inked the edges with the same Distress Ink, folded them up, glued them on, and added a touch of bling for some sparkle. Actually, while the pic doesn't show it, there already is a bit of sparkle embossed into the image. Do you remember that orange glitter I had covering my old stash of embossing powder, glitter, and flocks? Well, there was a touch of it left on the rubber of my sunflower stamp that I absolutely could not get off.......until I stamped it on my card and then it was embossed in for a permanent home. Now, I'm really glad its there as for some reason, it just works!


Here's one more trip down memory lane..............back in May, I shared with you some wonderful Strawberry Charm of and from my sweet boy. Well, here is strawberry number four....kind of. That plant has flowered and fruited many times now. But, the noisy blue jays that visit us in our backyard every afternoon this year have been eating them all summer long!! My sweet boy got so excited every time he saw a "pretty white flower" because he knew that a strawberry that he planted, watered, and nurtured would follow that he could eat. We kept encouraging him to keep taking care of it and more would come. Well, either the blue jays found something more interesting to eat or the tomato cage with the reflective strips tied on is working or my sweet boy's timing has improved because he has been able to reap the benefits of his care taking as he harvests and eats the last four ripened strawberries from his charming strawberry plant. Now he wants to grow tomatoes, eggplants, lettuce, zucchinis, and a whole host of other fruits and vegetables!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Bashful Blue - Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up!
Stamp: Sunflower - Mostly Animals
Ink: Tea Dye - Distress Ink
Punch: Butterflies - Martha Stewart
Other: clear embossing powder - Stash; Hemp Twine - Stampin' Up!; Bling - Me & My Big Ideas