Pleather?? Brilliant!

Have you ever had one of those "Why didn't I think of that months ago?" moments with stamping? I did this week. I've been drooling over this card posted by Krystie Lee on splitcoast. She stamped the large flower from Big Blooms with craft ink and then embossed it with Ultra-Thick Embossing enamel. I just love the "pleather" look to the flower. Very retro!

So after looking at this card for the 100th time and bemoaning the fact that I didn't preorder that set, and now probably won't get it until at least April if not May, it dawned on me...why not try that same thing with Big Blossom? I could hardly wait to get to my stamp room (which didn't happen until Saturday after my trip to the Netherlands....more on that later!)

I inked up the big blossom stamp with my Real Red craft stampin' spot and stamped it on whisper white CS. Poured on the glassy glaze...and it barely stuck! Oh no!!! What's a girl to do?? So, I cleaned the stamp, then put lots of Versamark on it, then used my Real Red classic pad to add some color and stamped. This time, the powder stuck. I tried to get a few layers...but it didn't work well. Finally I pulled out my Versamarker and used that to get more versamark on so that more glaze would stick...and that helped!

So, with all that said, here is my pleather blossom! The photo doesn't do it justice....but the red ink didn't turn out all that bright. I'm going to have to play with this a little more! The card is 5.25" square, made with Cool Caribbean, with a layer of Chocolate Chip stamped with the flannel background in chocolate chip ink. I cut out my blossom and mounted it on Real Red cs, which I then cut out again. For the center, I punched one of the circles from the Loves Me designer paper with the 3/4" circle punch, and layered it on a circle of Chocolate Chip cs punched with the 1.25" circle punch. Then, before putting the flower on the card with dimensionals, I tied some chocolate grosgrain around, and put on a small bit of red gingham. Oh yeah, and the sentiment is stamped with the Happy Everything set...I just LOVE this set!!!

So, the good news is...creating this card gave me an even better brainstorm of what to do with this flower (I can't believe SAB is already over!!) and that project is drying as I type...so I'll try to post it tomorrow. Maybe I'll even create a tutorial if I can figure out how to take photos while stamping without a second adult around and no tripod! Wish me luck!!

Now about that trip to the Netherlands. I wrote yesterday that we were heading to Venlo after taking hubby to the airport. We actually ended up going down to Roermond, and I found the Pipoos there...and I'm in love!!! Finally, a scrapbooking store that carries Making Memories, Basic Grey, and TONS of other stuff!! I thought I'd been transported back the US! And amazingly, I controlled myself to just a few things...but I will be putting together some more blog candy in the next week or so...so keep your eyes open! Should be an exciting week around here!

TFL!
-Jana