Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 21

Happy Sunday stampers! This week's hostess at Stampin' Sisters in Christ is Pamela and our sponsor again is Simon Says Stamp. Great storefront, I've always had excellent service from them. One lucky winner this week will win a lovely wedding stamp set as pictured on the main SSIC blog. Hmm, I have a daughter getting married . . . could come in handy!

Pamela's chosen verse this week is Hosea 6:1 "Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds." The challenge is to make the broken look beautiful . . . create a mosaic, or tear apart and stitch back teogether. In some way, have your image look broken.

There was a great tutorial for a mosaic technique on Splitcoast Stampers a few weeks ago. For myself, I have chosen to do the cracked glass technique. It is a favorite of mine. And I found this lovely sketch on the Taylored Expressions blog, its her sketch challenge for the week, #97.

Hosea is such an interesting, sometimes confusing but always beautiful book of the bible filled with a message of hope. We are represented in Hosea's wife who keeps on sinning and yet each time, the Lord takes us back. If you haven't been into Hosea lately, spend some time there. I read a wonderful book by Francine Rivers based on Hosea called Redeeming Love. If you want a really good read (and we're deep in snow, so what better activity for a snowy weekend afternoon than either stamping, or curling up with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book?), pick this one up and make sure you have some tissue handy.

I can't tell you how often I mess up in my walk and feel like a cracked vessel. The Lord is calling to each of us, every day. No matter what you have done, no matter what you might be tempted to do in the future, God's mercy and love never fails. The blood of Jesus Christ can wash away your sins and take that cracked image you might see in the mirror and make it whole again. He has done that for me and He can do that for you. Ask any one of us on the design team and we'd be happy to pray with you or tell you our own personal story of God's redeeming love. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: Inkadinkado bird

Ink: Tim Holtz vintage photo, weathered wood

Paper: Bo Bunny, SU Pomegranate, PTI Ocean Tides

Other: versamark pad, clear EP (I applied six layers), sponge, ribbon, PTI scarlet jewel button, Martha Stewart branch punch and chunky glitter, petite scallop circle nestability, Fiskars corner punch

Tim Holtz 12 Days of Tags -- Day one

I know I'm a bit behind the times with posting my first tag for Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas. You can find his gorgeous creations here. I understand he is getting tens of thousands of hits every day. This is the third year he is presenting Christmas tags for twelve days. Today is day four I believe, but I just finished up my tags for day one.

I used distress inks in Faded Jeans, Broken China, Weathered Wood and Concord Grape. I use wax paper for the misting technique, it works just as well I think, as any other extremely smooth surface, when you're done, just crumple it up and toss it away. This is the first time I've used the distress crackle paint, kind of cool! I like it. However, I took his instructions too literally and really spread the stuff on thick for my first tag attempt and the paper could not hold that much moisture, it curled up and couldn't be salvaged. I wouldn't say spread it on like frosting, I'd say spread it on with a generous hand but don't make the layer too thick.

I didn't have a snowman image to use, as was illustrated in day one's example, but I like the Magnolia image with these color. I embossed it in black first, spread a bit of white over the entire image, then colored in lightly a shadow on the wings and the skin and face with prismacolor pencils. Then I overlaid frosted lace stickles on the wings. I also used the frosted lace stickles for the icicles at the top of the tag. Used grungeboard pieces painted with Stampin' Up's new platinum paint. The flourishes and snowflakes in the background on both tags were made using an Inkadinkado set.

Second tag I chose these Impression Obsession candy piece. Its a nice, large stamp and suits a tag pretty well I think. What I liked about making these tags is that you can think outside the boundaries of your paper, it expands your space, you're not mailing it like you would a card that has to squeeze into an envelope. For the candy, I also didn't choose to leave the images starkly black and white, but colored the candy pieces with two different shades of blue of Twinkling H20s, put on a fine layer of glue and then SU's dazzling diamond glitter. The snowflake embellishments are clear plastic, I think I bought the pack at Michael's two years ago. The 'joy' sentiment is from Papertrey Ink Believe, stamped in silver craft ink and embossed with silver tinsel EP. I notched the edges of the black paper and then brushed the edges with a silver gel pen. Thanks for looking.

Autumn Card Swap

I don't participate in card swaps much. As you get older you realize how precious your time is, you only get so much of it! And I want to spend my time making gifts and cards for friends and family who appreciate it, to show my love for them.

There is one set of swappers that I 'play' with and that is a joint swap between the dorks and PSFers. :) We do two to three swaps a year.

I know there has been some confusion about this but yes, I have a group of online friends who chat together and we do call each other dorks, that's something we have in common! If folks are honest, they'd admit that we all do dorky things once in a while!

And we made friends with another online group of chatters, the PSF gals, who have that acronym because I believe one of the gals' kids asked her while on the computer one time, if she was talking to her "pretend stamping friends." That always makes me smile to think of it, all these folks who make cards and leave comments . . . are they really real? I've met some in person so I can testify they are! I think I hold the honor of meeting the most dorks, including Karen, the queen!

Beth started the first swap and now we've had different hostesses. The latest hostess was Pam (a PSFer) who ran a Fall-themed swap. And now that the cards have gone postal, I can put mine up on my blog.

I wanted to keep this card relatively simple. I used a leaf from an Inkadinkado set stamped using a combination of two Kaleidacolor pads, Cappuccino and Desert Heat. I cut out the panels and edged them with a Martha Stewart glitter to match one of the tones in the ink. Overstamped the leaves with a Northwoods sentiment embossed in gold. I colored white pearls with a walnut copic marker to match one of the brown tones and found this luscious satin ribbon at Mike's. I believe the PTI button in the center is melon, but it could be Summer Sunrise (I can't remember anymore) tied with copper cording. Paper is white confetti.

Thanks for looking!

Windswept

I always enjoy a sketch challenge. There is a new blog started, called Crazy for Challenges started by my friend Joanne and her talented friends who all love stamping. It appears to already be wildly popular by the number of posts. You'll find that blog here.

This also fits schirmcat's Word of the Week challenge for 'windswept.' It took me a while to think of something to match, but what is more windswept than Fall leaves?

I have to say my ribbon is the most pathetic looking thing I've seen in a while. It looked fine until I added the brads, a necessary part of the sketch and then it got all funky. . . oh well. I'll send this to someone who won't notice little details like that!

Thanks for looking. Stamps by Inkadinkado, punch Martha Stewart, top uses wrinkle free distress technique with Ranger inks and now I have to run, I'm taking my daughter to a soccer game to see her boyfriend play. He is a starter for his college team and we're pretty proud of that.