Happy New Year, Pt. 2

I know I've already said it once, but...

Happy New Year, my crafty friends!  Wishing you peace, prosperity, hope, good fortune, and puh-lenty of crafting time to your heart's content!  And let me add that I have missed you!!

The holidays are over, no more hustle and bustle.  The guests have gone, the house is, for the most part, cleaned up, though the Christmas decorations haven't yet been taken down.  Hey, baby steps.  And I've once again got time to play in my craft room.  It's been two weeks and I was going through some serious withdrawals there towards the end; however, I had a lovely time with my family and wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Still...it's back to blogland and craft land for me.  Yay!

Today's card took a while.  I don't know about you, but if I don't craft every day, I get rusty.  Sounds silly to think that a piddly two weeks would put one's mojo out of sync, but it did, and  it took awhile to get the gears going again.  I wanted to play with the fabulous design team over at The Shabby Tea Room whose challenge this week is "Monogram Madness."  Here is their inspiration photo:

These are not colors with which I usually choose to work, but that's all part of the fun of a color challenge, right?  I was happy to see that teeny tiny bit of greenish blue which I think goes so well with monochromatic browns and creams.  This girl's gotta have color, even if only the palest sort.

First off, I dry embossed the first layer with a wood grain embossing folder to give a bit more "earthiness" to the design, then inked the edges.  Then I heat embossed the monogram using black embossing powder and adhered it to the smallest of the SB Decorative Labels One, then popped it up on a mid-size Labels One which was adhered to a larger Decorative Labels One.  The mid-size layer was painted with Creative Inspirations paint in Tan to give a little added glow.

The upper band of papers is pretty self-explanatory.  The lower band consists of three layers of decorative borders with tiny pearls added to the top layer.  The seam binding bow was wrapped with a very small piece of what I call "rhinestone ribbon" from my stash (bought at Hobby Lobby) as the button I wanted to put there had a shank which couldn't be removed and thus caused the button to flop about very unattractively.  A few pearls at the upper right corner finished this card off.  Again, baby steps.  It's not exactly CAS, but it's not over-the-top the way I often do.  It's somewhere in between.  Or "just right" as Goldi herself would say.

So that's it for my first card after the holiday rush.  I think I'll go back into the craft room and just sit awhile and absorb the quiet and peacefulness of it all.  Or put away the goodies that Santa brought to me.  :)

Thank you for joining me and here's wishing you time to yourself to enjoy YOUR passions, too!

Happy crafting!!

Supplies:

Stamp: Alphabet Set by Recollections
Paper: Flourishes tan, SU Whisper White, Soft Suede, MME A Mother's Love
Ink: Versamark
Extras: black ep, SB Labels One, Decorative Labels One, Dienamics Double and Triple Scallop Borders, CI Paint (Tan), SU Woodgrain ef, SU Pool Party Seam Binding, rhinestone ribbon, pearls

Challenges entered:


The Shabby Tearoom #147 - Monogram Madness
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Totally Mad (no rules) Tea Party (Anything Goes)
The Pink Elephant TPE180 - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz Challenge #52 - Monochrome
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - New Something (my rhinestone ribbon and dp are new)
3 Girl Jam Challenge #9 - It's a New Year, so Anything Goes
CI Paints Inspired By...Anything Goes (Square layer painted with Tan)
Pile It On #49 - Pile On the Embellishments
The Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #191