Hello from chilly Chicagoland!

Yes, I know that's not where I live...but it's where I am this week. My sister, who lives in Aurora, IL had some surgery recently so I was able to come up and visit her to help out for a little while. This crazy woman had a double knee replacement!!! Yes, both knees at the SAME time! The bad news is that it's a little rough at first, the good news is that she only has to do it once. Anyway, she is doing GREAT (for her age...did I mention that she is older than me? lol!) and I am very proud of her. While I am sure you would all be delighted to see a photo of her incisions complete with staples (yea, right!) she wasn't interested in posing so I will share a photo of a stamped card instead...do I hear a collective sigh of relief? I thought so! ;-)

So here, instead of her suture line, is another Shadowbox style card which was made with a beautiful new stamp set called Simple Friendship. This set was a gift to all Stampin' UP! demos who earned a trip to "Founder's Circle"...an incentive trip reserved for those individuals who rate in the Top 100 for "Demonstrator of the Year" (which includes sales, recruiting, etc.) . Needless to say, I was not in that group...at least not this year. However, I immediately fell in love with this beautiful butterfly image when I saw pics of the stamp set on the blogs of those lucky and hardworking Founder's Circle achievers and determined that I would be buying this set at the earliest opportunity! Trust me, purchasing the set outright is much cheaper than buying my way into the Top 100 in sales!!

Anyway, the cardstock used was Basic Gray and Whisper White. I embossed the grey c/s with one of the wonderful new Fiskars texture plates (I am getting hooked on those!) and also attached a pink flower made with the same Simple Flower embosslit that I used on yesterday's card. The butterfly inside was stamped using a technique called "Poppin' Pastels". I stamped the image in Versamark ink (which is a clear "watermark" ink) then used a sponge dauber to pat Pink Passion Stampin' Pastels (art chalk) gently over the stamped image. If you rub immediately, it can smear but if you first cover the Versamark ink with the chalks and then use the sponge dauber to "buff" it on lightly, you will get a great finished product and the chalk color literally "pops" off the page! You can see in the area surrounding the butterfly that the pink color is much more soft and subtle than the color on the butterfly...that's the "pop" in Poppin' Pastels.

Here's the order info in case you are interested:

Simple Friendship item item 113397 $25.95

Stampin' UP Backgrounds Texturz plate item 114512 $11.95 (you get 6 different patterns)

Stampin' Pastels item 105542 $24.95 (pretty good price for all 48 exclusive SU colors!)

Simple Flower embosslit 114514 $11.95 (cuts and embosses the blossom all in one pass!)

Anyway, despite a bit of running around to doctor's appts, physical therapy and etc. over the past few days, I did manage to get some very basic stamping done so far this week...have made a ton of valentines and actually got more than half of them mailed out already. I am the group leader for my church's card ministry group and this month we had planned to make valentines to send to our college students (we send cards of encouragement to them each month) however an ice storm cancelled our usual group meeting then I ended up with family obligations so I brought stamps and cardstock with me and made all of the valentines here on my sister's dining room table. She barely noticed since I woke up one morning at around 3:30 a.m. and rather than just laying there thinking, "I could be making those cards!" I decided to come downstairs and actually do just that. Thankfully they are very simple and I already knew what I was going to do as I am not generally too creative at that hour.

Hopefully I will have a chance to do some more stamping before I go home....I plan to make some Valentine "goodie bags" to share with friends at a Valentine's Eve dinner being sponsored at our church, (New Creation Presbyterian Church in O'Fallon, IL) so I had better get started on that! If you saw the little kraft c/s goodie bag with red ribbon which I shared last week, that's the same project that I'll be working on this week. (if you missed it then scroll down to the pics of my recent stamp club projects). I'm thinking that I will only be able to finish one goodie bag per couple as we are having a pretty good attendance and I am running a bit short on preparatory time! Did I just hear you say, "so what's new with that??" Shame on you...even if it's true! Jan