Carpe Diem!

I created this card to play along with the challenge over at Pink Tulle with Feathers and Sequins (I love that blog name so I felt compelled to type it all out!) :-) - Shannan challenged us to seize the day and use a stamp in a way that it was not intended to be used. What a fun challenge!! I had Fall Whimsy sitting on my desk - I'll tell you why in a minute - so I decided to play with that. At first I was going to use the big leaf stamp to make a flower, but I watercolored it with blue (Soft Sky & Cool Caribbean), and in the end it looked like a snowflake to me. So, I went with that! A nice, glittery snowflake with lots of Patina Stickles! I wish I could figure out how to photograph a glittery card to make it sparkle as much as it does IRL! The snowflake ended up humongous, so the card is big - 6"x6"! I couldn't actually mail this to anyone because I don't have envelopes that big! I used Sage Shadow & Soft Sky textured cardstock, and DSP from the Wintergreen pack. The brads are the new SU rhinestones, and the ribbon is May Arts. I'm not 100% crazy about the layout of this card - I should have found a sketch to follow!! Oh well. So... the reason I had Fall Whimsy out... it was my "test run". I mentioned a few days back that I've been toying with the idea of pulling some of my rubber from my wood - well I DID IT!! Before diving in head first, I just did one set - this set. I wanted to try stamping with it to make sure I like how it feels (although I knew it would be fine b/c I've been using Bellas the same way!). I didn't use any cling foam on it or anything, I just painted it with the repositionable glue. Well, it worked fine for me!!! I was inspired to do this by Mimi - she also mentioned that some of the more detailed stamps need the foam - so if I pull apart any of those I may have to invest in some foam. I think this will be a slow process for me - maybe I'll make a goal to redo one set a day or something. (I have a lot of stamps!) It makes me so happy though to think about how much space I'm going to save when all is said and done!!! I sure hope I don't regret it though......!

(I was going to add a photo of my pulled-apart Garden Whimsy in a cd case, but for some reason blogger isn't letting me add another photo! Argh! Anyway, this set is small enough that I can actually fit another similar-sized set in the same case!! Talk about space reduction!!!)