Friend Card

Here it is! When I saw a glimpse of this background set in the holiday mini SU catalogue...I knew I wanted it....mostly for fun enhancements in scrapbooking....(not sure why I was thinking that...since I haven't created a layout for ages...)....I had just seen some really cool designs created by a few of my scrapbook idols...and I wanted to give the bingo card concept a whirl too....so, this stamp was definitely coming to my house....(I could kick myself all over for not ordering other fun scrapblocks from CHF...so, I wasn't going to let this SU background disappear on me since it was in a mini catalogue...no guarantee it would end up in the "big" catalogue which comes out yearly....we'll know if this one made the cut this summer!)

I'm really not an "itty bitty" stamp kind of person either...so, it surprised me...when I kept thinking of all the fun possibilities I could do with this card and the little holiday stamps that coordinates with it.....well, one thing lead to another...and before you know it...I was almost talking myself into buying all kinds of itty bitty stamp assortments for this card....(I think there is another set in the SU main catalogue that has the right size and quantity that could work....)

I decided about a month ago, that this stamp was going to be my April Christmas Card design....but couldn't get the possibility of other sets to use as a non-holiday design.....I KNOW I have oodles of small stamps! I settled on doing a spring one with flowers...and selected my assortment of mini flowers that I purchased over 12 years ago from our local craft store. This is like the first assortment I have ever purchased.....going back to my earlier comment...I'm not a little stamp sort of person....I have to chuckle at that...because of the over 300 stamp sets (maybe even more) that I currently own...many have never seen ink...EVER...but this little flower set has been used over and over and over and over. I'm not even sure what company makes it...I have a little animal footprints set similar and a Halloween assortment too...about 18 mini stamps in a little cello tube-like box.....

Originally, I wanted fun spring colors on this....but NIXED that...it was too busy for me (I'm sort of surprised at myself on that too)....so, I went with the soft one-color stamping....(which after doing 11 of these....that's stamping 264 little boxes....it still looked naked to me, going the one color...I remember going to a baby shower where we played bingo with baby things typed in each box....that's when my oldie but goodie word sets came to mind....

The rest sort of fell in place....

I really had fun making this card....(I have 9 still to finish...basically assembly though!)....I didn't have enough of the prima flowers (I remember when I bought these...I was afraid to use them up! That was about 6 years ago...and I have so many bottles of these...I still luv them...) But, not having enough...I turned to the next best thing...my own flower creation. I'm the kind of person that needs a different texture on my designs....thus...my reliable sizzix with one of my many dies...produced the little felt flower.....

So, there you have it...probably a too long post about this card...but, I have warm fuzzies with this all over the place....the limited color (I first stamped in a charcoal gray, then aligned the stamp with my stamp-a-majig...stamped over in Silver Encore.....to give it that shimmer look)...I'm not convinced the white cardstock I used was the best "kind"...I knew I was going to use a lot for this project and felt I could get by with a lesser quality brand....it's OK...but, if I were to ever reproduce...I'd do so with SU's whisper white, or a similar quality...but, overall...it's probably just me who will notice the difference...although it's a "lesser" quality....it still is a GOOD quality...just not the BEST quality!

So....the next time you see me using this stamp.....it will be on April 18...the 3rd Monday of the month, AKA, Christmas Monday.... I will have cased my own design and turned it into a holiday theme.

Thanks for stopping by!

Trudi