Sorry this is later than usual folks. I usually try to avoid breaking the chain; I look at Stevie Nicks as a precautionary tale. She broke the chain, and look what it got her: Lindsay Buckingham wrote one ass-burner of a song that must shame her every time Fleetwood Mac performs or she hears it on the radio. But, for hours now, those who clicked on my link from Jen's or any of the other SFYTT Sister's blogs haven't found my sample. And it's not because I haven't been trying.
Seriously, I have been up since the crack of stupid working on this blasted card. At first, I had planned on doing my light-hearted, typical fare using the new MFT set, Monsters Ink. But then I started thinking about a sweet friend who just had her life's rug pulled out from under her yesterday, and I wanted to make something to lift her spirits. I recently purchased Unity's Move Mountains stamp, but haven't had a chance to ink it up yet. This is such a powerfully important scripture to me; one that has helped me through several of those dark nights of the soul that we all have to go through. Anyway, I thought it would be perfect for expressing concern and encouragement to my friend.
And while the trial and tribulations I went through making this are beyond trivial compared with what my friend is going through, I do want to catalog them for you so you can see just how trying it was to make this particular piece of paper sausage.
1. First, I tried to emboss it with Powder Keg Copper Kettle embossing powder. I LOVE PK's embossing powder -- it's the best there is, in my opinion -- but with fine words like some of those in this image, ordinary embossing powder is a bit too gloppy. (That's a technical term.) So, I opted for stamping it in Adirondack Slate ink and then -- because I still wanted the look and feel of embossing powder, I embossed over the stamped image with Ranger Polysparkle Clear embossing powder.
2. This image is big. I hemmed and hawed about how I was going to get one of the bottom layers of Jen's sketch to show, while still keeping these big ovals. The base of the card is already as big of a standard square size as I can make it and still use 8.5" x 11" cardstock for the base (the card is a 5.5" square), so I really didn't think making a bigger card was an option. Ovals or base layer? Sorry, Jen, but I opted to cut that layer and thus modified the sketch. I really don't like to do that.
3. Usually, before I sew something, I will adhere the top layer to the bottom layer with a bit of adhesive from my ATG gun just to make it stay put. I must not have been paying attention to what I was doing during that step, because I think I adhered it as much as I would if I weren't going to sew. That made my sewing machine very angry. The needle does not like going through adhesive at every point, and showed it's fury by breaking the thread. Often. I was forced to make random holes and stitches look 'on purpose' by going over the stitching a second time, wiggling it as I did so to make it look 'crazy quiltish'. I'm hoping that showed the needle who's boss.
4. I had the idea that I'd tie off two pieces of ribbon, then tuck one end of each piece under the metal ribbon slide. First off, satin ribbon is beautiful, but a total PITA to work with because it frays so easily after cutting and it's slippery. Combine that with trying to measure out where the bows would be evenly spaced, blah blah, blah. Just know, I'm not anxious to repeat that little feat of embellishment any time soon.
5. I originally decided I wanted to use the Basic Grey Ambrosia paper pack for my background papers, and that it would go well with this red-orange Making Memories lace (?) trim. So that's where I started from. Thinking it would just be easier to be matchy-matchy with the solid papers that come in a BG paper pad then trying to match them to other cardstock, I began cutting out my Nestabilites layers with those papers. When it finally came time to assemble everything, it just looked... off.
I had originally put the blackish/brown paper behind the image because it looked close in color to the ink, and I used a mustard-ish shade for the scallop layer. The dark color made it pop, but because it was the only use of that dark color, it looked... strange to me.
I was freakin' determined to use that sewed background panel after fighting tooth and nail with the sewing machine, so I was going to have to try to remove the image from the dark layer (which I had adhered with wet glue, mind you). It actually came off pretty easily (which does make me wonder about Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive... so much for the tagline on their bottle: "A strong bond that lasts a lifetime!" But believe me, I'm not complaining!). (The white spot in the picture on that oval layer is where I tore it trying to get the image layer off.)
Then, I tried changing up the Nestie bases of my image layer. I made the oval with the same Bazzill gray cardstock I used for the base of the sewing layer, and the scalloped layer was cut out of SU! More Mustard. This just looked blah to me, and all that popped from the card was the lace embellishment. Which was staying because it was firmly adhered to that sewn layer, as was the PITA ribbon slide embellishment.
I compared the gray with an oval made using SU! Tangerine Tango. I went back and forth on it, but finally opted for the Tangerine Tango because it balanced out the lace embellishment better, even though by making this choice, I broke one of Jody's rules (which is to mat layers with the same colors consistently). *sigh*
Are you ready to finally see my finished card, or are you as sick of it as I am by now? I don't blame you if you are, but if you aren't, here it is:
If this aint a labor of papercrafting love, I don't know what is. But my friend is worth it. She'd be the first to flood a person's mailbox if one of her friends was going through what she is at the moment.
Go to Jen's blog for the sketch and to see what cuteness she and March Guest Designer Jenn Dierks have put together, then head on over to my SFYTT Sister's blogs for what I am sure will be effortless endeavors of elegance and ennui:
Kelly Lunceford
Susan Liles
Amy Sheffer, and
Amy Rohl
Then play with the sketch yourself -- it honestly doesn't have to be as hard as I've made it look!!! When you upload to your Splitcoast gallery, be sure to use SFYTT as one of your keywords so we can give you props.
As for me? I think I should just go back to bed...

Supplies used:
Stamps: Move Mountains by Unity
Ink: Adirondack Slate, VersaMark, Adirondack Butterscotch and SU! More Mustard (for sponging)
Paper: More Mustard (SU!), gray Bazzill cardstock, Neenah Natural White, Basic Grey Ambrosia 6x6 paper pad
Accessories: Nestabilities, sewing machine, Ranger Polysparkle embossing powder, Making Memories lace trim, Making Memories ribbon slide, gray satin ribbon, Jody's foam boosters.
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