Rich browns

Here's something I pulled together quickly last week for my anniversary:

Those who know me know that I need a 12-step program for substance abuse: in my case that substance just happens to be glitter! I struggle with manly cards because I can't tart them up like I can a girly card. No bows. Now glitter. No sparkly brads. What's a twinkle-addicted girl to do!? The answer: go for the gold!

I happened across a 12x12 sheet of open-stock paper that I bought during my first foray into Michael's for supplies; yes, it's been hanging around that long. It's a pretty, tone-on-tone chocolate brown with little gold highlights. It's gorgeous!

But, I've been hoarding and saving and refusing to take a blade to it. That's just madness. I finally cut into it to make this card.

The gold paper came from the Dollarama (oh, how I'm kicking myself for not piling my basket high when I had the chance) and the solid cardstock is Close to Cocoa by Stampin' Up!.

The sentiment was stamped with versamark and heat embossed using gold embossing powder.

The very shiny gold ribbon (looks dull in the photo, I can assure you it's just the angle. It's as bright as the gold paper) is 5/8" ribbon from Michael's that I got to make Christmas cards last year, and never used.

Thanks for stopping in!

Theme and variations

I made the following two cards for two separate events this past weekend: one was a friend's wedding, and the other my husband's sister's birthday.



The original design was CASE'd from Splitcoast with minor tweaks due to available paper, ribbon, and stamps.

The grey card is on Silver cardstock with paper from Walk in the Park.
The blue card is on Baja Breeze again with Walk in the Park patterned paper. The sprigs were cut using my Silhouette, and the ribbon is SU! white taffeta.

And now for something completely different...

It's my first digital scrapbooking page! <insert regal trumpet fanfare>

I'm a techie by nature, so I have to confess, this digital-scrapbooking thing does have its appeal.

The papers are from shabby princess, and the layout is from peppermint creative. Both, fortunately, were really nice and really free. I wanted to play around a bit to see if I could get the hang of, and enjoy, the digital side of scrapbooking before I sank a pile of money into kits/templates/fonts etc.

It was easier than I expected; although, I'm sure there are short cuts that I haven't stumbled upon yet.

I think what appeals to me the most is the lack of commitment.

Typically I agonize about whether to trim my photos to a certain size, or whether to actually start gluing things down, or whether to finally cut some of my gorgeous paper for fear that I'll regret my decisions. With digital scrapbooking, that trepidation is gone. Photo cropped too small? Recrop it! Used the wrong paper colour for a mat? Swap it out! It really is a waffler's dream.

Do NOT tell my husband. I think he'd swallow his tongue if he found out I could do this without dedicating a room in the house to my craft supplies.

I think I'll use the money I save on paper to go by myself a new camera. Heehee. Oh, don't tell him that, either. (-;