Saturday Morning Therapy

After 10 hours of sleep last night (making up for a restless night before) I spent some time in the craft room finishing up baby announcements for the granddaughter and then playing with some of my retired stash.  I have lots and lots of retired or non-Stampin Up items so those are the ones I play with for my personal use.

The piece of Whisper White is from a Top Note die that I used recently and had cut it in two pieces.  The swirls had a small heart in the center that I covered with a Melon Mambo heart punched from the Owl Builder set. I then sponged the edges with the So Saffron to match the card front. 
I took a scrap of Soft Suede that was still lying on my worktable from the other day and rubbed the edges with the blade of the craft scissors to 'rough it up' a little.   Hello is stamped in Soft Suede.

My daughter needs some thank you cards for those who have been so kind to bring her meals while she recovers from the Adelyn's birth so I played a little with some old Dusty Durango paper and DSP that I still have.   The stamp is from the Occassions Alphabet set and it was perfect for these cards.   I used the Finishing Touches to trim the edges with the zig zag and layered those where I could.  I used Always Artichoke paper and seam binding to complement the Dusty Durango.

I have always liked the stamps on the newsprint type papers so tried one of those too.  I used the Elements of Style and Forest Green Stazon ink.   I was going to color in the flowers but couldn't decide which color to use so did not do that part.  The ribbon is the retired polka dot Dusty Durango turned so the solid side is showing.  I used Very Vanilla for the sentiment and card base.

For this one I took a piece of DSP and adhered it to the card stock, then embossed with the Honeycomb embossing folder.   The embossing on the DSP did not show up very well so I sanded over the it and it popped out :-)

I did a couple more with the honeycomb embossing folder, DSP and sanding but this time I did a faux felt flower with a Cajun Craze button in the center.  The Itty Bitty Banner stamp set and dies made the label really easy to  make.  I used some DSP for it too - it was mostly white with some Dusty Durango flowers scattered on it.   Fot the third card I butted the flower up to one edge and cut it to match.  Just a little something different. I used the soon to retire Not Quite Navy and Always Artichoke card stock and the Not Quite Navy ribbon on these. 

When going through my paper stash I found this sheet from a scrapbook store.  I am always running short on cards for the pre-teen and teen boys and thought this would work for them.  I used Basic Black on some and Perfect Plum on the others to back the paper.  The ribbon is Perfect Plum and the sentiment is from the Wacky Wishes set stamped in Dove Gray Stazon ink. 

And when I was finishing up the baby announcements (I will post a photo of them after my daughter gets them mailed to family) I had to use Sticky Strip to adhere part of the card.  The worst part about using Sticky Strip is the static cling on the red film and you wind up with it all over the place.  This morning I came up with a way that helped control those little rascals and clean up was so easy too.

As I pulled them off I laid them on a scrap paper - they came off my fingers fine and had just enough static to stay put on the paper.  When I finished I simply picked up the paper and threw it away.   So much easier then trying to shake them off your fingers into a trash can - or laying them on the table and then trying to get them all into the trash. 

So - waiting for Adelyn to come visit and we can finish up the announcements and then will have to start prepping for the Simple Cards class next weekend.  Still room if you would like to come :-)