Hello, Gorgeous Grunge – Paper Players #156

Hi Everyone.   Happy Saturday.

The fabulous LeAnne has a great sketch for us at the Paper Players this week.    I LOVE this sketch and knew immediately what I wanted to do with it!

Before I get to that though…. It also happens to the be fabulous LeAnne's birthday!   Happy Birthday, my friend.  I hope your special day on Sunday is amazing!

One of the first sets that I wanted from the new 2013/4 catalog was Gorgeous Grunge.  However, we heard that it was going to be one of the sets included in our package at Convention.  So, I held off and waited to ink it up after convention.    This sketch was my opportunity to do just that!

Here's my take on the sketch:

I used Pool Party and Whisper White card stock and inked up various pieces of Gorgeous Grunge with Smoky Slate and Pool Party. 

I needed to create a horizontal element behind the tag, and did that by inking up the striped stamp in Gorgeous Grunge using Pool Party.   I then needed to emulate the three circular elements of the sketch.   That was easy!  I lay the tag onto the card base and inked up the splatter stamp with Smoky Slate and made sure that I stamped over the tag and the card base so that I could line them up when I assembled the card.

For the tag, I used Pool Party Core-dinations that had been run through my Big Shot with the Stylish Stripes embossing folder.  I used my new sanding block to take off the top layer of color.  I love that the Core-dinations has texture as well as the ability to sand!  To echo the bling of the button on the other side of the circle, I cut a thin strip of Silver Glimmer Paper and adhered that to the back of the tag on the left hand side.

I inked up the "hello" stamp from Four You and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  The arrow stamp is from "Hello Lovely" and is inked in Smoky Slate.  I ran a piece of grey and white baker's twine through a Designer Silver Basics button, tied a bow, and then cut through the rounded ends of the bow.  All that was left to do was to assemble my card.  Once I had the card assembled I thought it needed something else black to help emphasize the sentiment.   I remembered I had some black glossy accents – that's all that I needed.   I dropped some onto the card stock and then ran my knife through the blots to emulate the splatter of the stamp.

I love that you can use the Glorious Grunge stamp set on vintage, shabby – and clean projects!  I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this set.

The design team have done amazing this – again – with this sketch.   Pop along to their blogs to check out their fabulous cards and then don't forget to play along with us at the Paper Players this week.

• Ann
• Anne Marie
• LeAnne
• Nance

On a personal note:

Oh… joy!   It was 58 degrees this morning and didn't get much into the 70s for the whole day.  Better yet, there was very little humidity!    Fabulous weather.   It's been raining most of the afternoon though, and the garden and the wetland are loving it!  In fact, Lou saw the female turkey hen standing on a log with her wings outstretched during the worst of the rain.   It's fairly protected in our woodland area, but was obviously wetter than she wanted it to be.    Lou looked a little harder and noticed that, the little poult was nestled up close to mom under her outstretched left wing…. all warm and dry.    Sadly, I missed it, so wasn't able to photograph this wonderful piece of motherly protection.

I was out on the deck last night just enjoying the view and heard this noise.    It was LOUD.   I took this photograph:

Can you see…. at the bottom of the dead tree…. that's what was making such a racket!

Look at the hole he's created!

These guys are difficult to photograph when they are excavating as their heads move so darned fast.  I tried several shots, and this was the best that I could get!

Last photo of the night…. I came up the stairs to get my camera and there was Bailey, fast asleep in the entry hall.  I have no idea why he lies there.   I mean, it's a wooden floor!  There are so many soft places for him to sleep on, but no, he prefers to lie there.   When he heard me, he stretched out to say hello.  

Before I go….. I always listen to streaming classical music whilst I craft.   This afternoon I tuned into WQXR and they moved over to London to listen to the Proms on BBC.   The level of talent was astonishing.    Even more so when I learned that the musicians were the National Youth Orchestra of the USA and that they were all between 16-19 years of age!   WOW!   What an incredibly talented group and how lucky I was to have tuned it to listen to them play.

As always, thank you for your visit – and for your comments.  You know that they mean a great deal to me.   I'll be back tomorrow with the details of the Operation Write Home card drive – and another card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe – all ingredients Stampin Up! unless otherwise noted

• Stamps:  Four You, Hello Lovely,  Gorgeous Grunge,
• Card Stock:   Pool Party.  #120 Gina K White.  Core-dinations – Pool Party
• Accessories:   Designer Silver buttons
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Stylish Stripes Embossing Folder (132174) – Holiday 2013 catalog.  Black Glossy Accents.  Grey and white baker's twine.   Stampin Dimensionals