Homage to Retiring Colors – Crushed Curry

Hi Everyone.  Happy Thursday night.  I hope you had a great day.

We had an eventful day, that's for sure.  It started when the roofing team arrived to start on our roof.  I swear 15 of them arrived and I don't think one of them was over 16! Well, a slight exaggeration!  One of the older guys told my DH that he was feeling old because it was his 20th birthday this weekend!  OK.  No comment!

The roofing guys couldn't stay because we were having a rainstorm.  So, DH took me to buy a new crafting cupboard.  We had to drive 76 miles to go pick it up and then came back 76 miles with one we hadn't planned on.  We also had to hire a U-Haul because it wouldn't fit in our car and the store was going to charge us $300 delivery.  You have to be kidding me – that's more than the cost of the cupboard!  Anyway, some days you realize there was a reason you did things.  More on that in a minute.

Tonight's card is one of the cards I made to pay homage to some of the retiring colors.  I saw this sketch on the sweetsunday sketch challenge site and fell in love with it.  For the three elements on the card, I decided to get out my Beautiful Wings embosslit and make use of the SmoochSpritz from the new Summer mini catalog.  I also pulled out the Crushed Curry and decided to give this fabulous color a little spotlight time!

For those of you who wanted to know the card size for the post last night, I did update the post to give the dimensions and you can check it out here.

I used the SmoochSpritz in two places and used two different colors.  

You can see that I used the "Log Cabin" color on the butterflies, to help pick up the brown.  I also used it on the top half of the background matt for the butterfiles.  This time I used the "Gold Glow".  Here's a close-up of the gold glow on the background matt.  I know it's a little hard to see, but hopefully when you blow it up you will be able to see the gold glow.  The log cabin is very obvious on the butterflies.

I loved being able to use them both, because it helped to bring the elements of the card together.

I used Whisper White card stock to break up the Crushed Curry.  Isn't the ribbon just gorgeous and luscious – it really is good enough to eat!

I was really happy with the clean and simple lines of the card.  I decided not to put the butterflies in a straight line, to add visual interest.  I also used three different sizes to keep the eye moving across the card.  Here's the sizes for you:

• Crushed Curry is 5 x 10 – to make a 5×5 card
• The first Whisper White layer is 3 3/8"W x 3"H
• The Crushed Curry matt layer is 3 2/8"W x 2 7/8" H
• The stamped layer that supports the butterflies is 3"W x 2 5/8"H

I spritzed the top half of the sentiment layer and left the bottom half clean so as not to interfere with the sentiment.  I did that by placing a cover piece over the bottom area when I spritzed.

I tied a piece of Chocolate Chip Satin ribbon around the top layer and mounted it using dimensionals.  I stuck the butterflies down with mini glue dots. 

The sentiment is from the stamp set Spring Song (115074)

I was really pleased with the texture of the card stock against the smoothness of the ribbon and the top matt.  There is also texture on the butterflies and the spritz adds another layer of texture and interest.  The Gold Glow really does that… it glows just enough to add bling without overpowering.

I was really happy with the way the card came out and wouldn't change anything about it.  I was even OK with the fact that there was more smooch spritz on the one side of the big butterfly than on the other and, for someone who has to have everything straight and even, that's amazing.  If you want to know how bad my obsession with things being straight is… I have been known to try to straighten paintings in museums… Yep… So… next time you hear that some crazy woman looked as though they were trying to steal the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.. it was probably me trying to straighten it:-)

So.. for the rest of the day… On our way back from the Twin Cities, driving at 65 mph down the highway we spotted a snapping turtle trying to cross the road.  Why?  Who knows…  the field next to the highway had just been ploughed, so we think he might have been disturbed.  Anyway, I have a passion for rescuing everything.  Yes…. I rescue spiders, snakes, dogs, cats, ladybugs, beetles… well.. I do draw the line at Mosquitoes!… So… we found the next u-turn space, haired back up the highway – in the U-Haul and tried to get to the turtle before it got hit by a car.  We made it in the nick of time – literally – a school bus in front of us missed him by about two inches.  I jumped out of the U-Haul to distract him.  Knowing that he would try to attack me because I was his closest threat.  Well, he got me… he got my ankle bone and hung on for dear life.  I knew that we had to cover his head to stop him from snapping so told Lou to take off his jersey and give it to me.

His first reaction.  My jersey… but it's cashmere!  yeah, I know.. but I need it for the turtle, so just take off your top.  ME.. he said… but people will stop and look at me.  What about you!!

Me… I said…. Don't you think we might have an accident on the highway if I took off my top and wandered around in nothing but my bra in the middle of the afternoon!  Mmmm…good point he said, removing his jersey!

A nice couple behind us stopped, because they also wanted to help the turtle.  We managed to get him into the back of the U-Haul and drive him about half a mile to the river.  Lou wandered down to the river – shirtless I might add – and put Mr Turtle down.  The turtle didn't even bother to turn around, but headed as fast as his little feet would take him into the first mud bank.  The last thing Lou saw… Mr Turtle's swishing tail as he burrowed deep inside the mud.

Lou's jersey… well… nuff said on that one!  But at least I didn't have to display my underwear in the middle of the highway!

On that note, I wish you all a fabulous Friday.  We are off to go put together cupboards and have fun unpacking my stamping goodies from their old home.

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  You know your visits and your comments are much appreciated.

Big hugs to all of you

Jaydee