May Your Heart Be Warm

Happy Saturday to You!!!!!!!!!!  Thank you for visiting or taking the time to read this post in an email!!!  YOU are appreciated!!!!

I know there haven't been too many posts lately... busy life.  I've been helping the hubs with setting up an Etsy shop for his beaded items.  His shop is called BeadsByChuck.  I'll give you a little background on this... if you're not interested, skip to the next paragraph :-)  Over 30 years ago we did beaded items together (Christmas ornaments, animals, decor, etc) besides having full time jobs and we did a lot of craft shows.  Then we started our family.  In fact, when our daughter, now 31, was born we were still doing shows and we'd take a play pen with and set it up so we could lay her in there to sleep.  We got asked, A Lot, how much we wanted for that, LOL.  All in good fun!!  But life got busier and we decided to put the beads aside.  Then about 15 years ago the hubs was having some health issues, couldn't be in the shop all the time and in his need to do something, pulled the beads back out and we even did a few craft shows then.  His health improved, he was back in the shop and the beads were put aside again.  Well now he is mostly retired.  Our youngest son is mostly running the shop with help and input from Chuck when it's needed.  Chuck still oversees but is slowly giving Tim more responsibility.  So you guessed it... time for beads again.  Chuck is doing most all of the beadwork.  I help with little detail stuff when needed and I'm helping with the Etsy shop as the hubs is technology challenged.  So there is a little history.  We are slowly putting more in the shop.  We've started with Christmas ornaments since next month is December and we'll add more things over time.

So now, back to your regularly (or not so regularly) scheduled program, lol. 

Quietfire Design has just released new stamps!!!  Woo-Hoo!!  You can find them at the beginning of the What's New category on their website - the first eight items.  I've used two of those new stamps on this card.

  

I've also added actual stitching to the card and I've used a Stitched Rectangle Die (Elizabeth Craft Designs) as the current challenge over on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is "It's A Stitch Up".

The main image is stamped with Ranger's Archival Ink.  Using the Tim Holtz Stamp Platform I masked off the greenery section of the stamp, inked the words up with Jet Black, removed the mask, stamped it, didn't bother to clean off the black ink, masked the words, inked the greenery with Fern Green (one of Wendy Vecchi's signature colors), removed the mask, stamped the image again.  This was much easier than trying to ink the stamp with both colors very carefully and get it stamped before the ink started drying!!!  After die cutting the rectangle I added red Stickles to the "berries" and set it aside to dry.

The next layer uses a piece of paper from the new Tim Holtz Christmas Paper Stash.  I stamped the Merry Christmas Background with Embossing Ink and embossed with white.  After trimming the paper to size, I added the zigzag stitching and then painted the very edge with Distress Paint Brushed Pewter.  I also used Brushed Pewter on the edge of the main panel.  The background is wrapped with a Tim Holtz Metallic Trimming, held on with Tim's tiny attached staples.  I then added a Tim Holtz Jingle Brad putting the prongs around the ribbon to pull it together in the center and then glued on two plastic holly leaves from my stash.  The main panel and background are attached with foam tape.  The green panel is edged with Distress Ink Peeled Paint.