I was a little stuck when I saw the current
Tuesday Trigger: Now That's My Cup of Tea! at Moxie Fab World. The imagine is crisp & clean and pretty, but I have a very small collection of flower stamps and none seem to feel right for this challenge, so had to put on my thinking cap for a day or two. While I thought, I decided to tackle an organizing chore I have wanted to hit for a loooong time. If you want to read/see what I did, stick around after the card details.
This card idea came to me at about 4:30 this morning (minor hijack: back to school has done a real number on my sleep this year. I am so paranoid about sleeping in that I am waking super, super early) after checking out the
CASE Study Challenge #154. Jennifer McGuire is the muse and her CASE of her card includes a die cut in lay technique. Head over to the challenge blog and you will see what I mean.
My card combines the overlapping die cut and die cut in lay techniques.
I started with the smallest flower, nestling the patterned paper die cut into a space die cut out of the white cardstock. I then die cut the larger flower, overlapping and cutting off part of the smaller flower.
The flowers were easy, but the red flourish proved a bit of a challenge as there were many little pieces I had to keep track of and place back into the panel.
A large oval die gave the nice, curved shape to the white panel and it is adhered to a shimmer cardstock base to echo the saucer in the Trigger image. A few more die cuts are clustered around the sentiment.
Ink Color Charts
Like many (most?) stampers, I have a variety of inks from various companies. Years ago I printed an Distress Ink Chart from Ranger (you can
find it here) and have used it regularly to choose ink colors. For some reason, I have never done this for my other inks, so found myself continuously testing colors to find the right shade.
My Distress Ink Chart was a little worse for wear, and a few inks not listed have been added, so I decided to print out a new chart.
Who would have thought I only have half of the available colors (hahaha)? Then I started wondering if other manufactures offered a similar chart for their inks.
After a little searching I found a
Memento chart at Ellen Hutson.
Nina Yang at Waffleflower also has a Memento Chart plus a few more: VersaMagic, Brilliance, Fresh Ink and a wonderful generic chart that I used for some Papertrey Ink and My Favorite Things.
My Distress Inks are the only ones stored separately, along with sponges for blending and a few Distress Embossing powder. I love how these inks stack so nicely!
Most of the other inks share a couple of drawers and are divided by color. This is the drawer of colors, the other one is neutrals. Oh dear, I think I can stop buying blues for a while.
After finding a few duplicates in my Memento collection, I took photos of the color charts so that I have them on my phone and easily accessible when I am out shopping.
My next goal is to index my stamp collection - I didn't even know I had the cute little triangle that I used on these charts until a week or so ago. It is one of those little extra stamps that I often forget about - this one is from Paper Smooches. Any tips or suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks for stopping by,
Jacquie