The Rosette Bowl!

As much as I like to complain about Mondays, I hate to complain about Sundays- but I will:

I don't like Sundays, either.  Lots of stores are closed and you can feel Monday hovering over the entire day.

My Mom wanted me to come over and help move her new mattress up the stairs and into her bedroom.  Because we're so classy, we didn't have to carry the old mattress down the stairs to get it out of the house. How did we get the old mattress out?  We threw it off the balcony.

Once I got home, I sat down at my worktable and started playing around with stuff.  I didn't know what I wanted to make, I just knew that I wanted to make SOMEthing.

The first thing that caught my eye was my plastic bin of punches.  I dug through the jumbled mess and saw the double-loop border punch.  I wanted to know what it would look like if I folded it into a rosette.  I cut a strip of kraft cardstock, punched it, then scored, folded and glued it into a rosette.  I brushed the edges with some white American Crafts pigment ink.  Pretty cool looking:

I couldn't think of what to do next.  I started sorting through lots of stamps and placing them into plastic binder pockets.  I came across some 'Distressing Stamps' from GLITZ that I had forgotten all about!  I grabbed another sheet of my favorite Kraft cardstock and my Tim Holtz Mini-Rosettes die.  I wanted to see what they'd look like if I stamped the paper before assembling the rosette.

I LOVE these stamps!  I found them on clearance at Hobby Lobby for 7.79.  They're big and have great designs.  I loved the way this strip looked- it reminded me of my current favorite papers- Kraft Funday from My Mind's Eye.  I also stamped a strip of the cardstock with the 'handwriting' stamp, then ran them through my BigKick with the rosette die.  Here's how they turned out:

Don't they look great?!  For some reason, I'd always used a solid colored piece of cardstock when making them- I love how these turned out.

But now I've got a little handful of rosettes with no plan to use them!  I got out some blank cards and more paper and came up with this little 'thank you' card:

The stamp is from American Crafts.  The background paper is from the Tim Holtz Core D'nations Distress Collection stack.  I also used two strips of unassembled rosettes as a kind of border strip.  And used that 'dots' stamp, again, from the pack of Glitz 'distressing stamps,' stamped with Antique Linen Distress Ink.

The string is one of my favorite things to use on my cards- I got a big spool of it from the Dollar Tree!  It's just a plain twine, but looks kinda dingy white, and is very soft.  I need to pick up a few more spools next time I'm there- because, well, it IS just a dollar- but I seem to be using quite a bit of it!

As soon as I finished clearing some space off my table, I noticed that new stamp from yesterday.  He was staring me down.  Begging for me to use him.  And how could I say no?

Again:  I FREAKIN' LOVE THIS STAMP!

The card base is from a pack of tag card bases from the 'dollar bin' at Michaels.  I found the small scrap of light blue Distress Core D'nations in my scraps box- it was just the right size to fit in the Tim Holtz gears Texture Fade embossing folder.  I sanded it a bit and rubbed some Tea Dye ink on it, as well as some Walnut Stain.  I added one of the stamped rosette centers, with the tiny attacher.  The tape is "Tinted Tape: Aged," from Vintage Street Market.  There's also a trinket pin, a chain, and the 'IMAGINE' tag, all from Mr. Holtz, of course.   This is one of my favorite cards, in a long time.

I LOVE THIS STAMP!  I can't wait to find even better ways to showcase it!  What a charmer!

Alright, ladies and gentlemen.  I've taken a Benadryl.  It's time to try to get enough 'Sanity Sleep' before I have to try to face the week.  What is 'Sanity Sleep?'  It's like beauty sleep.  But I need sanity more than beauty, at the moment.  No jokes, please.

-kory