I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far. I’ve been fairly lazy myself today. It took me forever to walk down to the studio and stamp a little. Mallory came home last night, and there just seems to be a lot going on in the house. Tomorrow I will be having the family over for a barbecue. My sister’s excuse for coming to my home, was that I grill better than she does. My mother used to always do something for every holiday, but now it seems that if Carrie or I don’t plan it, it doesn’t happen. So we did the morning phone call thing and planned the menu. Now I’ve got to dust and clean the bathrooms — household cleaning. Doesn’t she know that I would rather be creative than clean?

Talking about being creative, not too long ago I mentioned that I had been missing some fun in my stamping. Well, I have to say that over the last two weeks I’ve had more fun trying new techniques and just letting the mojo flow. I myself feel that I’ve done some of my most creative work recently. (No heckling from the peanut gallery.)

What I have for you today is a card I made for the Inspiration Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. We were given pictures of hotel rooms from the Hotel Fox in Copenhagen, Denmark, as our inspiration piece. This is the room that I chose.

This is the card that I made.

I used a variation of the Faux Bleach Technique that I used earlier in the week. I stamped the flourish and a butterfly in VersaMark and heat set. The floral silhouette was then stamped in VersaMark but was embossed with clear EP. I sprayed the image panel with a Broken China/Pearl distressed pearlized spray, and then placed the image between two pieces of copier paper and ironed. As you can see from this close-up, embossed area when ironed takes on the color of the background paper. However, the images stamped in VersaMark and not embossed, picked up a faint color from the distressed pearlized spray.

The background panel was stamped with the flourish, embossed with clear EP, and then ironed (the faux bleach part of the technique).

• Stamps: SU Baroque Motifs and Happiness Always; Wildflower Silhouette from Just for Fun Rubber Stamps
• Paper: SU Whisper White and Basic Black
• Ink: Tsukineko VersaMark; Ranger Archival Jet Black and Broken China Distress
• Accessories: Spellbinders Plain and Scalloped Circle Nestabilities; Ranger Mini Mister, Pearl Perfect Pearls, Super Fine Detail Clear EP, Craft Sheet; Brads; Ribbon; Iron

I hope you all have a great weekend, and if you are doing family things – have a great time!