Retail Therapy

When I'm stressed about something, my go-to stress reliever/solution is usually shopping. And, since I'm in a slight panic about my summer classes, I treated myself to some (retail) therapy in the form of new stuff from Unity Stamp Company. I fell in love with the adorable images in the Giggle Grove kit and couldn't resist. The stamps arrived today and I broke them out for this week's Mojo Monday challenge from Julee's blog.

There is a lot going on on this card and I'm not sure I'm wild about it. But, I stayed pretty true to the sketch. I started by stamping the tree image in brown ink and coloring the leaves with Copic markers. I was going to punch them out from patterned paper and do some paper piecing, but my 1/2" circle punch bit the dust and I won't have a replacement until next week, so that idea went by the wayside. I used a sponge to add a little sky and grass to the white paper--it looked too stark and bare without it.

I stamped one of the bird images and colored that with Copics, too. I set the bird on to the tree with a dimensional. This was actually the second bird I stamped and colored. The first one disappeared somewhere in the black hole that is my crafting area. It's pretty much inevitable that it will turn up as soon as I finish typing up this post . . .

I used scraps of patterned paper for the blocks on the cardfront. They're attached to a slightly larger piece of Blue Bayou cardstock and stitched together with my sewing machine, then attached to the cardfront. I layered the image over the stitched panel, then added an additional circle with a floral embellishment.

The sentiment is from another Unity stamp kit, Sentiments O' Simple. I like the "giggle" sentiment that comes with Giggle Grove, but I didn't have enough space to fit it on this card.

I have a meeting tomorrow morning to work on one of my group presentations for my class, but I have plans for a little more retail therapy after that's done. I should have more to share with you tomorrow . . .

Materials Used:

Giggle Grove and stamp sets (Unity Stamp Co.); ink (VersaFine); markers (Copic Ciao); circle and scalloped circle dies (Nestabilities); Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, and Old Olive Classic inks, Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, and Old Olive cardstock, Summer Picnic and Soft Sky Prints Series designer papers, 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, mat pack and paper piercing tool, slit punch, sponge, Crystal Effects, dimensionals; white cardstock (Papertrey Ink); blue floral confetti, green dome floral embellishments (Michaels); ribbon (?); sewing machine