Another Weak Moment

As much as I love leaves, I love trees, too. When Close To My Heart retired "Trees of Seasons," it was a sad day, and sadder yet is that there has really never been a CTMH set that's come close to replacing it. Thus, I can't really say I feel all that bad about buying this little set of acrylic stamps, aptly named "Build-a-Tree," from Impression Obsession. Did I already use the word "little?" Most of the images with this set are so tiny that I thought I'd need my bifocals just to make out what they were. The set consists of a two (or so) inch tree base, four different branches that you use to build your tree, the sentiment (which I love) and a bunch of tiny tree elements - six different leaves, a flower, an apple, a very small round stamp (an orange maybe?), a bird, a nest and an owl. From what I've observed recently, owls appear to be coming back into vogue. Once I stamped the tree base, I was a bit worried about stamping the branches "right" until I realized that it wouldn't matter if the branches overlapped and weren't perfectly placed. Most real trees are not all that symetrical. Again, I chose the maple leaf first, and stamped a bunch in Autumn Terracotta, Goldrush, and Cranberry. The rest of the card design was simple. I used an embossing folder and the Cuttlebug to do the background paper, rubbing the Autumn Terracotta ink pad over the raised design of the same color cardstock. The stamped element was matted on a piece of Chocolate cardstock, and I finished the card off with three gold brads. There are a lot of nice stamp designs out there, and while I realize that quality often differentiates the different brands, I feel the sets I purchased from Impression Obsession and Wordsworth are of good quality. If there's one thing CTMH has all over its competition, however, its the packaging. I'm going to have to come up with something to store these new sets in.

I don't know if I'll get a chance to stamp again for a couple of days. We're having a little family gathering tomorrow evening for Cameron's birthday - just Dusty and Miranda, Havie and the boys, and of course, the birthday boy. I doubt that it will be a late evening as I'm sure the young people will move the party to a location more fun than Grandma's house. I can't be sure, however, as Cam was feeling a little blue tonight - like 29 is old or something. I went through the same thing at 30. It's kind of like, "Oh my, I'm a grown up now." Most of us go through it at least once. Most of us get over it. Besides, while youth has its advantages, I wouldn't go back even if I could. I'm smarter now. I know what's important. I like life that way.