I Shouldn't Even Show You ...

... and wouldn't have had it not been for that little teaser last night. Now before you say, "What the heck is that?," I've got to tell you that up close and personal, it's a darned cute card. It simply will NOT photograph well, and it's not for lack of trying. Thirty-eight photos have been taken, using a variety of backgrounds and lighting conditions. I have given up.

Getting to the "story," my card was inspired by this cute card on the Lucy's Cards blog. Instead of using a ladybug stamp, I thought of some cute buttons I'd purchased at Wal-Mart a while back before they so rudely closed their fabric department.

This is where the interesting tools come into play. I attempted to cut off the shanks using the blue-handled tool thing show below. It snapped them right off, only not flush with the back of the button. They need to be flat. I grabbed a sanding block first. No go. A metal file was my next tool of choice. However, it was slow going, filing those little hard plastic ends. Then came the light bulb moment. Plastic melts! That's when I grabbed the "torch" (aka the Scripto lighter I use to light candles). Yup, plastic melts. It also gets very HOT, or so the thumb and pointer finger on my left hand found out when I attempted to hold the first one while torching it. The other two buttons were placed on the stone coaster, which handled the firing much better than my fingers.

Of course, I made a little noise over the burned flesh, which warranted the usual exchange: "What are you doing?" asked the man in the other room. "Never mind!" "Do you need help?" "NO!!" With my left hand in a bag of ice, I used my right hand to stamp the ladybug's antennae and the sentiment and then glued my now flat-backed ladybugs to my card with Liquid Glass. Crazy, huh?

Materials & Tools: Stampin' Up Kraft cardstock; CTMH Summer Carnival B&T paper (retired); Black stamp pad; Papertrey Ink Ladybug Luck and Hero Arts Trees, Birds, and Sentiments stamp sets; 1-1/4-inch circle punch; Liquid Glass.

How was your day? Mine was ... crazy busy. My head is still spinning. We had dinner with Dustin and Miranda right after work. It was fun. With a lot of stuff going on right now, I'm glad we made the time. Still wound up from my workday, I'm going to go relax in the bathtub for a while before attempting to get some much needed sleep. Oh, and this is it for the wild card-making stories this week. LOL. I hope yours was a great day. Thanks for taking the time to visit me! Later ...