Truly One of a Kind

Tonight’s “stamping story” began on Monday evening with the Mojo Monday Week 109 sketch, a “bright” idea, some pretty patterned paper (see below), and this pile of buttons. You guessed it. I was going to make a card with a cherry image – as in button cherries. Wouldn’t you have thought in this pile of buttons I would have had two that were the right color and size. Nope. I had one. The others were either too big, too small, too bright, too pink. Darn. I don’t even remember where I got these buttons.

OK. I don’t have two of the right buttons. I don’t have a cherry stamp. I was hellbent on cherries. So, I thought, I have a publishing program on my computer that has a ton of clip art, fine art, photographs … but no cherry image I wanted to use. Darn. I turned to Google, searching for “digi stamps cherries.” Almost immediately, I found one! It was perfect and only $1. I put it in my cart, and paid for it with PayPal.

I already had my card base put together last night as I waited for my digi image to show up (within 24 hours) in my Inbox. By 10 o’clock, it hadn’t shown up. A no show. Darn! I’m rather disgusted by then. I picked up a black pigment pen and drew a simple image using the cherries on the patterned paper as “models.” I colored them with markers. I distressed the image with my Speckled Background stamp and a couple of sponge daubers with Bamboo and Brown Bag ink. I was neither happy nor unhappy with the results, but I didn’t finish the card. I’d give the digi image one more day…

When it wasn’t here tonight, I finished the card with my one-of-a-kind hand-drawn image. If I could change one thing, it would be the angle of the cherries. I love the way the distressing worked out, even though the photograph kind of washes it out. Quite a story, huh? I’m not an artist… but I really wanted this thing off my desk. As for my $1 digi image, I’m willing to bet there will be an message from my email carrier with all of the recent messages that got hung up in its spam filter, and it will be there. Darn.

Materials & Tools: Colonial White, Black, and Topiary cardstock; Studio 45 Bee’s Knees and Copacetic from the Times Nouveau Collection; Black, Bamboo, and Brown Bag ink pads; Topiary, Holiday Red, and Cranberry markers; Retired CTMH So Sweet Seasons stamp set; Retired CTMH Speckled Background stamp; Black My Legacy Writer; Ribbon from Wal-Mart; Cuttlebug w/Nestabilities Classic Circles set; Piercing tool; Sponge daubers.

After all that, I’ll simply thank you for putting up with me and wish you a wonderful Thursday. I promise if there’s a story to go with tomorrow night’s card, it will be short… and sweet! Later…

P.S. As I was writing this post I received a message from my email carrier. My digi image was stuck in the spam filter just like I predicted. I have it for next time ....