Stampin’ Up! First Sight Thanks Kindly

Well, it’s Wednesday again.  And I’m back with another card – blogging it while I watch the lightning flash outside and listen to the rumble of thunder.  And hope my sweet kitty Katy isn’t scared!

Oh.  Did I not tell you about Katy??  Well, she’s my little tuxedo girl…

…she and her brother have lived with us since they were about 7 weeks old.  That’s when I scooped them up out of a rain drain – on the 4th of July in 2003.  Leo (her brother) was sitting with a couple of kids on the edge of the street.  I saw him as I drove by (I see them all – it’s kind of my curse) and worried about what those kids might do to him.  You know – kids.  4th of July.  Black kitten.

I went back to my apartment.  I paced.  I tried to talk myself out of it.  After all, I had my older kitty, Toe – and we were quite happy.  Me.  Wayne.  One cat.  Nice dynamic.

I picked up the cat carrier and a bag of Tender Vittles and returned to the scene.

45 minutes later – I’ve got Leo.  I’ve got Katy – she was way hidden – she’s always been the skittier of the two.  The kids think I’m a cat whisperer – cuz they hadn’t been able to catch either one of them!  I started to figure out how to find them a home.

So here we are thirteen years later. 😉

Katy hadn’t been doing well – so we finally pulled up our big girl panties (well, I did – Wayne….??) and managed to catch her and get her in the carrier and to the vet.  She needed teeth work.  Bad!

Today was the big day.  We went to pick her back up and discovered the extent of her surgery.  BIG.  Decided to leave her another night so they can manage her pain.  And give her another shot of antibiotic tomorrow.  Before we start with the twice daily pill routine.  Like that’ll ever work!

Hence – I’m worrying about her being by herself, not feeling good.  Scared of the the thunder. 🙁

So – I distracted myself by making a card – cuz sitting here worrying won’t help anyway – and she’s probably still pretty zorked (yes, that’s what the vet said!) by the anesthesia, so she’s probably sound asleep.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! 😉  I think she probably is, don’t you?

The card I made to distract myself uses the pretty Occasions stamp set called First Sight.  I combined some paper from Love Blossoms and a sentiment from One Big Meaning.  And I ended up with a card that’s sweet as a chocolatier’s confection.  Take a look-see:

The design of this card was inspired by Retro Sketches Challenge #204:

The color scheme (pink and chocolate and white – see where the “chocolatier’s confection” came from!?) came from the Sunday Stamps challenge #121.

And the wooden element – well, I got the idea to use that from the Stamp Ink Paper challenge #37:

So, I pulled out some of the Love Blossoms DSP, which features Blushing Bride (Blushing Bride is pink, with a brownish undertone, so it works well with Chocolates and Early Espresso).  I matted a panel onto a Whisper White card stock mat with SNAIL for the card front.  The smaller rectangle is also from Love Blossoms – and I double matted it on Early Espresso and Whisper White and SNAILd it to the card front.

For the tag element, I cut a piece of Blushing Bride card stock 2″ wide and punched one end with the Scalloped Tag Topper punch.  I pulled out a “Thanks” from the Expressions Natural Elements (Annual Catalog) and I painted it up with my Gold Wink of Stella.  Now, I know that gold wasn’t technically part of the color challenge – but chocolate is and chocolate is wrapped in gold!  So….

I cut a couple of wedges out of a White Tea Lace Paper Doily and stuck them to my Blushing Bride tag with a couple of Glue Dots, then SNAILd a short length of Blushing Bride satin ribbon (from the Love Blossoms Embellishment Kit in the Occasions catalog) over the juncture of the two wedges.

Then I used some Multi-Purpose Liquid Glue – little dots! – to adhere my shimmery gold wooden Thanks to the ribbon.

I used a length of Whisper White 3/8″ Stitched Satin Ribbon thru the slot in the top of my tag and tied it with some Pink Pirouette 1/2″ Seam Binding Ribbon.  Then I used some SNAIL and a few Stampin’ Dimensionals to adhere the tag to the card front.

The final piece was to add three Peart Basic Jewels to the card front – but first I colored them with a brown Sharpie.  Did you know you could do that?  I bet you did!  They went from pearly white to looking like big drops of chocolate! 🙂

For the inside, I used a sentiment from the One Big Meaning stamp set and just inked up the word “kindly” with my Chocolate Chip Stampin’ Write Marker.  I stamped that word in the center of a Whisper White Panel.  Then I added a couple of the flourish images from First Sight, in Blushing Bride.  I SNAILd that to a Blushing Bride mat and into my Early Espresso card base.

Since I already had that Love Blossoms Embellishment Kit out and handy, I used a touch of glue to add a Blushing Bride sequin over the top of the “i” in “kindly” – then added a little Pearl Basic Jewel to the center of the sequin.

Then I SNAILd the card front onto the card and it was done!

For the envelope, I stamped more of the First Sight flourishes in Blushing Bride ink to a Medium Whisper White Envelope…

…and added a Chocolate Chip liner from the Neutrals Designer Series Paper Stack, cut with my Envelope Liner Framelits.

Et Voila!  Sweet as a box of chocolates!  I hope that you like it and will snag up some of the Love Blossoms paper to use in your projects!  While you’re at it, pick up the First Sight stamp set.  And, what the heck – grab that One Big Meaning collection of thank-you sentiments!

Tomorrow – being Thursday – is another edition of the Happy Stampers Blog Hop – we’re working a sketch this week.  So I hope that you’ll come on back – we go live at 7am eastern) and see what we’ve all come up with!

TTFN

Mary

HOST CODE FOR 1 Mar – 15 Mar 16: J9VBU4KX

Use this host code when you order and receive a free gift from me! But, if your order is over $150, please don’t use this code (you’ll miss out on your own Stampin’ Rewards if you use it) but you’ll still get the free gift. The free gift for Feb is your choice of any item valued up to $8.00 in the brand new 2015-16 Annual Catalog or the 2015 Occasions Catalog.