Sunday Stamper - Week 237 - P.S. I Love You

Gooooodly Morning Stampers and a very happy *it's nearly Christmas* Sunday to you all!  Many thanks for all your gorgeously festive entries for last weeks challenge.  This week I decided to move away from all things Christmassy... well, I know that some of you will be busy this coming week but for those of you who have a few hours free for a spot of crafting, I thought I would do a generic theme to whet your whistles.  So, the theme this week is... HEARTS.  The song is actually one of my all time favourites, you know, those feel good songs that always make you smile?  Well, this is one of mine:  HERE'S a link to YouTube so you can listen yourselves :O))  This song has happy memories for me, it was the very first cassette (oh dear, showing age!) that I got for Christmas when I was 6 years old... that was my very favourite Christmas, it is from Please, Please Me and whenever I hear that album I can remember me sitting in my bedroom feeling very grown up because I had my own cassette recorder!  Anyways... nostalgia aside and on with the challenge!  To join in is simples: make a little something - it can be anything you fancy.  Add in the theme and some stamping and then pop back here to leave me a comment with a link to the place you are showing your entry.  If you haven't got a blog or photo-web-hosty-thingy, you can join in via Facebook or by popping me an email over.  The challenge will remain open until 21:00 Saturday December 29th 2012.  *I can't believe that next week I will be typing 2013! Where did 2012 go huh?*

For some reason I am feeling all natural and am grabbing the cream and brown tones at the moment... could be that I have overdone the greens and reds for Christmas ... and I think that beiges, creams, browns and golds are my comfort zone... and there's no harm in snuggling into your comfort zone every so often is there?  So, I have a little pile of those FAB papiermache hangy things from PaperArtsy - I loooove these, they are the perfect size, they are smooth and they are dimensional.  This one I altered is the larger of the two sizes.  I started by bobbing a smidge of Black Dabber around the edges of the board and then glued some of that favourite Lost & Found Hallowe'en papers that I have been gabbing on about for a while now.  Paper blocking is so easy... really, it uses up all your little odds and ends and by giving it a quick smooth over with a smidge of Traditional Tan paint you can tone all the papers in together.  Once the Trad Tan was dry I gave the whole piece a good coat with Ranger Glue & Seal (think this has to be one of my FAVE products ever!)

Once the Glue & Seal had dried - which is a matter of minutes - I got out another old favourite, the Magenta stamp and stamped along the bottom of the board using Jet Black Archival.  You will notice if you stamp over paper blocking that because the levels are all different you will get some parts of the image missing... don't worry about that... because after drying the Archival ink, I used my Stabilo All Pencil and smudged shading along all the edges of the papers - this means that any gappy bits in the stamping are filled in.

I then laid the Studio 490 Heart stencil over the board and used another fab fave product - Studio 490 Embossing Paste (black flavour) and using a palette knife, spread the embossing paste over the heart... and then made some little peaky bits.  Whilst that was drying, I used the Tattered Florals Alterations die to cut three big flowers from the same papers and then assembled a 3d rose.  By now the embossing paste had dried so I got out yet another fave product, Treasure Gold... I used my finger to lightly smudge Onyxite and Brass Treasure Gold over the textures on the heart and around the edges of the board.

The finishing touches are the embellies that I loaded up onto the heart... and my final smidge of stamping - using Alpha stamps, I stamped out the words and cut them down to fit and blended a smidge of Gathered Twigs around the edges of the card to tone it in.  Blobs of silicone glue stuck everything in place and once dried, I added some May Arts silky ribbon to the hangy bit.  And there you have it!   I am loving those colours so much I might just have to go and make something else now!

Right, that's all from me for today, except to say... I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and I hope that you all have your dreams come true.  Thanks for looking... TTFN!

Hels x

P.S... 19 days to CHA!  *teehee*