Old-school Text

My birthday is coming up in a little over a week. I'm getting to the age where technology is moving faster than my brain can keep up. It seems like there's some new App or gadget every day. That's why the Old-school Text stamp set in the new Holiday Expressions catalog was a must have. I combined it with this week's Color My Heart Tic-Tac-Toe challenge to create this card:

I chose the colors along the top row of the challenge: Sugarplum, Linen, and Saffron. I used Charcoal as my neutral. It might be a little difficult to see the Linen. It's shading "old-school" using the rectangular swoosh from the Colorful Texture stamp set. For the pencil border, I stamped the outline first then filled in with the color block stamps in Saffron and Sugarplum. I used my MISTI to stamp the sentiment in Charcoal because I knew it would need to be stamped twice in the exact same spot to get that deep, full coverage over the pencil border. 

To finish off, I carefully lined up the notebook paper border die from Decorative Border Thin Cuts so the cutting edge and top of the die lined up with the left side and top of my card. You could just as easily line it up with the right side of a card that folds on the left, but I do top folding cards because they photograph better.

Here's the supply list (with links for your shopping convenience):

• Old-School Text
• Colorful Texture (a similar swoosh stamp is in Boutique-Scrapbooking)
• Charcoal ink
• Linen ink
• Saffron ink
• Sugarplum ink
• Decorative Border Thin Cuts

There's another reason I made this card today. It took me a very long time yesterday to get my word count in on my latest novel. Whenever my writing brain gets sluggish, I take time to do something with my crafty brain. It tends to loosen up the writing brain by forcing it to still think creatively but in an entirely different way. If I'm particularly stuck, I take a whole day to craft. I'm heading upstairs as soon as this card is posted, but stay tuned. I might be back if I can't get the story to flow.

For those of you who follow my writing career, book two of the Montana Brides series, The Kitchen Marriage (see sidebar) released this week. According to a reader in South Carolina, it's already in her Walmart. I got my author copies on Monday. Most days this author thing is a lot of discipline to keep the rear in the chair and get the word count done. Then - every once in a while - you get to see the fruits of your labor on store shelves and in readers hands. Those are really good, really FUN days. Today is a rear in chair day...unless it's a craft until the brain starts working day. Let's see, shall we?

Until next time,

Becca