Shoe Collection? Obsession? Affinity?

I have a serious affinity for shoes*. Cute shoes, sexy shoes, comfy shoes. I joined a Shoe Fetish ATC swap over on SCS. When I signed up I wanted to use my marabou shoe stamp. I can't find it. So I had to re-think my plan. I recently got that polka dotted paper (I totally love polka dots!!) and it makes me think of all things vintage and retro. So I wanted to use it for this project! And red goes so beautifully with cream and black. And I have 2 pairs of red shoes that give me an extra spring in my step when I wear them. I feel incredibly trendy in one pair and totally sexy in the other. If I had red polka dot shoes I'd probably swoon!!

Of course I had to dry emboss the base layer. I used my Swiss Dots cbug folder and then ran my craft white ink pad over them to really make them pop! By this point, I decided to just get carried away with the polka dots. I used a stamp to give my flowers some polka dots and a little touch of ribbon. This is just one of the shoes that I cut out for my ATCs. There was a whole row of 5 all lined up! I just picked my favorite one!! A little torn edge, some inking and overstamping for a slight distressed look! And yes, if I saw a pair of shoes like this I would totally buy them!! ** I hope the rest of the girls in the swap enjoy this ATC as much as I enjoyed making it! I can't wait to see what I get back!!

**Assuming that it came in a size 11. Yes, that's my shoe size. Causes me much grief and angst often I can tell you. I can still clearly see a fabulous pair of shoes that I wanted to buy a few years ago in Chicago. They only went up to a size 10. And trust me, I've tried to wear a 10 - but it's not pretty - so I don't do that anymore! Why, oh why, don't the shoe manufacturers realize that girls with big feet like pretty shoes too? And that we don't all have wide feet? Or want 4" stiletto heels?

*I got a kick out of everyone's comments regarding the various "collections" in my stamp room. I also have a serious shoe collection going on. When I was teaching, it didn't seem to be a problem but now that I'm a work-at-home-mom who lives in bare feet (yes, I prefer to be barefooted in my home) and flip flops these days it seems a little ridiculous. I have gone through them and gotten rid of lots of pairs. But I still have tons. And can't quite bring myself to get rid of them yet. I'm looking for new storage solutions for my vast collection - I'd love to hear how you store your shoes!!

Do You Know Me?

It's a new year for my local stamp group. Every month we meet and swap ATC's. It's hard to believe that I've been back meeting with them for a year. A year ago was my first month back that we made ATC's. It was a "bag swap" - we each brought a bag of goodies and had 2 hours (really less) to make 12 ATC's to swap that night. What an introduction, huh? I remember that I totally hated what I created. It was such a struggle to go from making a card to an itty bitty ATC. Now, I love making them. I don't usually make them except for club, but that's okay. You may remember THIS CARD where I mentioned that I used scraps to create my background panel. This is the ATC that I designed resulting in all those scraps. I used Fresh Cuts again, a wonderful set in my opinion. I think the image is "technically" upside down on my ATC but you can't really tell and I think that's pretty cool! I also used Cameo Coral and Basic Gray as my color combo and fell in love with it!! My base is embossed with the cbug Divine Swirls folder**.

Since it was a new year, we needed new challenges for our ATC group. I suggested a "secret" kind of swap so we all hid our creations in an envelope. Our fearless leader pulled out one and numbered them all. Then we passed them around and tried to guess who's was who. I think everyone knew this was mine. That's because I played by the rules and made an ATC like I normally would. Some of the gals thought the idea was to "trick" us so they made cards that were not their usual style. It was a ton of fun!!! And one that I hope we repeat at some point in the future. **I think it was my embossed base that gave me away. Or it might have been the use of dimensionals. Or the ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you have a beautiful one! Hubby is off today so we will be spending some quality family time together!!

A Criss-Crossed Love

It's Tuesday and my first official post as part of Madelynn's Twinkle Team! The sketch this week was a doozy. I did pack a small bag of stamping supplies to bring to my in-laws of some very basic and loved items. I think the Tres Chic background is very versatile and can go with just about anything. It's also a great way to add texture when stamping with the same color.

I apologize for the poor picture quality. It has been grey and c-o-l-d here since we arrived and there is no Photoshop here for editing purposes. I did use a free online service - Foto Flexer - and managed to make the photo look better than it originally did. I know that's not saying much since the lighting is still so poor. It's really pretty in real life. The base is chocolate chip stamped in chocolate chip. I used Mellow Moss ribbon for my crisscross section and some green cs that I ran through my cuttlebug and my scallop punch for the middle bit. I think it might be Old Olive? I wish you could see the heart in real life - it's SOOOO PRETTY!! I was originally going to have lots of colors on the heart and used my markers to achieve that. Once I stamped it I wasn't too happy with it so I cleaned my stamp and just inked it up with pink. The second stamping came out so cool as it is pink and brown all variegated together. I'm not sure if it's because my stamp wasn't clean enough or if some brown ink contaminated my pink marker but I love the look. I really think it's the marker and I'll buy a new pink one and keep this "ruined" one for the effect.

The original sketch has the sentiment on the left but I switched mine to the right as the word "love" was perfectly positioned. I wanted it to stand out more so I went over it with my white gel pen and added the other 2 words. By incorporating the scallops, ribbon and a sentiment with 3 words or more I can also count this card as one of the Holiday Challenges over at SCS.

Thanks so much for looking! Be sure to check out the rest of the Twinkling Team to see their take on this week's sketch! The links can all be found in my sidebar!!! I promise to take new pictures when I get home so you can see the pretty heart!! Thanks for stopping by!

Have a beautiful day!!