Thinking of Inking

That was the name of the game for me the other day.  Splitcoaststampers had a mini Virtual Stamp Night last weekend, where a different challenge is posted every hour.  Anyone who wants to participate in a challenge has 45 minutes to complete a project fitting the requirements of the challenge. 

I didn’t have the chance to play along “live” last weekend, but I had time Monday to work on a few cards.  The one I’m sharing today was my favorite.  The point of this challenge was to embellish your card in no less than three different ways.  I chose Prima flowers, brads, sponging, a corner punch, and hardware to dress up this card.  I haven’t decided yet if I’ll send this to my mom for Mother’s Day, or save it for her birthday coming up before too long.  What do you think?

Stamps: Artfully Asian, Linen (Stampin’ Up!); Tag Lines (Gina K Designs)
Cardstock: Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Certainly Celery (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: Certainly Celery marker, blender pen, ticket corner punch, Hodgepodge Hardware (Stampin’ Up!); Prima flowers; celery mini brads (Making Memories); sponge

I haven’t done much creating the last few days.  Saturday my husband was sweet enough to let me “take the afternoon off” and go to A.C. Moore, one of the chain craft stores.  That may not sound like much at first, so let me explain… the closest A.C. Moore is about 85 miles away, or about a 90 to 100 minute drive.  Google Maps gave me one set of directions and Mapquest gave a different route.  So I decided to take the Google route there, and the Mapquest route home.  The Google route was more scenic, but the Mapquest route seemed faster. 

I’m lucky to live in a quite picturesque part of my state, in between two mountain ranges.  I had to travel over one mountain range to get to the store and home again.  The route there took me over the mountain on a two-lane state route which was really twisty and curvy, but well worth the trip if you love mountain scenery like I do.  Part of the road followed the James River, and I was able to stop and take the following photo.  I apologize if the quality isn’t very good but the only camera I had with me was the one installed on my cell phone.

Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t do justice in showing just how blue the sky was, or how yellow the wildflowers in the foreground are.  But it was a beautiful view and a gorgeous day, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to capture it.