several things...

First, I want to update everyone on the Breast Cancer Auction that was held last Sunday. You can read more here (scroll down to the Charity Success button), but the event was very successful. More than $1,100.00 was raised with the twenty altered dress forms! I was so proud to be part of this creative endeavor to help raise funds for breast cancer research.



Here's a simple card I made today for a friend's upcoming wedding. I used the Cuttlebug heart embossing folder on the front and used a Martha Stewart punch on both sides of the strip I attached to the left side. The wedding cake is a Michael's $1 stamp which I embossed in silver and layered on a scalloped silver metallic square. Sorry for the shadows in the poor scan - scanner doesn't like lumpy bows or white on white!

I finished the first of my six altered cabinet cards for a swap with an online group. Cabinet cards are formal photograph portraits from the 1870's to the 1920's. They are usually on a single panel of stiff cardboard or matboard and sometimes have a decorative embossed or printed frame. Usually the name of the photography studio is printed on the front. They do not have an easel back so were typically propped on a cabinet or sideboard, hence the name.

For the swap, we are to make six altered cabinet cards and will receive six different ones back. I could not bring myself to use the original, so made a copy and mounted it on heavy matboard, approximately 4" x 6". I gessoed around the figure and then randomly swiped several blue acrylic paints over the gesso. Then I tore text from a book and glued pieces in several places. Next I stamped some swirls in blue ink and some text in brown and gessoed over this lightly. I stamped snowflakes with gesso and sprinkled glitter on while wet. Final touches are the words made with a label maker, a crown punched from silver paper and covered with Stickles and some Stickles along the bottom.

This was so much fun - can't wait to get to the other five!