Wearing of the Green...and a bonus card!

Welcome to the Studio! Glad you stopped by. I've been sick for the last few weeks, so I'm glad to finally be getting back to normal and feeling like crafting too. If you're visiting from the Card A Day Blog, you know that it's a St. Patty's Day celebration over there. And without further adieu, here's my Irish lass...

This card is really simple. I didn't even measure anything, just eyeballed it. I downloaded the vintage picture from The Graphics Fairy. (BTW, it was FREE!) I used a Martha Stewart border punch on cream colored cardstock for the border and used a small piece of pale green satin ribbon for my shamrock to sit on. I used the Stampin Up label punches for my sentiment. The Happy St. Patrick's Day stamp is from JustRite Stamps.

Now for that shamrock...
I wanted something different. I had tons of shamrocks from foam and felt to brads and bling, but none really looked quite right. So what's an obsessed scrapper to do? Make your own!

For this technique, I mixed a few tablespoons of UTEE (Ultra Thick Embosing Enamel) with CTMH Garden Green re-inker. I did this in a plastic bowl and using a popcicle stick to stir. The re-inker tends to bead up and you just have to mush up the little balls of color, kinda like getting the lumps out of a bowl of brownie mix.

After it was mixed up good, I added some green shimmer Pearl Ex to it. I used the end of the popcicle stick to scoop a little out of the container. After mixing that in, I dumped the mixture into a melting pot. There are several brands and they are quite inexpensive if you use a coupon at one of the chain craft stores. {It's also handy for melting hot glue for dipping.}

I turned the melting pot on to the UTEE setting and let the mixture melt, stirring occasionally to make sure the color was uniform. After it was melted, I poured the mixture into a candy mold...yep, you read that correctly. I had an old chocolate candy mold of a shamrock stuck up in the top of a closet. If it can handle the heat of candy, it can handle UTEE. After the UTEE mixture was poured into the mold, I just let it sit undisturbed until it cooled. It popped right out of the mold. How easy is that! And there are tons of really awesome candy molds these days with lots of pretty flowers and flourishes. The possibilities are endless!

I had so much fun messing with the UTEE, I plan on digging out a few more of my old candy molds to play with. I have several set of monogram alaphas that would look really cool. There's also a few other UTEE techniques I'm getting my nerve up to play with!

And here's a bonus...

I couldn't let Valentine's Day pass without putting up a Valentine's card, so here is a simple, French-inspired bit of Ooh La La!

I hope you enjoyed your visit. Until next time, Scrap Sassy!