Inky Gilding Flakes and New Year I.D.E.A.S.

Hello Stamplings!

I hope you are well wherever you are! Things are perking along here and I'm slowly getting used to my new Playhouse fluxation. It's like teaching an old dog new tricks, but I'm getting the hang of it. I've been thinking of ideas for getting myself into a routine, but more on that further down.

First, it's the 28th and that means it's time to show you what the ladies of the Group of Seven Cardmakers played with this month. We got out the alcohol again ~ inks that is! After making designs on Yupo or glossy paper, we stopped breathing,  corralled our gilding flakes, and put them over the sticky bits.

This is my example:

I should have warned you to put on your sunglasses, sorry. Even as bright as it is, it's hard to capture the full shine of the gilding flakes. 

You know that technique where you brayer or otherwise press foil over the sticky bits on your finished AI panel? (quick video) The technique above is similar, except you use gilding flakes instead of foil. If, like mine, your sticky bits aren't very sticky (say what now?), then you apply a thin line of glue where you want your shiny flakes. I was surprised how thick my flake lines were after I brushed off the excess, but I ended up liking how they stood up to all the different bright colors. (If you want a thinner line of flakes, don't press them down flat.)

To find how-to video links and see lots of wonderful and inspiring examples of this technique, please click over to the Group of Seven Cardmakers. And if you try it, please add your design to the linky there!

The greeting on my card is NBUS, so I will link to the NBUS challenge; a few other challenges this month are using NBUS for their briefs, so I will link to Die Cut Divas and Little Red Wagon. And because it's a birthday card, I am linking to Anything Goes at Seize the Birthday.

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Looking Forward, cont.   

Following my last post, Hammy and I mulled both our thoughts and some wine and came up with a plan of action to hopefully fix my broken routine. I'm sharing the plan with you because it is my fond hope that by doing so, I will be held accountable to follow through!🤞

In a nutshell, my plan of action is a schedule. Now some people might think a schedule sounds too much like work, but I have tried everything else the last couple of years and relying on self-discipline clearly hasn't worked! This might not work either, but it can't hurt to try, and I'm excited about the fun I am going to have actually using all my schtuffs!

You can't have a schedule without bullet points and, you know me, you can't have bullet points without an aaaackronym!

I'm sure you can imagine with amusement all the various letters Hammy and I came up with, some of which were inappropriate for a family blog.😉 In the end, "I.D.E.A.S." seemed to hit the nail on the head.

P for paper of any sort and another S for stamps are not bulleted, purr say, because they are generally used, although I do hope I will be better at using my patterned, colored, and specialty papers. Of course, as often as possible, I will focus on NBUS and I'm hoping to add a silent V and C to this schedule, so I'll be better at visiting and commenting, which I always enjoyed as much as any other aspect of this hobby!

How it will work: Barring the usual life caveats of illness or company or travels, I am going to post a card or twofer every Monday. (Right there will be more than I've been doing lately!) Each week will feature a letter in the acronym. Because January is almost over, I will start on the first Monday in February and my calendar will look like this:

For the months that have a fifth Monday, I will feature S = stencil. 

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Wish me luck! Feel free to use my I.D.E.A.S graphic and join me on this productive journey!🙋 Just let me know if you do, so we can cheerlead each other along the way! Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!*

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower!

Mwah!

*Life is too short!