Thankful Figs...

Happy Friday everyone! It is certainly a soggy one here in Houston today and I needed some serious caffeination to get me moving today. The happy news is that I thought I had to work this weekend and just double checked the calendar- I'm off! That's like a get-out-of-jail-free pass! I hope to work on some teacher gifts and other holiday projects this weekend, so more to come.

I am determined to finish off this year by making good on three resolutions I made last year: use stamps that have never seen ink, actually mail out cards I have made and get my holiday cards out by the first week in December. With Thanksgiving is less than a week away, I am under the crunch to make the "mailing cards out" part happen so I packed a few pre-stamped images and markers in my bag the other night and squirreled away a few minutes to color while on-call (the absolute in multi-tasking!).

This image is one I have had for a year or more and have never used. I was attracted to the figs (love them with blue cheese and proscuitto-yum!) and the detailed leaves. Until I started coloring, however, I never really thought about the complexity of recreating a fig- they're kind of brown, kind of purple and kind of green. A lot of trial and error later, this is about as good as they get in my hands!

After the image was done, it was cut out using a nested label die and layered onto a Chocolate Chip matching piece. The background was assembled using squares of Old Olive, Very Vanilla and an olive piece from Basic Grey "Periphery", then tied a piece of off white silk ribbon around with a big bow to frame the image. I used a bit of glue runner to tack the tails of the bow down so they would stay with a soft wave- it's a nice little trick that I learned from Sharon Johnson over at Splitcoast.

A different nested die cut piece in Elegant Eggplant was placed under the image to make it stand out and the greeting and a few pearls in the corners  finish it off. The whole thing was mounted on an Elegant Eggplant 5-3/4" square card which is my absolute favorite size, although the extra postage makes me cringe!

This work of love will probably go to my mother, although I know she'd rather have my silly pheasant from a few weeks back! Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

 





Supplies:
Stamps: Figs & Pomegranate
Ink: Rich Cocoa
Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Basic Grey "Periphery"
Accessories: Alcohol ink markers, Sizzix machine, Modern label punch, nested dies, pearls, silk ribbon, dimensionals