Pattern Play Days 2 & 3

Tomorrow afternoon, my brother-in-law arrives.  Brad is the remodeling hero of our home, having fixed almost all of the ugly things--from gutting the kitchen to painting the hallways.  The best part about Brad (besides his chatty nature and love of all lemon baked goods), is that he has done all of this for us despite living at the other end of the country.  Once a year, he leaves his wife and crosses the country to help us with a project. 

This year, the project is painting my studio!!  I am really excited to banish the dark brown walls (and brown ceiling and dark brick...).  But what was I thinking?!?!  For those who have done it, you know how hard it is to move out of your studio!!!  Throw onto that the fact that I am in the midst of major inspiration thanks to Pattern Play, and I am pretty much screwed.  I have to be out by tomorrow afternoon, and this is what my studio looks like...

Yes, what you see on that table are supplies from me just making stuff all evening instead of packing (yikes!)!  Did I mention that I am volunteering at my children's school all morning tomorrow?  Who needs sleep??

So back to Pattern Play....

I am loving this class, but I have to tell you that Day 2 really kicked my butt!!  I spent about two hours trying to do the resist technique, and I just couldn't get it to work.  And then I tried to piece my stamps on patterned paper, and I picked the wrong stamp.  So after 10 minutes of icky fussy cutting, it looked terrible!!  I finally threw in the Martha Stewart scissors and called it a night.

I went back at it last night, and I felt much better about myself with this card and the Day 3 lesson of breaking up hard-to-use patterns.  :-)  It's certainly not perfect, but I was able to use this fantastic Anna Griffin paper that has been staring at me for almost a year now.  I think I might have liked the sentiment better in black, but I was just done with it after the third label. 

 

The big pattern is Anna Griffin (6x6 botanicals that they used to sell on HSN, but I don't think you can get it anymore), and the tag was die cut from Glitz.   The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp (March card kit) and the ink is my favorite brown, which is an Anna Griffin pigment ink. 

So I finally got to finish watching Day 3 today, and I was pleased to piece, stamp on patterned paper (yeah from Day 2!) and use a small amount of patterned paper, which was the inspiration.  The idea of white space (literally) is hard for me-- I love color, color and more color.  But I am SO happy with this that I am going to have to rethink my use of white....

The patterned paper here is from Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic.  The butterfly stamp and ink are Close To My Heart.  The sentiment stamp is Hero Arts.  The enamel dots are from My Minds Eye for Studio Calico.

I would like to try the vellum technique from Day 3's class, but it will probably have to wait until after my studio is done in a week and a half or so.

So if I don't get back to this blog, Happy Easter, if you are celebrating!   (Or Happy Passover or Happy Spring!)  Talk to you next week...