Cure For The Monday Blues # 44

I decided to play along with Taheerah's Cure for the Monday Blues again this week as I liked the inspiration photo and had an idea for my own interpretation of it. You can find all the details on Taheerah's blog here.

The inspiration photo is an eclectic pinboard collection, but my eyes were drawn to the "notes" pinned at the top right. So here is my offering for this week. Sorry about all the dots before your eyes, but I decided to photograph my card against my lovely new polka dot tablecloth!

I started with a 6" square white card blank and some Core'dinations Whitewash card that had a black core. I embossed this with a Spellbinders embossing folder and sanded it back to reveal the black core "holes" for my faux pinboard, then I set about making my "notices". The small notepaper stamp is by Mama Elephant from their "Type It" set - thanks to my good friend Penny for the loan of these lovely stamps! I used Memento Dandelion dye ink and a small scalloped border stamp from a set called "Always Time For Tea" by Die-namics to make my yellow patterned paper. All other stamps used are from Waltzingmouse stamps. I found that the small "bars" type stamp from "Free Spirit Boy" was perfect to make the marks on the top note and the middle sized heart from "Sweethearts" was just right for the one in the centre. A couple of colourful brads were ideal for the pins (and I have loads of neglected brads just waiting to be used up)!

The bottom note was a bit more problematical as I couldn't find a tiny horse stamp anywhere - so I adapted the little reindeer from "Nordic Winter" and just didn't ink up his antlers. The lovely scripty hello sentiment from the "Happy Hello Thanks" set was just the job though. I used a resist technique, stamping it in Versamark ink and clear embossing it, then I used a Tuxedo Black Memento marker pen to draw the speech bubble and colour it in, before ironing off the embossing between two sheets of copy paper. A little pink washi tape was used to mimic that in the top photo. The final touch was a bow tied from thick black thread - I liked the effect of the loops as there were also several in the inspiration photo. I'm really pleased with the finished result!

Thanks for looking,

Lynn