Ready for my New Career as a Hit (wo)Man!

I am so excited to be embarking on a career with the Mafia as a hired killer. They get paid a lot, right? Think of all the STAMPS!!

Why am I going to start killing people for money? Well, there's the silencer, the fun sunglasses, the cars with the really dark windows, and

THE FACT THAT I BURNED ALL MY FINGERPRINTS OFF A FEW HOURS AGO!

It's a real shame to waste a hand with no fingerprints, don't ya think?

Well I didn't burn them all the way off. But I got close. In a moment of supreme distracted tiredness after my 14 mile walk, I reached out and grabbed a casserole dish I had just taken out of the oven! I'll give you a moment to bask in my intellect and quick reaction time.

Ouch. However, in the interest of well prepared households everywhere, I must tell you that all is not lost. My mother in law introduced me to a product called Foile a few years ago, and let me tell you - it's a miracle. I've obligingly burned myself severely in order to give it a thorough product review several times. After about 10 minutes it's amazing - the pain is nearly gone and you don't develop any hideous deformities.

I must warn you though - it smells like they squeezed every drop of stink out of a ferret and mixed it up in there. So prepare to gross yourself out. But it's better than not being able to stamp all day on your one free stamping day this week. However, I will say, trying to use mini glue dots with one ill fitting glove on (Yes, I'm the Michael Jackson of stamping now, except without all the weirdness and plus a weird ferret smell) is enough to drive a person crazy.

Anyway, I do have some fun things to show you. First of all, I must confess I have never used alcohol inks until last night at a friend's. So I'm late to this party, but holy cow is it a party!!!

I brought over some stampboard, which I'd also never used, and did basically the polished stone technique except with Alcohol inks and it's sooo saturated and beautiful - much prettier than I've ever been able to create with regular reinkers and glossy paper!

The colors in the blue one are Denim and Stream - Stream is so enchanting you just wouldn't believe it. then I used silver for the metallic accents.

I don't think I wrote down all the colors in the red one but I know that one of them is Terra Cotta - I can't remember the really vivid red.

Mind you, I still have no idea what I'm going to do with these, but looking at them is fun! They really look like precious stones.

Then after I got home, I had to play with one of my new stamps, so I chose Puns from the past.

I stamped it in Brilliance Graphite black and then clear embossed it. Then I colored the image with a blender pen and Pacific Point Blue. Then I colored around it with a versamarker and embossed it again.

Next I stamped Letter Patterns in Brilliance Coffee Bean and embossed it. Then I brayered the whole thing in Chocolate Chip. I added some Baja Breeze ribbon, mounted it on Baja Breeze CS, and then added the dots with my white gel pen and stuck a stamp from my big bulk stamp purchase onto it.

I love brayered chocoloate chip - it looks like leather.

Onto this morning's card. I have 80 bazillion birthday cards to make this weekend, so I headed over to SCS for inspiration. As luck would have it, today's challenge is the inspiration challenge - in this case, from an online swimsuit joint.

What do you see when you look at the inspiration swimsuit I chose? (Besides whether or not your butt would hang out alarmingly, which is the FIRST thing I thought.)

Yep - Basic Grey, Pixie Pink, Kiwi Kiss, Tempting Turquoise. I knew you would.

So I busted out the baskets & Blooms Sizzix die and went to town. I wanted something clean and simple.

If you're very careful, you can use your brand spanking new 1 3/4" circle punch to punch some cardstock and line it up over the flower to run it though the Sizzix - it's the PERFECT size. Do that a few times and VOILA - a 5 minute birthday card. I added some white ribbon and a rubon from "Perfect Day" for the greeting.

I think I'm gonna go take a nap.

More stamping later.