Whatever You Do, Don't Send Me Chocolate!

Yeah, so I burned my hand on the mailbox yesterday. That was just a few days after burning it on our back door. Metal stuff plus this summer are not a good combination.

As I danced around by the stupid group mailbox saying some unladylike words and flapping my hand (by the way - why do we think that helps?)  I thought how sad it would be if someone had sent me chocolate. I could imagine it melting all down through my mail, and dripping into the sad little metal mail condo beneath mine onto some unknown neighbor's Netflix envelope.

But I snapped out of it quickly because I had a package! More on that later...

So guess what today is? I know, I know - one more day until our holiday weekend - but what ELSE? It's Thursday, so that means it's the Ways to Use It Challenge on Splitcoast.

Today's challenge is to use paint - which you KNOW I love to do. I thought I'd try something I've wanted to do for a while with the Beautiful Wings Embosslit Die. First, I ran it through the Big Shot with some Early Espresso cardstock. But after cutting, I carefully took the cardstock out and left the little butterflies in the cardstock frame - I didn't pop them out since the teeny ones are so teeny. I wanted it to stay all together while I painted it with some Plaid Pool Blue acrylic paint. I used two coats - it dries fast on cardstock. After the second coat was dry, I sanded each little butterfly with my sanding block so that the embossed areas were brown. And LOOKIE!

Stamps: Four Frames, It's Your Day Ink: Soft Suede Paper: Early Espresso, Mocha Morning Specialty DSP 

Accessories: Sanding Block, Seam Binding, Paint, Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Big Shot, Decorative Label Punch, 

Bling from a friend :)

I love that blue/brown combo! I realized, of course, after I had the whole card put together that I used two different colors of brown... I should have pretended that was on purpose, but it's a little late for that now. If mismatched brown cards start showing up all over the internet though, please inform people that I originated that style! :)

So what was in my package at the infernally hot group mailbox? Aside from the most beautiful hand stamped cards I've ever seen, and lots of love from my sweet friend Lee, there were all sorts of stampy goodies, including that gorgeous blue bling you see above... serendipity! Thank you Lee, you little angel!

So come on over and play the challenge today - when you upload your card to the gallery, they keyword is WT338.

To see the other beautiful creations from our Ways To Use It challenge team, stop off next at Michelle's blog!

I'll be back tomorrow with my new favorite recipe!

In the meantime, whatever you do - DON'T send me chocolate.

Kthxbai.