You are a Rare Find

My grandfather was, among other things, a gemologist. He passed that on to my mom, who often had a rock tumbler going when I was little - I can vividly remember it running, and seeing the magic of a stone that was "polished" by just smacking around against other rocks. If this were a different sort of blog, you'd be reading about how there is a life metaphor in there, somewhere.

I loved Hank's obsession with "rocks" #theyremineralsMarie on Breaking Bad - because those "rocks" were so much easier to study than the monsters he was chasing. It was such a well done part of the show.

As a very young child, I could identify semi-precious stones, and the child's delight in seeing a smooth piece of malachite or lapis or bronzite is fired right up again every time I gaze upon my Daniel Smith Primateks, which is a part of the Daniel Smith line that has pigments made from actual semi-precious stones like these. (For those of you in my watercolor split group - split H contains most of the Primateks.)

So there couldn't be a better match than some Daniel Smith and this beautiful new Geode bundle from Concord & 9th.

I brought this on vacation with me - I literally had hundreds of pounds of supplies with me this time for some reason - and I had so much fun painting it. I used both Primateks and iridescent/duochrome paints from Daniel Smith - duochrome turquoise and Aztec gold - but you can really only see the iridescent on the sentiment here - but it is in the geode too.

I embossed the stamp image with white embossing powder first, and then painted it over a few days, adding darker colors as I came back to it. Speaking of embossing, have you tried the new embossing ink from Inkon3? It has an extremely firm pad, and so your stamp doesn't mush down into it and get messy, but it's a very juicy embossing ink. I think you'd love it - it's very different, and I have probably five different embossing inks.

Then when I got home, I die cut the sentiment from the bundle from black cardstock, and painted the Aztec Gold watercolor on it.

The geode sparkles are this fun clear glitter. Both the geodes in this set have matching dies. I cut mine out after painting before adding it to a white card base.

Geode BUNDLE - Concord & 9th [ C&9 ] Avery Elle COARSE GLITTER G1801 at... [ SSS ] Juicy Clear Embossing & Watermark Ink [ INK ] PW111 Ultra Fine Embossing Powder |... [ HA ] Duochrome Turquoise - Daniel Smith... [ BLIC ] Iridescent Aztec Gold - Daniel Smith... [ BLIC ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Da Vinci Cosmotop Sable Mix F Brushes... [ BLIC | ELH ] Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. Cold Press... [ AMZUS ] Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock by... [ SUP ] Whisper White Cardstock - Thick [ SUP ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSW | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | SBC ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART | SBC ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Multipurpose Liquid Glue by Stampin' Up! [ SUP ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] Heat Tool (Us And Canada) by Stampin'... [ SUP ] Sizzix BIG SHOT EXPRESS Gray and... [ SSS | CST | BMS | ART | SBC ]

The sparkles are so much cooler in real life - but as we all know - cameras are thieves of sparkle, like raccoons or crows. :)

You are a rare find, you know.

Loveyameanitbye.