You Made My Inspiration

I find inspiration for cards in lots of strange places.  Last week I was working my part-time job as a sample lady at Target, and I saw a woman wearing a very interesting shirt, and I thought "when I get home, I am going to make a card like that shirt!"  My friend came over to stamp with me that evening, and I told her about my inspiration.  I wanted to try a new technique that I had seen recently to make a watercolored background to stamp on.  I tried over and over to do the watercolor technique, without much success, and with much disappointment.  In the end, I grabbed my sponges and went to work sponging around the background in the soft pastel tones I wanted.  I used Pretty In Pink, Wisteria Wonder, Certainly Celery, and Daffodil Delight.  After sponging all over the paper, I stamped over it with Basic Black using the Stippled Blossom stamp set.  I then cut up the paper for the background on my card.  It really did turn out just like the shirt.  I used some of the sponged paper for my salutation, and I went into the archives to find an old stamp set that I had.  Stampin' Up had

just released the June Best of 25 Years Greetings stamp set and I recognized on of the stamps as one that I had from 1997 called Everyday Expressions.  Boy, I remember using that set for so many cards.  It was adorable, and I am not surprised that Stampin' Up chose it to make a comeback.  My friend, Debby used it for her card that night, too.  She was making cards for our demo swap the next night.  So, at the demo meeting I shared that we had used the original 1997 stamp, and we were told that the new release was made in a smaller version.  I guess SU wanted to make sure we had a slight change on the re-released stamps.  You can get your new version Greetings when you order the set from me.
I used a layout that I found on Clean & Simple Stamping's Challenge 243,  and I will share my card with them, too.  Hope you all like it, and stop back to see what else I have been doing.  I've been really busy making samples for our open house tomorrow, and I can't wait to share them with you.

Mary Alice