Dragonfly Dreams: Busy in my spare time

A big apology from me for the lack of chatter. I have been a bit busy in my spare time and I really thought I had posted more recently- sorry about that. Where did the time go? I had last week off from work and I got everything that needed to be done without any stress, OK maybe just a little. I don't know if I procrastinated because I knew I was going to be off but it was down to the wire for making my Christmas cards and cookies. I embossed and cuttlebugged like a mad woman the weekend before Christmas. I had the perfect setup in order to get all fifty of my cards completed. I used my Big Shot to die cut and then moved them over to the cuttlebug for embossing. It was a piece of cake since I didn't have to keep changing out the plates. I made all the cards the same except I changed out the color here and there.

Once the cards and cookies were done, it was onto a birthday gift for one of my dearest friends- Carol. She really likes purple so I knew I was going to make her a chunky tag in that color. I had been in cahoots with her husband Jean Paul to find me a picture of the two of them for this project. The first ones he gave me were a bit too large for the ornament plate so he shrunk them down and it meant another challenging time of trying to get them out of her house without her seeing them. Mission accomplished- she didn't have a clue. On my previous chunky tags I covered the 2x4 with pages from an old book but to make this one more personal I used sheets of music that were given to Carol from her sister-n-law who passed away last year. Being the generous person that she is, Carol had shared her precious treasures with me not realizing she would be getting them back in a different form. Once the paper was attached using Claudine Hellmuth's Studio gesso I distressed it with Dusty Concord and Bundled Sage. I then stamped the flourishes onto the block. Don't ask me why I don't stamp the paper prior to attaching it. I guess I need to see the block in 3D to know which flourishes to use and just where to place them. Since this was a gift I decided to use a sealant on it by covering it with Speedball Matte Medium. I think it gave it a chalky look and I 'm not sure I would go that route again.

Now the fun begins. The picture above is the front and it was embellished with a Tim H. ornament plate, some flowers and one of my homemade stick pins. The large flower was actually cream color but I sprayed it with Forever Violet Perfect Pearls Mist. You can see the other sides of the tag in the images below.