Winged Sugar Skull

Good Morning! I hope you had a terrific weekend and that your week has started off equally fabulous!

Today I bring you the first of two cards I will be teaching at China Phoenix 2 the morning of July 10th. I wanted to play with the new Tim Holtz dies and had seen lots of beautiful creations floating around the Internet, but it was this uber-kewl card by my bloggin' buddy, Kathi, that got the old noggin' percolating hardcore ;D What would happen if the Tim Holtz dies and the Bombshell sugar skulls had a brief, but passionate whirlwind romance? What would their love child look like?

I started working on these two cards in the late afternoon last Thursday and didn't stop until 2:00am Friday morning. I was so focused and in "the zone" that even after I went to bed, my head was buzzing for another hour before I could drift off to sleep. I tell you, it was crazy! When I woke up 5 hours later, I felt like I had been on a bender...LOL!! Stamping is a drug!

Before I started this project I told Nancy at CP2 that I would be working with Grunge Paper. She said "Are you sure on the Grunge Paper...not Grunge Board". I said "Grunge Paper", so she ordered up a bunch. Once at home, I spent 2 whole days looking for my Grunge Paper, only to finally remember that I had originally bought it for mom and had given it to her several months ago. It became an obsession right after Tim (yes, we are on a first name basis...except he doesn't know mine) featured Grunge Paper roses on one of his latest 12 Tags of Christmas projects. Long story short, I ended up having to use Grunge Board after all, and confessing my faux pas to Nancy. I really think this hobby has mercilessly murdered several brain cells over the past 13-years. I suffer from a severe case of CRS...Can't Remember S***! Pardon my asterisks! Hey, I'm pretty sure you can even get that on a rubber stamp by River City Rubber Works!

Anyhoo, the wings and crown are out of Grunge Board. I embossed the wings with one of his new texture fades...the swirly one. Then I applied lots of Fired Brick Distress Ink to the wings and highlighted the swirls with Walnut Ink Distress Stickles. The crown got the color treatment with lots of Vintage Photo Distress Ink and a good slathering of Tarnished Brass Distress Crackle. I rolled out all the TH tools on this one...LOL! The sugar skull is by Bombshell Stamps, of course, and it is colored with Copics. The background panel was made by laying down some Fired Brick and Vintage Photo Distress Inks on a craft sheet, misting the ink with water and then laying down the oval panel on top. I dried the panel, but went back in several times to soak up the remaining ink from the sheet, which created all of those fun blotches. I assembled the card using lots of foam tape for dimension and finished it off with twine, a key charm, gems and a paper flower. Having this much fun should be against the law...hahaha!

Come back tomorrow and I'll show you card number two. Enjoy your day!