Mostly Blue Twinchie Swap

The holidays have ended, winter has set in, and besides dealing with the traditional five pound weight gain from all the sweets I have consumed, I am continuing to make some cards for next Christmas.  When our notable moderator on Tennessee Stampers decided we needed a swap to break us from the doldrums and get us creating without using red and green, it was a breath of fresh air!  She chose "Mostly Blue" as the theme for her diminutive "twinchie" swap.  For those of you scratching your heads now, or if you are new to stamping and paper arts, a "twinchie" is twice the size of an "inchie," so it is 2 inches square.  It was hard NOT to make snow the center of this theme, since winter + blue=snow.  At least in my book.  

So trying hard not to just cover the little art piece with snowflakes, I opted for a snowflake cardstock with some silver accents.  This was an "after Christmas" sale find at Michael's for $5.99--a whole book of blue glossy printed cardstock, accented with shiny silver.  Perfect for this swap...and for my card of the month assignment, too!  So I managed to get 10 twinchies and two cards from only one of those sheets of cardstock.  The card will be shown another day.  I wanted to mail it to my assigned person and let her see it in person before showing it here.  

Four Little Twinchies

So instead of just snow, snow globes are the objects on my mostly blue twinchies.  I stamped a miniature Eiffel tower on white card stock, added a little snow flurry stamp from Inkadinkado's Flourishes for Inchies.  Then some Ranger Snowcap dabber was added to a piece of clear plastic packaging punched out the same size as the circle with the stamping.  (How many of you are saving your plastic packaging now?  I am finding so many uses for it, after watching Tim Holtz start using it a few years ago.)  

 After that dried, I added some Ice Stickles to the very bottom of the white circle, around the tower, and also to the bottom of the snow flurry on the clear circle.  It wasn't until a little bleeding started at the base of the tower, that I realized I hadn't used Ranger Archival Ink to stamp.  Sigh.  So I had to spray the circles with acrylic sealer, which did NOT work!  

I was up late, and decided it was too late to stamp them all over again and wait on the Stickles to dry again.  So I grabbed some clear nail polish and brushed on a heavy coat.  Without waiting on it to dry, I plopped the clear "globe" on top and began working out the bubbles.  It was perfect, but a little bit messy when some of the excess polish worked its way out of the sandwich.  The effect I was seeking was actually accomplished.  I wanted the little globes to look like someone had shaken them, and the snow was moving back towards the bottom.  The glitter in the bottom of the globe doesn't show up in the scan--sorry!  But it does when you see it in person!

The base was punched from that elusive tab punch that Stampin' Up decided to retire.  Now everyone wants it!  It made a perfect base for my little globe.  I punched one, trimmed the edge from one end, cut it at the fold line, glued that little edge on the bottom of the other end so it gives the base some dimension.  Then I made 2013 labels with my Dymo label maker and affixed them on the base.  The little silver accents are made by Magenta.  They are those wonderful accents you just peel off, trim and use.  I love these, because everything on the sheet can be used for accenting.

I have been inspired by Jennifer McGuire and her winter thank you cards, (click this link for the first batch she did) using the more wintry stamps instead of hiding them away until next Christmas.  I will share some I have been making in the next blog!