Nature's Touch Sympathy

It's a life-long love of mine ... green growing things, plants, trees, flowers, and yes, their scents as well.  It would be like a gift to myself if I were to delete the countless plant life pics from my laptop & external storage ... seriously.  You're right ... nothing to do with stamping. But it does explain why the Try a New Technique challenge spoke directly to me this week ... TLC601 = All Natural - Use something from nature for your creation.

Stamp Hint:  Two stamps used ... neither was a leaf! 

It's still hot as blazes here in my little rectangle of Texas.  Whew!  But with the TLC challenge in mind, I did make sure to go walking the yard in search of foliage that might work for the technique.  I avoided the holly leaves as they're very wicked-spikey & so waxy that the most they would do is cut the paper and painfully poke my fingers.  (At that point, I would no longer feel happily creative ... so ... I skipped those.)  I settled on that dog-gone wild grape vine that has returned to try to cover my foundation bushes.  (I spent over 2 days earlier in Summer ridding both the front & back of the house of that vining demon! Obviously I didn't treat the remainder of the stems at ground level.  Hmmmmppphh!)

For the technique itself, I misted a bit of water onto Watercolor Paper before arranging the 3 leaves 'face down' on the dampened paper.  To protect my cutting plate, I added a single layer of printer paper atop the leaves plus the top cutting plate.  Then, just rolled it thru the Big Shot, and back again for extra measure.  ;)  Due to the spritzing and my eagerness to get down to creating, I used my craft iron on the back side of the WC paper just to flatten and dry.  

Because the WC paper is so textured, it can be tricky to get a good sentiment stamped directly on it.   Thus, using the Misti allowed me to stamp it twice in the precisely same position to get a pure sentiment without little gaps.  Let's face it, stampers ... there are times when we really like a little bit of 'perfection'.  LOL

Reminder!  Tomorrow is August 31 ... the very last day that the beautiful Thoughtful Branches bundle will be available!  Choose the bundle for 10% savings, or the stamp set and dies are each available individually.   Enjoy!

 Inky (((hugs))),