Scattered Gold
Do you do anything to occupy your mind when you’re doing a task that you don’t enjoy?
I dread doing any kind of maintenance chores, like folding and putting away my laundry, making dinner (ugh), planning meals, cleaning my craft room, (cleaning pretty much anything, actually), and grocery shopping. To avoid boredom and reduce the torture of performing some of these tasks, I will often binge a show on Netflix or Prime. I find that 20 to 30 minute episodes work best and they can’t be a show that I have to pay to close attention to, since I need to actually accomplish the unpleasant task at the same time. I’ve tried watching some of those home improvement or organization reality shows, but those aren’t working at all. They’re nice to look at, but really boring to listen to, LOL!
The shows that keep me company and make my tasks a bit more bearable are my tried and true favourites. I just come back to them over and over. They’re fun and light and always help to lift my mood.
- The Office (my son bought me the complete box set for Christmas!)
- Brooklyn 99 (absolute gold!)
- New Girl
- The Good Place
I’ve watched some other shows that I’ve enjoyed as well, of course, but these ones are a few of the ones that I can listen to while I work and I know exactly what’s happening without looking at the screen most of the time because I’ve seen it before. They’re my friends and they always make me smile.
The one circumstance on my list above where I have to give my full attention, is grocery shopping. Maybe listening to music with ear buds would help? Kind of like my own personal movie soundtrack!
How do you endure the unpleasant and boring tasks in your day? Do you have any special tricks that dust a little bit of gold over the dull and dreary parts?
Of course, some of the shiniest gold that’s scattered throughout my week is when I get to play in my craft room! AND PLAY, I DID! As usual, the card I have to show you today begins with some creative inspiration from the As You See It Challenge Blog! It’s a sketch!
My Gilded Leafing from Stampin’ Up! has been quietly waiting for me to play with it since I bought it over a month ago. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to even open the container after being warned that it will expand or make a horrible mess. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for ACTUAL scattered gold to be all over my craft room! But for my card today, I’m happy to report that my Gilded Leafing has been a wonderful and fun art experience that definitely needs further exploration.
I used the Art Gallery Bundle, which, if purchased between now and February 28th during Sale-a-bration, will allow you to choose a free Sale-a-bration item. Coincidentally, I also used the Oh So Ombre Designer Series Paper on this card, which is a free pack of 6×6″ patterned paper with a $60 CAD purchase. I used one of my new Blending Brushes with Bermuda Bay ink to sponge a little extra colour behind where my flower was going to be. The stem and leaves were stamped with Shaded Spruce and I stamped the two steps of the flower on a separate piece of the same paper using Pretty Peacock and Night of Navy ink. After adding some Wink of Stella to the accents on the flower, it was die-cut with the coordinating die.
Before attaching the die-cut flower, I played with my Gilded Leafing and some Multipurpose Liquid Glue. I had NO idea what I was doing. That’s what made it fun (and a little bit scary, too!). I wondered if I could create a splatter kind of effect by mixing a small amount of water with the liquid glue on a paint brush, then tapping the brush on my finger over the paper to splatter the thinned glue on the surface. Then I would apply the leafing to the glue. This didn’t go as planned at all because I applied the gilding while the glue was too wet. It smeared the glue, resulting in a less defined placement of the gold leaf. If you make sure the glue is completely dry (remember, this glue stays sticky when it’s dry!) before you apply the leafing, you will not get the smudged gold like I did. The splatter the the left of the flower was dry, while the splatter to the right was too wet when I applied the leafing. See the difference?
I decided I liked the smeared imperfection! I carried on with the piece by rounding the two corners of the ombre paper with my Detailed Trio Punch and attached the flower with Stampin’ Dimensionals. This was glued to the Basic White layer and the Gray Granite card base. I added a bit of texture and interest to the Basic White layer by running it through my Stampin’ Cut & Emboss Machine with the Painted Texture 3D Embossing Folder. I also added some splatter by flicking some ink from my Black Stampin’ Blends Marker onto the white cardstock.
The final elements on my card are the Fine Art Ribbon and the white heat-embossed sentiment on the black die-cut label. The sentiment and label are from the Many Messages Bundle. This bundle is really cool because it has a bunch of different sentiments on one large background stamp AND they line up perfectly with the ONE die that cuts them ALL OUT AT ONCE! Oh my gosh! Talk about a time saver for making multiple cards for multiple occasions! I think that will be my next project – make a set of cards using all the sentiments from this bundle. Ooooh! I can feel the creative wheels gaining momentum! Yup. That’s my next project, for sure!
Make sure you give this sketch challenge a try and share it with us over at the As You See It Challenge Blog.
But before you go, don’t forget to share with me any tips and tricks you have to scatter gold
(or smear it, LOL!)
over the dreaded tasks you have in the day. What is your dreaded task and how do you get through it without dying? Or is it just me? Am I the only one who feels like it’s torture to do these things? I tell you, if I was a wealthy person, I would pay good money to have all of those things done for me!
