With Risk Comes Great Reward.

Lesson learned.

I always struggled with the balance between privacy and the desire to be part of the crafting community.  The risks always kept me rather private -  will I get feedback of judgement and criticism?  Or encouragement and affirmation?

Lately I'm getting stronger.  Braver.  More adventurous.  I feel empowered and encouraged and inspired when I do "put my self out there".  People have been so kind and encouraging.  The experience with our Facebook group Stamp Junkies has been so much fun, and has inspired me to do more.  Learn more. Grow more.

So here I go.  I've posted more of my projects on Facebook than ever.  I've started Instagram.  I'm on Pinterest...
And now?  I'm going to attempt to maintain a blog.

This entry is an overdue little tribute to a new stamp company called The Ton.  The company just started a few months ago and I bought a few stamp sets from their second release.  I loved the quality and the "vague-ness" of the sets.  I felt like I could use them in so many different ways.

I created this card in May, rather quite by accident.  But it was ended up being my favorite card to date.  I loved it and was really proud of it.

I had hoped I could stamp the layered peony with white ink on kraft card stock and add the layers with pigment inks.  It really didn't work out the way I had hoped.  The white ink was just a blob.  So I decided to paint in the layers with re-inkers.  I loved the result.  I used watercolors to freehand add in the stem and leaves.  I trimmed it out of my piece of kraft cardstock and and layered it with a sliver of gold card stock onto a Papertrey Ink Woodgrain embossed card base.  The sentiment is a die cut from Papertrey Ink's Big Hugs set.

I shared the photo on our Facebook page, and was SO excited to see that my accidental adventure was so well received and was featured on their May 19, 2015  Trending with The Ton blog post!  Holy cow.  Was THAT a shocking surprise!  I was incredulous.  And giddy.    And inspired to get right back, and create something unique again!  Immediately.

Thank you Effie and the fabulous gals at The Ton: Rubeena, Jessica, and Mayline.   You certainly made my day.  And pushed me out of my shell.  

Watch out, everyone.  I'm free!