Figments of my Imagination

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Trust Your Inner Knowing

The weather had gotten warmer again so we were back outside painting our house over the weekend.  We had already chosen a bright blue color for the door that leads in and out of the garage.  The house color was also chosen - a bright yellowish color that we began painting last fall before it got too cold and we had to wait 'til the warm weather returned.  So now that we are back outside painting we had some new decisions to make.  In particular, we needed to decide what to do on the patio.  We wanted the posts to be painted some type of wood color.  My internal knowing was leading me toward a particular direction and then we went to the paint store.  There was a woman at the paint store - she sits back by all of the paint chips - and helps advise customers on color choice.  She came over to us and started to talking to us about the house.  She made a comment about how painting a surface to look like wood often doesn't work and she began to pull colors that she felt would compliment the other colors we had already chosen.  Long story short, we ended up leaving the paint store with a few samples that were definitely not in the direction my inner knowing had been heading.  Can you tell that I'm still needing to learn my huge lesson...to trust my own inner knowing?!  I guess I'm just a slow learner!  You know what happens next - we put up those sample colors and yuck!  Totally not what we wanted.  Then the fun began.  I started walking around the house to find an item that was the color that I really wanted.  I grabbed an antique camera stand that was made of wood and proceeded to carry it outside.  Too funny - when I got outside Michael was walking out of the garage with a wood box!  He had had the same thought to find an object that had the color :)  Great minds think alike :)  Well, back to the paint store he went.  He came back with a color that was pretty - but it was missing the look of wood.  So off to the craft room I went and in all the bottles of craft paint in my "stash" I managed to find a maple stain that I had bought ages ago and never used.  Out I went with the little bottle and a woodgraining tool (have you ever tried one?  totally fun!).  When I played around with the stain and the tool - voila!  It was just what we wanted.  We went back to the paint store one more time to find a top coat that could mimic the stain from the little craft paint bottle.  My inner knowing was finally at peace :)  Now if I could just learn to trust it from the start! :)
Today's card is a Mother's Day card for my mom :)  I started with the Twitterpated designer series paper and a Baja Breeze card base.  I attached the two together with a little machine stitching.  Next came the Elements of Style stamp set - I was pretty happy with how I was able to mimic the look of the paper with the stamp and a bit of painting with my aqua painter!  The greeting is from a retired hostess set (had to keep it - LOVE that Mother's Day greeting!).  The hummingbird is also from Elements Of Style.  Finally, I used some dazzling details to add a bit of bling!