Happy Hip Hop Hangover

I've been lax this week. Bad Carole!

The Unity team is off to CHA this week. I admit it. I'm seriously jealous. I really wish I were going, too. I know they'll have a lot of fun, even though they'll be working their hind ends off. I can hardly wait to see what new things they will be unveiling when they return.

The first card for today was done for one of yesterday's challenges. The marvelous Jeanne challenged everyone to use unusual ribbon, trim or lace. Okay. That took me a while, but during Hip Hop, we started talking about chocolate. That was what finally flipped the light switch in my head. Of course!! I had some cut offs from the ribbon we use at work for packaging. Chocolate ribbon and the Kiss stamp from the November KOTM "enjoy YOUR STORY...laugh" - perfect!

I used a cocoa brown chalk ink, which I then heat embossed with clear embossing powder, for the Kiss. I wanted it to really feel like chocolate. The background is another Unity stamp, Deco Hound, which I inked up diagonally with several different shades of pink chalk Colorbox Chalk Ink.
My other upload today is a layout I did back in December. I was talked into posting it on SCS last night after admitting that I'd chickened out on applying for the Unity Scrapbooking DT.
The photo is of my younger son on his first Christmas. He was trying to eat the mallet from a xylophone my Grandmother had sent the boys. The background is brayered Distress Ink, using a technique from Tim Holtz's blog and the Worn Grid background stamp. I stamped the sleigh twice. Three times, actually. The first time was directly on the patterned paper, but it looked bad, so I decided to pop it up. The copics did not look very bright on the dark coloured paper, so I stamped it again on white and then paper-pieced the coloured bits onto the stamped and embossed sleigh. The stocking was also stamped twice. I embossed only the upper portion (the bow, really) on the background, and the full stocking on the white. I then used a red copic and gold and clear spica markers to make it all nice and sparkly. Both of those stamps come from the set Christmas Elegance.
That's all from me for now. I'm off to join the HHH chat on the Unity Forum at Split Coast Stampers. If you haven't been, please do come join us. It's a lot of fun!