Coffee and Cards with Deb & Celeste 10/22

I'm SO very excited about our guest this month. Chris Franco and I met online a few years ago through our love of card-making. She's been stamping almost 20 years and currently  is a demonstrator with  Close To My Heart, a wonderful papercrafting company.  She also loves coffee as much as we do, which made her an even more perfect guest. Celeste and I are so glad that Chris joined us and she chose an amazing mood board for us to use as inspiration. 

Isn't that a fun mood board ?!?! I loved the color combo immediately but what drew me to this board was the fact that there are mailboxes in it.  If there's one thing I love as much as card-making, it's letter-writing. I'm in several Happy Mail groups and postcard swaps, and seem to get something in the mail at just the right time whenever I am in need of a pick-me-up. I have a wonderful friend in Scotland, Liz McGuire and she was the inspiration for using the United Kingdom-style mailbox.  I have several other UK friends too, who keep my mailbox full of snail mail !! I did try to  use at least a few of the mood board colors and I hope you like my card. And kudos to Chris -- I had so much fun with this one. 

• On a Cocoa-colored card base, I adhered a piece of paper from the DCWV Collage Art paper stack,  I cut the paper so that I had the bright sun in the upper right corner.
• I downloaded free digis for World Card-making Day from Heffy Doodle, then printed the bear and UK mailbox on white and brown cardstock, and also on red, blue and woodgrain papers.
• The images were fussy-cut and paper-pieced together. A few areas were colored in with several  of my favorite markers. 
• On a matching piece of Collage Art paper, I stamped my sentiment, using  Memories India Black ink . The sentiment was then cut to fit the area above the bear and adhered with Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue. I send lots of Snail Mail to cheer friends up and I love this sentiment - Don't Ever Give Up. It is from the stamp set "StrongerTogether"  by Close To My Heart. Proceeds from sales of this stamp set will be donated to the Red Cross to benefit disaster relief efforts.
• I had several small envelopes in my stash that I has stamped awhile ago and they were perfect for the bottom of the card and also 1 for the mail slot.
• I popped the sentiment up with foam dimensionals and also applied a string of rhinestones along the top, 
• This card is made for all of my Snail Mail, Happy Mail, Postcard Swapping friends.  You all inspire me, support my creative side, keep my mailbox full and never let me give up !!

Please go to Chris's site Stamped Blessings to see what she was inspired to make. We are thrilled with her choice of a Mood Board !! I'm sure that Celeste has also created something fun at her  blog    Crafting Junky. It's always interesting to see what different ideas we get from the same inspiration. 

For this week's coffee, I am drinking Starbucks Fall Blend in a fun spinning zombie head Walking Dead mug .  I am a true Walking Dead fan and the Season 7 Premiere is tonight. There's nothing I like better than a HUGE mug !! ( I like big mugs and I cannot lie !!  LOL )  Thank you for visiting Meticulosity once again. I hope you will sign up to follow me if you haven't already. Please also take a look at Celeste 's and Chris's blogs and follow them too !!

CTMH "Stronger Together"

Debra Davison / Meticulosity