Take A Break For Some Tea & Halloween Blog Series

Are you a tea or coffee drinker?  We're tea drinkers in the Steele home.  In a big way!  We drink tea with breakfast and in the evening, and I usually have another mug mid-afternoon.  In the summers, there is always a pitcher of iced tea in the frig.  I put a squeeze of lemon in my tea, hot or cold.  

While I love the taste of tea, what I really love is the ritual that surrounds the tea.  Brewing a mug of tea means it's time to slow down and relax.  To chat with loved ones.  To enjoy a good book.  To have a cookie or two.  If you prefer coffee, you probably have rituals, too, that evoke warm associations and feelings.

My card today was inspired by a sketch challenge from Splitcoaststampers.  I chose my colors of Pear Pizzazz, Calypso Coral, and Petal Pink from the Bird Ballad DSP pack.  I thought these colors were so pretty for the teapot and flowers in the Tea Together stamp set!  And that pretty polka-dotted paper is part of the Bird Ballad DSP pack, which is included in Stampin' Up!'s Buy 3, Get 1 Free DSP sale (see bottom of this blog post)!

The Ornate Frames dies are meant to coordinate with the Spooktacular Bash suite in the Holiday Catalog, but I find they go with so many other sets.  The dies come in a variety of sizes and have such pretty details that they work on any project and fit a lot of sentiments from other sets.

I put together a little photo tutorial of how I used Stampin' Blends to color the flowers from the Tea Together set.  My colors used were Light and Dark Petal Pink; Light Calypso Coral; Light and Dark Granny Apple Green (for the leaves).

Once I finished coloring the flowers, I used the Tea Time dies to cut them out.

These markers lay down color so smoothly, without coloring lines or streaks.  I'll stamp a bunch of images on Whisper White cardstock in Memento Tuxedo Black ink (you must use that ink in order to avoid image bleeding) and color while watching a favorite TV show (Jeopardy....)  - or when my husband wants me to watch TV with him but I don't really want to watch TV because I don't have a favorite show other than Jeopardy (gosh, I love Alex Trebek.  He makes me feel like everything will be ok).

Speaking of everything being ok, I have a 6 Days of Halloween Blog Series starting Monday!  Each day will feature a cute treat holder along with a free pdf tutorial - just because I love you, dear readers and friends!!  I'm so thankful to you for reading my blog, commenting, and choosing me as your demonstrator!  So make sure to stop back Monday and start your week with some Halloween fun.

Through September 30

See Details Here

 Through September 30

Click here to see selected DSP.

Register by September 11

See Details Here