Bookmarks XXXIX: Paisley Tea

This bookmark fought me and fought me and I'm not entirely certain I've won. Still, it's hard to lose completely with a bookmark: regardless of its aesthetic appeal, it will certainly be successful at marking my place in a book.

I do not think I ended up making this bookmark out of any of the things I started with. I had visions of cherries and milkshakes and pink, like a pretty vintage ice cream advertisement poster.

Well, I have a cherry background I'm happy with. And I have a cute little milkshake all cut out and pink as you could wish. But the milkshake doesn't work on the background! If I don't back it with something, it blends in. If I do, the backing is awkward and pushes the cherry background into a red muddle. Argh!

So I put that aside, picked up some pretty purple paisley paper and a scrap I've been using to wipe up sprays from my craft mat, and made tea. Pretty pink & purple paisley tea. I whacked at some white lace ribbon with purples and pinks and added that too, to up the vintage quota.

I like the teapot, but I must admit that the teacup is a bit of a muddle: i.e., until I tell you that it is a teacup, it's just this muddled shape. D'you think it would be easier to see if I colored all the teacup parts in with the purple pen? Maybe I'll do that.

(I suppose it's fitting that this distressed piece of paper ends up being part of a tea bookmark -- its first round of distressing, way under all the pinky-purple, was Tea Dye Distress Ink.)

I'm entering this bookmark into the following challenges:

• Speedy Fox and Friends Challenge 129: Photo Inspiration (I took my inspiration from the swirl: swirly paisley, swirly steam, and swirly -- well -- swirls!)
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #190: Yummy Treat (I put a lot of honey in my tea. You betcha it's sweet!)
• Fab 'n' Funky Challenge #142: Vintage
• The Crafty Pad #192: Distress It! (that poor originally-white piece of paper has been crumpled, smeared around on my craft pad, soaked, and edged multiple times... it's not just distressed, it's downright harassed!)
• Hiding In My Scrap Room #67: Super Scraps Saturday (the white distressed cardstock is a scrap I've been using to wipe my craft mat after using sprays for a bit)
• Link Up For Pink (It's a dark, rather purple-y pink, and it has nothing to do with Breast Cancer Awareness... but it is pink.)
• Crafty Mess Challenge 19: Anything Goes

Supplies: (purple paisley cardstock is from Recollections/Michaels, and lace is Celebrate It Occasions/Michaels white 7/8")

Bookmarks XXXVII: Pair o' Pairs

Here's the story: I had rescued a particularly hideous greenish mustard piece of cardstock from the floor, so it was sitting on my cutting mat. I was paging through DCWV's "Sweet" matstack looking for something to think pink with, because hey, right now that's enter-able into about a dozen challenges without even stretching. (Look, they don't always have to be challenging.) And then there was this floral pattern incorporating pink and an almost mustard-y yellow. It kinda looked like it would go with that ugly cardstock.

I determined to force the issue. Almost-coordinating papers don't give you the opportunity to use up something ugly every day, after all.

I also wanted to use some of my new fruits and sweets stamps. And it hit me that, hey, pears are a yellowy-greenish color!

There was also a light blue on the floral print, giving me the opportunity to use some fairly dull and uninspiring light grey-blue cardstock as well... and to make a pair of pear bookmarks.

I promise that's the only play on words I'm deliberately committing here. And I totally would have stamped a bunch of grapes for the blueish bookmark if I'd had such a stamp, just to avoid the pun. 'Cause I like clever puns, but this one is not clever.

Also, that blue pear kinda weirds me out.

I stamped everything in pink (and clear embossed), edged with pink, and used a little of my new pink polka-dot washi tape in an effort to play up the pinkness for all those Breast Cancer Awareness / Think Pink competitions.

To be fair to the grey-blue cardstock, it's not entirely uninspiring. However, the only thing it suggests to me is rainy days, and I own no cloud, raindrop, or umbrella stamps. So.

I'm entering this pear pair of bookmarks into the following challenges:

• Link Up For Pink
• Our Craft Lounge 137: Go PINK for Breast Cancer Awareness
• Art Impressions 83: PINK! for Breast Cancer Awareness
• Dream Valley Challenge 42: Go Pink
• Lexi's Creations Challenge 75: Pink
• Drunken Stampers Challenge #100: Think Pink
• Ladybug Crafts Ink: Flowers and Embossing (flowers on my patterned paper, and all the stamping is heat embossed in clear)
• Stampin' for the Weekend 18: Feeling Floral (flowers on patterned paper)
• Joanna Sheen: Down in the Garden (more like down in the pear orchard, yeah? But that's a kind of garden.)
• Crafty Bloggers Network #4: Anything Goes

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's October Linky Party.

Supplies: (washi tape is "printed paper tape" from Up & Up / Target)