"Epic Fail" ...

... at least that's a phrase that my kids would use to describe this! I had THE hardest time getting this card together for TLC290. The challenge was to do a technique called "lace sponging." The basic idea is to take a piece of lace, lay it down on your cardstock; sponge over the top of it, then remove the lace ... which SHOULD leave the pattern of your lace behind. I was batting zero from the start ... first of all, I don't own ONE single, solitary piece of lace!! Not even a piece of lacy ribbon!! Okay, well I have some that a friend recently sent me, which is VERY purdy ... BUT, it was too dense for me to sponge through, so THAT didn't work. THEN, I tried to use some tulle ... which looked kinda BLAH, so THAT was no good. I finally decided to just give up and cheat ... yup! That's right!! I CHEATED. I used my old SU Victorian Lace background stamp!

THEN, I decided to try the "faux tile" technique that my BFF, Jan, recently did on a card for a Control Freaks swap. (Check it out HERE.) It was LUVERLY, so I decided to try it. Well, it is HARDER than it looks!! I kept messing the images up!! First I stamped the images too hard, which made them go down into the score lines or "grout", which totally ruined the whole effect. But if you stamp TOO lightly then you get goobered-up images. I tried stamping this stinkin' background about FOUR times! Sheesh!!

To top it all off, I went to upload the card on SCS and not ONLY did I forget to attach my photo to the upload, I hadn't EVEN edited the photo after I took it off my camera!! It was NOT my day for stampin' ... that's fer SHURE!!

Stamps: Autumn Days, Day of Gratitude, Victorian Lace background
Paper: Soft Suede, Very Vanilla, Pumpkin Pie
Ink: Soft Suede, Pumpkin Pie, Always Artichoke, More Mustard
Accessories: Decorative Label Punch, 1 3/4" Circle Punch, Corner Rounder Punch, Scor-Pal, Stitch-Doodle-Dot Template, Always Artichoke Seam Binding