A Parisian respite

This week I hade the opportunity to spend some time with a friend I haven't seen in many years. I did have the chance to have lunch with her recently but that time was short and she invited me to stay a couple of days with her in her beautiful home on a lazy little river in southern Minnesota.

When we both lived in the same town, years ago, she lived in a big, beautiful chalet style home high on a hill overlooking our town. Shortly before she retired her and her husband decided to downsize and were blessed to find a similar home in a smaller town. It is gorgeous with it's chalet appearance and touches on the inside.

She has taken up painting again and her home reflects her artistic gifts for decorating, so many beautiful prints, hand crafted wall décor, glass ware, even a spiral staircase. Such a peaceful, relaxing home. The living room windows, there are 5, overlook the marsh in the back where the river used to flow, until they built a dam. Now she is visited by a family of geese, deer, beaver, rabbits and an array of beautiful birds at her feeders. A peaceful and quiet retret.

We went to a few "junk" shops, had lunch in a local Mexican restaurant, where the food was delicious. In one shop, I held up a blouse and asked her if she liked it. She laughed, she said yes, she donated it!!!! One antique store and so many wonderful items to look at, there simply wasn't enough time (mostly energy on my part) to take it all in and the prices were very, very reasonable.

In the evening she introduced me to some of her favorite shows on YouTube, the refurbishing of French chateaus. There was one contractor who was not only skilled but also very entertaining as he works on his French convent, restoring it to it's original glory.

One of our discussions was about how no one, especially the younger generations no longer send Thank You cards or sometimes not even verbally when they accept a gift, which is dismaying. The common courtesies are not so common, although I must say that when I stopped a local Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cone on my way home there was a young teenager, who was going to come the building as I was leaving. He backed away and held the door for me, which was a sheer delight.

When deciding on what stamp set to use for my Thank You card, an oldie but a goodie floated to the top for my inspiration. It is a retired set, so if you like it you may be able to find it on eBay or Facebook Market Place. It is called "Parisian Beauty". Perfect for our chateau evenings. I love this set with it's Eiffel Tower dies and stamps. As well as the Amore and Merci stamps.

I CASE'D this card from Sarah's Stamp Retreat (UK). She did a wash in the background with a paint brush on Shimmer White paper I didn't have luck with that. so my card has a sponged background. Shimmer Paper handles water better, but since it is retired Basic White will also work well, especially when sponging.

The card base is 8-1/2" x 5-1/2" scored at 4-1/4". The Basic Gray layer is 4" x 5-1/4. The Shimmery White layer is 3-7/8" x 5-3/8.

I put a drop of Flirty Flamingo in the top tray of the stamp pad and added some water and sponged that on. The I did the same thing with Basic Gray.

After sponging, I stamped the images in Basic Gray, doing multiple stamps without reinking. The Eiffel Tower is also die cut in Basic Gray. TIP: I die cut the Eiffel Tower out of the background layer before I attached it to the card, it's covered up by the top layer. I was disappointed to not to be able to locate my adhesive sheets, which work great for these intricate dies, so I adhered the Eiffel Tower with a couple of dots of Multipurpose glue on the back.

The merci die is die cut out of Basic Gray with Foam Adhesive attached to it, before die cutting, giving it a little dimension. ( I could have die cut the merci out of the gray background layer, but didn't think of it.) TIP: I found that pulling the negative part of the die away while holding the letters worked better for me, rather than pulling the letters out of the negative part of the card stock. I was pretty careful not to loose the dot for the "i".

Confession here: I wasn't able to get the color for the tag the way I wanted it, Flirty Flamingo cardstock was too dark and Petal Pink didn't blend as well, so I actually used a couple of my failures with the brush technique for my wash and I think it turned out even better. The label is about 3-3/4" x 3/4" and punched with the Banner's Pick A Punch. I stamped and die cut the Fleur de Lis with Smokey Slate and die cut them, attached two to the label and one to the card with a Dimensional.

This is the stamp set and bundle. It's from the 2020 January - June Mini Catalog. I think it's a beautiful set.

Here are the supplies that I used. Click on the photo and you can add them to your cart. My website for purchasing any of our Stampin' Up!® supplies is: sharonbrennan.stampinup.net .