Unlikely Inspiration

Today's card is truly an inspiration card that just proves inspiration can come from just about anywhere. 

I was shopping at CJ Banks on my birthday and just LOVED!, loved, loved the colors and design on their shopping bags and tissue stickers.

I searched through my cardstock and stamps and found some close matches.  I figured out a good size for the circles and strips of paper and thought bright white embossing powder for the stamp would be great.  But after making the 1st card I ran into a big snag. . . .no matter what I did I kept getting extra embossing powder on the paper that would NOT rub off.  I tried with and without the embossing buddy, tried it with Versamark and with pigment ink but nothing would reliably fix the problem.  I'd get 2 good ones and then 3 or 4 bad ones.  I ruined all the blue cardstock I had.  Man! was I mad!!

So I took my project to Memory Lane Tuesday night and talked to Val and Staci.  They had a few suggestions but were as stumped as I was.  The only thing that we could think of is that my embossing powder was either old or somehow corrupted. 
So I bought 2 different kinds of white embossing powder (in addition to finding more blue paper that was a good match).  I rushed home and tried again. . . .and sure enough I was getting a clean image every time. 

Then I just had to try the old one again to make sure it wasn't something weird like humidity in the craft room the 1st day I was trying or dirty fingers or as Val thought. . .some sort of weird finish on the cardstock I was originally using.  And the old embossing powder produced the same bad results - powder all over the place.

And there you have it. . . .it looks like embossing powder CAN get old.  [And just I was wrote this I popped out on to Google and sure enough. . .there's tons of forum posts about similar problems and confirmations that the melting ingredient in the embossing powder can fade and lose it's sticky ability.]
I'm going to go ahead and send the ones I made on the 1st attempt to the family for their weekly card this week.  They all love me and will understand if the cards are less than perfect.  But I will make another 1/2 dozen of the same design to keep in my Thank You card stash.  Can never had enough gratitude in your life ;-). 

Take care and have a great weekend!  See you back here on Monday.