"Tea Caddy," telescoping card

I'm having a tea party. Want you join me? We're going to drink tea out of huge cups, and cut and paste paper circles.  Nested ornate paper circles appeal to me. They always have. I can remember coveting paper doilies as a child, thought I never knew what to do with them once I had them. Now, however, they have a new purpose in my life: the desire for them drives me to buy more and more crafting equipment so I can make those lovely nested circles whenever I want, in all sizes (stepping up by 1/8 inch increments).

This tutorial for a Telescoping Card from Beate at Splitcoaststampers.com, and all of its nested circles, continues to inspire me. This weekend, I had both my Silhouette Cutter and the Cuttlebug making shapes for me to complete my own version of the Telescoping Card, "Tea Caddy."

Tea Caddy, telescoping card, closed

Tea Caddy, telescoping card, open

I stamped my images and colored them in using colored pencils (and Odorless Mineral Spirits for blending).  My choice of pencils to color my images was also inspired by a Splitcoaststampers tutorial on shading with colored pencils. They have inspired me to use pencils before; last time, I colored hats, and wrote all about it in my first blog post about colored pencils.

I enticed the teacups and teapot to land in the trucks using a tool I call the Stamp-a-ma-cross, a make-shift Stamp-a-ma-jig consisting of a cheap unfinished wooden cross from Michael's and some tracing paper (Stamp-a-ma-jig tutorial here).  It did work like a charm, but I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just spring for the real thing. There’s nothing like having the right tools.

Stamp-a-ma-cross, a make-shift stamp alignment tool ($1 at Michael's)

I like the idea, paper, shapes and colors I used for this card. As for the execution, I look forward to the time when I can render my paper-crafting ideas in relatively few attempts with a level of craftsmanship comparable to what I manage in my beadwork. Like with my beadwork, for some reason that I cannot imagine, I am always considering ways to go into business. What do you think about a line of rubber stamps with images of things that you put things in?  Like trucks, baskets, carts, wheelbarrows, pockets, a bicycle with a rack, jars, fish tanks, garbage cans, and, well, maybe not garbage cans.

I’m just joining the paper crafting world, but I’m trying to be a grown-up about it, so I’ll list my materials.

• Dies: Spellbinder's Beaded Circles, Scalloped Circles (small and large) and Classic Circles (large)
• Stamps: trucks from Recollections; teacups from Hero Arts, teapot from the dollar bin at Michael's (with no markings on it whatsoever), sentiment from Justrite Stampers  (another feeder of my circle frenzy)
• Paper: Recollections Mosaic Memories stack

I hope you'll come to the tea party. It's going to be BIG.