Teapot Tuesday 235

It's Tickle a Teapotter week and the teapotter we'll be tickling is none other than the Queen herself - Miss Cindy.  So you know that Cindy has this thing for black and white polka dots right?  Well, maybe you didn't know, but you do now!  This teapot is perfect for her.  We're celebrating her retirement.  No, she's still working her 9-5.  She's retiring from being our main Teapot Hostess and taking a break from "public" stamping for a bit.  I say "public" because I'm thinking she's gonna be stampin' at her own whim for a while.  (You know you just can't turn your back on all that paper, ink, and rubber!)  

So, instead of a random teapotter selection (as we do to choose the person you exchange your card with on tickle weeks), this week we are all tickling Cindy!  

I saw this cool 3-D card recently on Calla Lily Studio Blog (there's a link there for the YouTube tutorial) and was wanting to try it out.  Believe it or not, I do not have a very big selection of solid 12" x 12" cardstock - but I did have white, and since this is a "black and white, with a touch of color" challenge I thought I could pull it off.

I'll humbly ask you to keep in mind that it only looks crooked because of the poor photography - the blocks are all square.  Yes, but keeping with the inspiration teapot and Cindy's love of polka dots, I had to get some dots on there somewhere.  Thus the alternating squares and circles.  Oh, and the really nice thing about this is that it folds flat.   Really.  Check out the link above and you will see how nicely it does.  

I can't make up my mind if I like it or not.  Somehow, I'm getting the feeling of the decor of some cheesy banquet hall from years ago.  Well, what's done is done.

But wait, in my purging last weekend (an ongoing project around here lately), I came across a pack of blank notecards that were white with black polka dots and a roll of ribbon that was black with white polka dots.  Ha!  And I have the SU tiny purse die!  Luckily for this idea, the polka dots were printed on the front and back of the notecards and the card just fits on the die with the centerfold lined up with one of the creases on the bottom of the purse.  Bingo!  

I die cut a piece of black felt for the flap because the felt had a truer black value that matched the ribbon.  Black cardstock just did not do it!  Added the ribbon for the handle and a red button.  

You've got to fill the purse, right!  Well, the purse will have another WIP (Work In Progress) that I finally finished - a zentangled pendant.  I did four of these this past summer, each one of them different, and only had to add the cord to complete it.  I picked the one that had the most "dots".  

I started the teapot challenges a long time ago after seeing a card that Cindy had posted on SCS.  That led me to find out more about the challenge on her blog.  That was back in July 2008.  And here is the link to my first Teapot Post.  

The challenges have evolved over the years and still are a lot of fun to take part in.   But, like Cindy is doing now, I have recently taken a break from doing them regularly.  You'll see them now and again, because I do like the inspiration the teapots give me.  

I've been noticing that a lot of the blogs that I follow have slowed down and some of them have even gone dormant.  It saddens me a little, but I can certainly understand as I am guilty of the "slowing down" of posting myself.  But, that being said, I am not going to stop following because these bloggers have become my B to B friends (that's Blog to Blog) and like my F to F friends (Face to Face) there comes a time when we all need little breaks.  It makes it all the more heartwarming to see a post pop up like getting a  phone call and catching up with what's been going on.  I do wonder about the ones that have stopped posting altogether though - whether they are all right.  

I am definitely not going to stop posting because I use this as a chronicle of what I've accomplished.  Some people, myself included, make bucket lists of things that they want to do.  This  blog is me celebrating what I have done, what I have seen, and what I have created.