Good grief! I have just returned from a trip to my local Hobby Lobby as I needed some tan card stock and although I hate Hobby Lobby, when you need tan card stock, you need tan card stock. The reasons I hate Hobby Lobby are too many to mention but today's reason is this:
It's not even July and they are putting out Christmas decorations.
Why did they bother to take them down? Was it so that they would have room for more tacky crap? Of course the Christmas crap is just as tacky especially in June but there in front of me in line was some poor dumb woman buying Christmas ornaments! Really? Is Christmas coming early this year or is it still December 25? I opted to look upon her with pity instead of giving in to my first inclination which was to point and laugh.
More Hob Lob ranting below, but first, here is the tan card stock made into a card to fit into the envelopes from the other day. For my inspiration, I used a card I received from an old stamping friend, Kathy Lewis. Kathy was the teacher at Stampa Barbara long, long ago. I have a whole box of correspondence I've saved over the years. Her card is very exact...

... mine is not. I have a feeling she used a light box and stamp positioner to get the images to line up perfectly but since I chose tan, my light box would not penetrate. I don't figure anyone is going to get out their calipers to check my alignment so mine won't be as perfect as Kathy's. First I stamped the image on the front, cut it out - which reminds me.....
Whoever broke into my house and stole my Exacto knife broke back in and returned it! Thanks, but you could have at least changed the blade!
Anyway, so once the front image was cut out, I traced around the cut out part to the second panel, lined the image up with the positioner, and stamped. I then cut out around the Texas shape and repeated the process for the inside panel. It's really more trouble than it's worth but a cool effect, nonetheless. And your friends will wonder how the heck you did it. Colored pencil, some Versamark stamping and a little stamp pad dragging to finish.
The real trick is finding an image with a foreground and a background that isn't to difficult to cut out. And if you are like most people, you are afraid of your stamp positioner. Odds are, if you would just practice, you'd love it!
Now, back to that damned Hobby Lobby...
I did a little research and found out that Hob Lob is heavily involved in dominionism which is really creepy. Google it - you'll be glad you did! Now I don't care what religion you choose or what kind of crazy stuff you want to believe but when it comes to influencing the government, I get a little itchy. If your religion is so damn good, why do you need to push it on to others? Blue Bell Ice Cream tastes great - you don't need to force me to eat it!
I'll have to give them credit, though. They were still playing the nauseating religious elevator music instead of nauseating Christmas elevator music. Maybe there's something to it but I really doubt that a synthesized version of How Great Thou Art makes people buy more.
Maybe it's just me but encouraging people to spend money on something as frivolous as Christmas decorations in this economy is just wrong. OK, maybe if you have no debt and your kids have been completely educated so that they'll never have to work at Hobby Lobby and there's no chance that another economic crisis will force you to live under the nearest overpass then you can buy whatever you want. But if that's you, you probably have more sense than to overbuy and overdecorate. Actually, scratch that. I know plenty of seemingly smart, financially secure people who have the most god-awful taste. They are probably trembling with excitement in line at Hobby Lobby right now.
And how much of that crap comes from China? I'm guessing a lot which is interesting since Hob Lob purports to be such a Christian corporation. How does that work with the oppression and lack of religious freedom in China? Not to mention the economic situation between our countries. But mainly I just hate the Christmas crap. Well, and all the other crap. And the fact that they are hurting small individually owned stamp and scrapbook stores. Oh, crap! I think I'm going to have to find another source for my card stock.
If you ask me, I and realize that you didn't, you should take the money you would normally cheerfully hand over to the Hob Lob and spend it on learning Chinese.
OK - I think that's it. Glad I got it out of my system. Now I'm going to sing a few Christmas carols and take a nap.