Play Ball!

My brother-in-law is not into sports.  He knows they exist but he doesn't ever watch them.  However, many years ago he moved for a job relocation to Baltimore when his three sons and daughter were entering (or about to enter)  their teen years.  And today his three sons and daughter love the Baltimore Orioles. They have gone to more than one game in their lifetime.  I, on the other hand, have never been to a professional game for any sport. But if I have to watch a pro-sports game on TV, I would choose something with a little more action than baseball.  I would choose football or basketball over baseball any day.

But those boys are just not "my way" -- they love baseball. And this week there were several references to the Orioles  in their Facebook posts.  And believe me, you do not want to play Trivial Pursuit with them period -- but especially if the question has anything to do with baseball -- and if the question has anything to do with the Orioles - forget it you will lose. They WILL know the answer.  One of them compares all sorts of things that he has done according to different trivial statistics from baseball.  Those statistics might all be about  the Orioles -- I have no idea.  At least I do know if the references are about "runs batted in" or "number of perfect pitches resulting in strike outs" that those are references to baseball and not basketball.

In honor of my nephews and my great nephews who played baseball in college -- here are these cards.  They are created with  Technique Junkie April release stamps  -- Swing for the Fences (http://techniquejunkies.com/swing-for-the-fences-set-of-7/) and Baseballs - (http://techniquejunkies.com/baseballs/).  

For this first card, I inked the Baseballs background stamp in tan and then very carefully wiped off the tan ink from the stitch lines. Then I used a red marker and colored the stitch lines.   The greeting is first stamped in Versamark and then in the bright red ink.  I stamped it on the card stock and covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set.   Several layers of card stock were used to finish the cards. I added a few wooden beads with some red paint lines. Glue dots adhered them.  The verse is popped up and the beads were quite small and so were about the same height as the popped up verse. 

This next card is made with the same set of stamps above. The background is inked up with a darker brown ink.  Then I stamped the baseball mitt  on the wooden embellishment from my stash. I heat set it to be sure it was dry and rubbed the wood with an anti-static bag to prevent stray embossing powder from sticking.   I over stamped the verse with Versafine Black ink on the mitt and and the empty space. I covered it with clear embossing powder and heat set.  I wrapped some Baker's Twine around the card, added the layers, and adhered the wooden embellishment with several glue dots.   I opted not to try and color the mitt but let the natural color of the wood be its color.

Have a great day - maybe watch a ball game, and get inky!