Take Three Thursday - Abracadabra

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.  
The idea is to take photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. There is no formal link in but please feel free to join in. What have you noticed this week?   

Have a peek at what others have found this week:
Maggie at: FarmersWifeDayByDay    
Eileen at: A Bracelet of Days  

This week was my own creating of cards & in particular that I have ventured into stamping - that's right me, I'm stamping, I'm making that commitment to paper of an image!  I attended a workshop for the crafting of these cards.  Not only was the instructor very helpful & confident in my ability to stamp, a couple of the other regular participants were on hand for little experienced tidbit sharing.  I have signed up for another workshop in October.

I created these three:

The first card is a combination of using a punch (cat) & stamping the jar, water, fish & phrase, then the stamped fish is highlight by using a metal diecut - the inside of the card has 3 stamped fish which was intended to be only one first, but the other 2 are covering up a little over zealous-ness use of ink ... it was a very interesting way to stamp & highlight the water in the jar.  I think I wanted the cat to have a face but the instructor says that the cat is looking at the fish in the jar, so we are seeing the back of the cat.

 The second card is again a technique of die cutting & stamping.  The background is stamped on using a grid template & a finger dauber.  I was assured that this the easiest method.  I chose to stamp some falling leavings & then on top two die cut leaves, one of which I backed with a solid die cut leaf; stamping the phrase, which had me thinking that it was wrong, but the stamp is made to put the phrase at an off angle.  Inside I stamped leaves in opposite corners.  Oh yes, the finishing with a metallic ribbon & bow.

 The third card was the most involved of stamping, glittering, & embossing with a small die cut deer.  The trees are die cut from glitter paper, very sparkly; all those snowflakes are individually stamped so it was time consuming.  The phrase of Peace on Earth is first stamped, then sprinkled with embossing powder, a shake off of extra & heat is applied which puffs up the words.  The snow mounds are free hand cutting.  Inside is a row of stamped snowflakes with glitter powder to highlight.  Phew such stress with so many techniques.

One Google source says Abracadabra is an old Herbrew phrase meaning "I create"   Dan Brown, the author says the word is derived from the Aramaic phrase, avrah kadavrah, which translated means “I create as I speak.”