Change of Heart

I know......I said I wouldn't post anything until next week.....BUT..... Mother's Day is Sunday and I realized I didn't have a card done...sheesh! Anyway...here is my card. I'll make two of these. I also followed the sketch challenge on SCS (SC227). That tulip image is from Kathryn the Teawife on the Technique Junkie yahoo group. Her mother drew it. The moment I saw it I knew that I would use it for my Mother's Day card. It is colored with copic markers and highlighted with a white Signo Pen. The layer behind the tulips is a TJ technique called Waxy Cuttlebug and the horizontal layer is Polished Stone. The dots were made with a Signo Pen. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and is layered using Stampin Up punches. The 'lace' to the side of the tulips is made from an All Night Media punch. Finally......gold cording from SU behind the sentiment. The whole card looked kind of flat after I had it initially laid out. So, I decided to sponge SU Eggplant Envy on most of the layers and it made such a difference. Hope my moms like it!! AND.....my little grandson Zander stayed asleep for the whole process.....THANK GOODNESS!!
Last night my SIL, Adam, brought over a present that the whole family went in together to get for my granddaughter, Audrey. Her birthday isn't until November but we found this item on Craigs list and it was only $100 instead of the $250 purchase price. It is a huge horse that you can actually ride. You pet it and it moves its head, snorts, whinnies, eats a carrot, clops when you bounce on it as you 'ride'. Swishes it's tail, etc. I don't remember the product name but it IS just perfect for her....she loves horses and it young enough to enjoy the mystery of it. My dog, however, wasn't quite sure what to make of it. She watched warily of to the side. When it whinnyed loudly, she barked and ran and my grandson cried. Guess they're not ready for a new member in the household yet! HA!! Now to store it for 6 months somewhere Audrey won't see it!!
Now off to get my card in the mail!!

Sketch Challenge SC226

Here is my card for the sketch challenge for Splitcoaststampers this week. I needed to get it done tonight because Wednesday will be very busy.....more further down. I've had this cute flying pig stamp for several years as well as the words. Both are from Rubberstampave. I also had been hoarding the patterned paper by Basic Grey. It didn't look all that great until I sponged the edges and added the white dots. The sponging gave it some great depth. The pig is colored with copic markers. Can't wait for my certification class on May 20th!! I'm all registered and rearing to go.

Now for tomorrow's happenings. My daughter, Angie, will be going in for surgery to remove a growth from her ear drum. Unfortunately, this growth is on her good ear. The surgeon thinks that it is just a mass of skin. I pray that is the case as well. He also said that he thinks that by the time he removes the growth that there won't be much drum left so he will do an ear drum reconstruction at the same time. Angie had a reconstruction done when she was in 5th grade on her other ear. That reconstruction was done because her ear drum wouldn't heal after four sets of tubes. Poor girl! I'll go down early tomorrow to the hospital to be with her before surgery. Her MIL will be there too.

This weekend was good. We got our Orange 1967 Mustang Fastback washed and ready for the show on Sunday. It is one of the first shows of the year and they had 220 cars! That's a wonderful show and is a good omen for my car club's show in July. The Purple Dream (our other car) has a cracked header so it is off the road until the new headers come.

hAnglar Bingo

Here is the card that I did for the Splitcoast Sketch Challenge this week. The image was shared from a friend in Sweden. It is by a company called hAnglar. The little girl is soooo darling!! She is colored with copic markers. I used my new Spica glitter pens on her wings but the scanner did its job in ignoring the sparkle. It also ignored the beautiful sparkle of the splats in the background. The technique on the background is from the most recent Technique Junkie newsletter and is called Bingo Blast. It really is a blast to make it!! Instead of using acrylics I used Radiant Rain daubers. They are incredibly sparkly.

I did get a pleasant surprise over the weekend! I found out that one of the cards that I submitted to Rubber Stamp Madness magazine through Kimm Bennington-Thompson's submission group is going to be published in their next issue. It is a tiger face for their Rubber Earth theme. I can't post the picture until the magazine is out in three months or so. I have a card in their most recent edition of Red Tulips.

I also found out that a tag card that I made over a year ago was accepted and published in the Stampler Sampler Catch Up issue! I've been haunting my mailbox waiting for my complimentary copy of it!! Here is a picture of that card. One pic closed and one pic open

SC222 Biker Girl

http://Charmedcrafts.blogspot.com is having an awesome blog candy giveaway! I linked the card below to their candy offer!

Isn't this the most darling little girl! Thanks to my Swedish friend, she is now gracing my blog!! She is from a stamp company called hAnglar. They only sell their stamps in Sweden and Norway. I colored her with copic markers. I can see that I really need to work on my shading and thinking on where my light source is coming from. The plaid paper is from a 8 x 8 pad I got a couple of years ago. The dark green has a real heavy texture to it. The 'faux stitching' around the outer edge is a technique from the April Technique Junkie newsletter. I have found that it really doesn't matter what technique I use to stitch.....I always get it crooked. ;-) It did weird things on the really textured paper too.

Today I watched Zander.....for the most part he was a wonderful baby but later in the day he was truly fussy even with a nap and food. I think he teeth are really bothering him. He is cutting the second top tooth. It will make 6 for him when it finally comes through! It did make for a looooong day for me. Ray was so sweet.....he got dinner on the way home at Applebee's. Mmmmmmm, ribs!

Not Sleepy!

Well, I couldn't sleep tonight.......Ray was snoring too loud for restful sleep so I went to the stamp hole to create. (Stamp Hole so named because it is in the basement and is a long narrow room with one small window at one end). I created two cards for the Sketch Challenge on SCS today. The first card was made with paper from K & Co. I acutally made it before I went (or at least tried) to go to bed. It was a huge pad that had really beautiful vintage looking papers in it. The image is from Maryse Carrier. Maryse was an artist for Magenta. Then she struck out on her own. I had my eye on many of her stamps. Then she decided to go in a different direction and put all the unmounted that she had on sale at 70% off. Well......I just had to stock up on a few! The flowers in vases is one that I've had for almost two years now and hadn't used yet! I thought the colors matched the paper quite well. I colored the image with copic markers. Those markers are so fun to color with. They blend so nicely. Although I wrote that the words were from Amuse......they aren't. They are from Hero Arts!

The next card that I did was the 'couldn't sleep' card. The dogwood stamp is also colored with copic markers and is by RubberStampAve. Kathy at Rubberstampave has some really great images. I added the swirls at the last minute and am happy with how they gave the card a little extra umph!

I missed working for Kathy York of RubberStampAve at the convention this year. The rubber stamp convention was this last weekend. Since Kathy wasn't there, I worked for Auntie Amy. It was interesting. She asked me to demo watercolor pencils and waterbrushes. That was easy enough to do. Gave people lots of ideas on how to use the brushes. When the brushes sold out, she changed me to selling the new Atyou Spica pens by Copic. Those little glitter pens are really wonderful. After those sold out, i switched to the new Versamark Dazzle Pad and the Glue Pad. I must say that I'm not really impressed with either. The Dazzle Pad is very subtle and I guess it has a place but it doesn't interest me much. The glue pad just isn't sticky enough for me. The glitter that it holds can be knocked off and they recommend that you hairspray it. Not for me! I demoed the little Quickie Glue Pen and sold some of those. Saturday was definitely the busiest day. I got one 60 minute break to eat lunch and run through the convention.

On Sunday I couldn't go to the RS convention early as I played organ/piano for both services at church. That was an interesting morning. I missed playing the triple amen in the last service completely. Had the liturgy book completely shut and there was no saving it. The early service went pretty well. During the offertory I had a little glitch though........As I was playing, I knocked one of the preset buttons which completely changed the stops! Horror of horrors!! At least the stops that it went to weren't loud ones but softer ones.

After church I hustled back to the convention center as I was scheduled to work from 2 - 4pm. I got there about 1pm and shopped. Worked for Amy only one hour. Business was slow and she just didn't need me. I did earn $70 in product which was cool. Got some great new toys! All in all I only purchased 5 pieces of rubber.........hard to believe, isn't it!