Online Class Sale!!!!!

My friend, Megan Suarez, is an awesome artist.  She has created some darling workshops that you might want to check out.  Her first workshop is the one that I took.......Whimsy Girls.  I posted the drawings I made of my girls a couple of months ago.  She also has a workshop on Mermaids, Cute and Creepy AND an awesome workshop on Art Journaling that has you completing something like 10 - 12 pages.

Megan took their dog to the vet yesterday and found lots of cancerous tumors and a kidney that is shutting down.  They were going to put the dog to sleep today.  Since the vet bills ate up the rent money, Megan is having a sale of her artwork and workshops to cover the expense.    I shared this info in case you want to take any of the workshops and help Megan out as well! 

Here is her website:

http://meganscreativebliss.blogspot.dk/

Here is her verbage about the sale:
I'm ...having an art sale to help cover Vet costs. Any of my workshops are $15 off and all original art purchases will receive 5 FREE aceo's that are signed and dated. I will take special orders for canvas paintings of my big eye girls size 12x12 for $50 plus shipping. You choose the colors and details!
just message me with anything you would like and any questions you may have.

Megan is also on Facebook.  Megan K. Suarez Fine Art is the page name.....you should be able to see all the artwork on sale there.......some fab pieces.  I bought two of them yesterday!

It's a CD SALE!!

My good friend, Pat Huntoon, is having her biggest CD sale of the year!  All of the CD's that hold the techniques from each year are on sale!  Here is her e-mail below for more info!!  Grab them while you can!!

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It's the biggest sale of the year!

Our Annual CD Sale! All of the Annual* Technique Junkie CDs are on sale for only $10.00 each plus shipping. You can order CDs 1 - 9 in any combination. It is a great way to catch up on older issues and have a library of hundreds of techniques at your disposal. Information on what is on each CD, a description of what each CD covers, and how to order may be found here: http://techniquejunkies.com/cd-sale-613.html Each Cd contains between 70 and 100 tutorials in step-by-step pictorial format. They each cover a year of content, plus 10 bonus techniques only available on the CD.  They are a steal at this price!  Hurry, though -- this sales ends June 30th.

Please feel free to email me with any questions. Thank you for your continued business!   Sincerely, Pat Huntoon techniquejunkies.com patstamps.blogspot.com *CD sale is on Annual CDs ONLY - Specialty CDs are not included in this sale.

Pressed Stains

No........I'm not ironing!!  Pressed Stains is a super fun technique from the most recent issue of the Technique Junkie newsletter.  I had a friend over.........Laura and I had a lot of fun.  She brought a hostess stamp set from SU and we colored up the Flower with copics.  Then we made the backgrounds to match the flowers.  I had one flower already colored up from the week before and had put a blue background around it.  The backgrounds we had made didn't have any blue and it looked really funny with them.  So......I made another background using a little blue and it was just perfect.  I love how every background is just a little different.  I hope you enjoy!  I included all four....I just couldn't decide which one I wanted to do the most!  Sorry...the scan was a little off.  The Hero Arts sentiment stamp had stamped the edge under the words and I thought it looked like it was supposed to be there so I stamped three more like it.  ;-)

Another Spotty Copic Grid

I love the interest that the Spotty Copic Grid gives to the background.  The dies are from Memory Box and can be found here (classy cards & such) for the birds and here for the tree.
The sentiment is from Sweet N Sassy Stamps.

Okay.....I have NO idea why blogger does this but no matter what orientation I save my card photo, it always tries to insert it into my post rotated incorrectly.  So.......sorry!  Turn your head and pretend it is your neck exercise for the day!  

Cool technique from the new newsletter

Spotty Copic Grid is such a fun technique that is in the June/July issue of the Technique Junkie newsletter.  I was really tickled to see that both of my samples for this technique made it into the current printed form of the newsletter..  ;-)  I usually have a ton of layers and have a more complicated card and it was really refreshing to do something more simple!

I used a Memory Box die and SU sentiment.   You can find Memory Box dies HERE!

Hope you enjoy......I'll share one more tomorrow.

Stained Embossing Spoiler

This week's Technique of the Week for Technique Junkies  was Embossed Gelatos but.....since I don't own any of those, I chose a different technique for you from the newest June newsletter!!

STAINED EMBOSSING!

I really LOVE this technique.  It really has a lot of interest and it quite easy to do....AND gives a lovely result.  I hope you have a ton of fun playing with it when you get your June newsletter....Only 2 days away!!

This card would be perfect for a man.  No stamping at all!  I've had that fleur de lis punch for AGES and when I grabbed my fleur de lis embossing folder, it just seemed like a match made in heaven!  The fleur de lis circles and the circles behind them are bumped up with foam tape.

We had a wonderful time in Oklahoma with my step-mom.  We were there for her birthday, she turned 97!

It was really stormy when we arrived in Tulsa the Tuesday after the tornado hit Moore.  The plane even slid a little on touchdown.  The weather worked in our favor at the car rental place.  The Taurus we had rented was gone and she had upgraded us to a SUV......but.....we really didn't want an SUV.  It would be harder for Gerry to get into.  So, I looked around....they sure had a lot of Mustang Convertibles sitting around not going anywhere.  So, we said that if we could have it for only $10/day more, we love to have one of those.  The clerk checked and said 'Yes!"  Yeah!!  We had a lot of fun with that convertible.  We even took Gerry out to get ice cream with the top down.  Weather was wonderful for 90% of the trip......in the low 80's.  Perfect!    We had a wonderful time getting her little things for her birthday.  We got to sing to her at least three times that day.  Hard to believe she is 97 when you look at her!

Free Papers for you

Today, I was playing around making a background paper for a wedding card.  It was fun playing with different colors.  I used a free graphic from The Graphics Fairy of an old rose.  I recolored it and filled an 8.5 x 11 page with the image then changed it to different colors.  Please feel free to click on the image to enlarge it, right click and 'save as' to use as your own.    Here is a link to the actual rose.

Enjoy.

Leaving me a message to say that you grabbed it would be nice but is not required...I know I often don't have time to do that myself! 

50th for Lana

My daughter-in-law's mother needed a 50th Wedding anniversary card for her sister.  Since I wanted to play with my Silhouette, I made this card.  I use the Forever & Always file that came with the Silhouette Portrait BUT I do NOT suggest that you try that file.  I used a font that was exactly the same instead.  The portrait file was so slender on parts that it just fell apart.  So.......squishing and squashing the font gave me larger lines and it worked!  On the flip side, the 50 cut effortlessly.  It was hard to get a decent picture since the gold is so mirror like!  I hope that she loves it!  Shocker of all shockers....no stamping on the front of the card!  I did redeem myself though on the inside with an Happy Anniversary sentiment.  ;-)

Copic refills for sale

I found that I had a number of doubles on my copic various refills.  If anyone is interested, they are $5 each plus shipping.  Normally $9 each.

I have the following colors available.

BV0000
RV000
Y000
YG05
B41
B52
B66
B63
E13
E34
E81
E55

Let me know if you are interested.  I can ship in a padded bubble envelope or a priority box, your choice.  I can also take PayPal payment but will have to add the fees since I'm not getting retail for the refills.  I can give you a full quote before you say yes!  Make sure you have your contact information in your comment.

Thanks!

Upcoming Class

I'll be teaching a class over at Tigard Main Street and Stationery for the card below and the flower pot card I did from THIS blog post.

If you are in the local area, check out their schedule and come have fun in class! 

The flower pot card was explained in the post noted above.  The poppy card turned out much different than it started.  I've had the punches available to do this card for a long time (over 2 years) and finally decided that enough was enough!  I love how delicate the flower looks.  The original card idea I saved with the poppy used a much different center than I did.  I used a large pearl with a smaller black pearl on top of it.

Easy and fun! 

Painted rhodies

Here is a card that features the technique of the week for Technique Junkies!  It is the Paint Swatch technique.  I used it as the background for this lovely Blossoms stamp fro Sweet Stamps.  I think the image looks very much like Rhododendrons (which I love).  I stamped the image over the technique and colored in with Copics.  I originally had it colored quite light and it wasn't dark enough to overcome the background.  Then I darkened it and it looked like a blob.....so I lighted it back up with the blender and all was much better!  The sentiment was cut out with a Nestie.  I traced the Nestie I used for the sentiment onto the shadow paper, hand cut, and mounted under.    Hope you like!

I happened to have my fill of rhodies today!  Ray and I volunteered to man the gate and plant sale at the Cecil Smith Garden in Newberg.  It is a private garden that our Rhododendron Society chapter owns and maintains.  It is 2.5 acres of pure bliss.  Several of the rhodies blooming this weekend are fragrant AND many of them are over 20' tall.  The fragrance wafted throughout the whole garden.  It was heavenly!

Distilled Bones

Well........I was diagnosed with osteoporosis.  Sad........I'm sure that it has mostly to do with exercise and my lack of getting what I need in that realm. 

So.......I have a friend, Penny, who recommended a wonderful program called SaveOurBones.com.  I've started to work at things I can change to help myself like my diet, exercise, etc.  One of the items that she talks about is distilled water.  She talks about how that kind of water is easier and more pure for you to absorb. 

I find this very interesting and am hoping that it helps me as well.  Here is a distiller like my friend, Penny, has.  She is very happy with hers.  Penny was working holistically on her osteoporosis as well.  Thank you, Penny, for your recommendations!!

Click HERE for the Purest Water you can Drink! to be linked to the distiller company that she liked. 

I hope that this information helps you as well!

Birdy Bands

This card uses the technique called Inky Bands and happens to be the "Technique of the week" on the Technique Junkie Blog.  I just got the bird stamps in the mail the other day.  It was kind of fun........I was asked to participate in an online survey.....took about 20 minutes.  As a reward, I was given an Amazon $25 gift card.......there was a code that I entered on the Amazon site that credited me with the $25 card.  SWEET!  So.....I went shopping the other day.......got some embossing tools (so I have a few more for my upcoming flower class), some Fiskar scissors and this Fiskars bird stamp set!  I'm really not a fan of the acrylic stamps but with the right stamp pad, they are okay.  I guess I'm just a real red rubber girl! 

Hope you enjoy (Pun....hahahaha) the card!  The inky bands kind of reminded me of branches so the bird were just a natural!

Another Snippet

Here is another Snippet card.  This uses a stamp from a set from Mark's Finest Papers.  I wasn't quite happy with my lines on the flower but ended up using it anyway!  I've used this stamp a number of times and you can always make it look so different.  The set is called Sending Happy Thoughts and also has a wonderful Rose faux stamp which I really love. 

Pansies and violets are some of my favorite flowers.........after Rhododendrons that is!!  I remember with great fondness the wonderful Violet perfume that my grandmother brought back to me from England many years ago.  You can still get it but the cute little violet on the front of the bottle isn't hand painted anymore. 

Cardinal Snippets

This is a card made with a technique called Snippets from the April TJ newsletter.  This sweet stamp is from Sweet N Sassy Stamps.  She has a several bird stamps and I like that this one as it could be a cardinal or maybe even a jay!  I went with Cardinal because of the berries! 

I grew up in Ohio and loved the cardinals.  Unfortunately, they don't live in Oregon.  When we visited my step-mom in Oklahoma it was soooooo beautiful to hear their call again.