SSS44 For my Mom

DON'T forget!!!!  Please sign up for my blog candy but NOT on this post.  Go to the post before for your chance to win two copic markers!

Our challenge this week for the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge had a spin...use flowers.  Well....that isn't much of a stretch for me.....I love using flowers and use them often!  So....I had these little flowers already printed off from Fred She Said so I colored them up using the feathering technique with my copics.  I had several colors I was working with and it took me a while to find the right combo!  I had recently seen a fun tutorial by Julie Ebersole where she took her brads and covered it with a heat and stick product and applied fun flock.  So, I did that with my brads.  My yellow seemed a little dull then I realized that I really hadn't used white brads....duh!  Next time!!  The butterfly image is a digital image from Sweet N Sassy.  So easy to color! 

Now for the info on the background.  The original technique was called Feathered Tie Dye.  BUT in the process of making this background, I had the offcast wax paper that was colored and it was just too neat to through away.  So I had saved it.  I adhered it to white cardstock with my Xyron and that is the paper behind the flowers and the butterfly.  I think it look pretty cool!  I hope that you like it too!  Then BEFORE I added the flowers I added in a little technique I thought of (but I'm sure someone else thought of it somewhere else too!) called Pierced Patterns.  That is the swirl from the butterfly.  I like the added interest it gives the card.  Then a little glitter was used here, plus a little foam tape to make the butterfly more 3-D and voila! a card for mom for Easter or Mother's Day! 

Now don't forget.........you too can participate in the challenge by clicking on the badge to the right and uploading your creation!

Almost a year and a bit of candy for you!

On March 12th last year, I started by blog.....it is hard to believe that it has almost been a year!  I also noted that I broke over the 10,000 mark for visits to my blog........amazing!  So......to celebrate the upcoming bday of the blog and to celebrate the 10K mark, I decided that it would be fun to have a little blog candy.

I happen to have two brand new....never been used......sketch Copic markers.  RV23, RV06. 

How can you win?  Leave a comment on THIS post only! 

Please leave your e-mail address as well.  You can use it in this format so those nasty computer harvesters can't find your e-mail:   aclack at msn dot com.  

I'll let the ol' computer generated picker give me the winning number!  This blog candy wll be open to Febuary 25th....that is a whole week! 

Here's hoping that you win!!

SSS43, cool storage and some time away!

Here are TWO cards this week for the Sweet Stop sketch Challenge.  You can see the sketch and the cards by the other designers by clicking on the Sweet Stop badget to the right!  I had originally colored up the rabbit for this sketch but I had the background from the cat made up for it.  When I put the two together, it just didn't work for me.  The rabbit was too strong in color values for the background.  So, I scrapped the idea of the original background and started over.  I like the darker colors that I came up with for him.  I hope you do too!  He is colored with copic markers and I then used a rag with blender solution on it to dab some texture onto him.  This card will go to my grandson, Jim, for his Valentines day card.

The second card......not wanting to waste the background I had created originally, I used a sweet cat image from a gal in the copic junkie group.  Her challenge to us was to color the image with copics and post to the group.  Since I wanted the cat to 'match' the background better than if I color it real cat colors, I chose the yellowish/brown color along with purple and blended the two together.  I think I could use a little more practice with this technique.  It is one of the harder techniques to master with copic markers.  This card will go to my grand-daughter, Audrey, for Valentines day.

THEN one of the members of the copic junkies group shared how she stored her copic markers.  Thank you Laurie for your suggestion!  I had to search where there was a Container Store in our area and it happened to be close to where my husband works.  So, today I went there to search for my own.  The plastics containers have lids that I won'e use when I have the markers at home.  I then found a neat 'tote' to put the plastic containers in.  Now I feel that I can take most of the markers and they won't get lost!  Yeah!!

Finally.....we get to have a few days away!   My mom will be here and tend to the dog while we spend a few days with Ray's folks.  We haven't been to their house for over a year and it is more than time.  We will meet our car club in the morning to see the Salem Roadster show and go to MC from there.  We will also have dinner with one of Ray's old high school buddies tomorrow night.  It will be fun!

More than Super Bowl Sunday - Hambo strikes again!

I made this card the other day for my Son-in-law for his birthday which we celebrated yesterday.  Actually it was like the Super Bowl of Birthdays.  My DH, Son, 2 Son-in-laws, and my dauther-in-law all celebrate their birthdays within two weeks of each other.  So, we chose yesterday to celebrate their special days.  Throw in a few extra friends and lots of kids and we had a house full of people 

For the card I had this digital image from Hambo.  It is from their new character called Wee Henry.  After getting the image I wanted to have a background that was as great as the one the creator, Tim, had drawn on his original card.  So, I lightly sketched in something that I thought would work and colored it in with my pencils.  I had the background almost done (over a couple of days) when I found out that the original background Tim drew was available.  Drat!  That's okay.......I think mine came out pretty good too!  My inspiration for the flour bag came from the rice bag that they use in Farmville....Hee Hee!  Wee Henry is colored with copics, duplicated and layered to create some dimension.  I did find that you CANNOT edge your cut out image with copic markers.........it bled a little on Henry's ear.  Fortunately, it wasn't bad enough to ruin it!  I hope you enjoy.  I'll be getting a Hambo badge for the side bar shortly!  Hambo has a number of Wee Henry's now and the next card I'm going to do with one is a darling cupid!

It's that time again! SSSC42!

I think I'm old.  You know.....your parents used to tell you that the older you get the faster time flies.  It just seems like yesterday that I was posting for last Saturday and here it is again.  ;-)  Here is my card for the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge.  Have you ever participated in a sketch challenge?  If you haven't you should give it a try.  They are really fun because you aren't required to use any particular stamps, techniques, or papers.  Just follow the layout and do that you wish with it!!  Click on the badge to the right to see what the other design team members did this week.  THEN go to your stamp area and create one yourself.  You can upload it for others to see on the Sweet Stop blog!  This card will be used as a birthday card!    The stamps are from Stampendous! and Amuse.  Cupcake was colored with copics and glitzed up with a little bit of glitter.  This was a fun sketch because it was round and I rarely do those!   The pearl swirls were from a $1 pack from a Craft Warehouse.

This week was the start of my monthly piano lessons with my friend, Earlene.  She has more music talent in her little pinkie than I have in my whole being.  Seems to me I remember that she has her Masters in Music.  As a piano teacher, she totally rocks.  My whole reason to start lessons again was so I could play better with our Praise Team at church.  Several years ago Earlene tutored me gratis to help me learn how to play chords.  Imagine.....5 years of lessons and many years of playing and I just didn't know how to play chords.  So I had learned a little bit of theory and chords then.  Now after about a year and one half of playing chords under my belt it is time to try to bump it up a notch.  The lessons are to be an hour long.  This last one.......ended up being 2 hours!!  The time just flew by and I really could have stayed longer!!  Going to learn more theory.....lots of scales....which I don't mind.  AND some learning of tricks and techniques to embellish my praise team songs.  THAT is the part that I really want!!  Now.......to find the time to practice!  We'll see how my lesson goes next month.  Once a month is really more than enough for an adult with lots of activities going on, don't you think!

Junkie for Life!!

How would you like to be a Junkie for life? Sounds too good to be true right? I'm talking about the Technique Junkie newsletter!! You'll want to read all about the deets by clicking on the link below!


http://techniquejunkies.blogspot.com/2010/02/technique-by-design-blog-hop.html 

The deadline to enter is March 15th!! That is more than a month to get your creation made and uploaded to Pat! Here is the sketch for the contest. Remember to follow the instructions on the blog post about using two different TJ techniques on the 6 squares.

Just think.....a couple of hours.......enter your creation.....and you could have the TJ newsletter for the rest of your life! THAT is a cool prize!! Enter now!!

Want to know more about the newsletter if you don't get it already? Click on the badge to the right down the column and see what the fuss is all about!
 

 

SSSC 41 Mo's cute kitty

Here is my card for the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge this week.  I can hardly believe that the week has flown by!  This is a darling image from Mo's digital pencil.  The image also has a baby bottle off to the side but I didn't want that in my image.  Image is colored with copics and uses two Technique Junkie techniqes........ 'out of the box' as well as the drywall stitching technique (which BTW is THE easiest way to do faux stitching!!).  I wasn't originally going to use that technique but the image was a little big for the card to show off the pretty paper so I trimmed it down.  Notice the 'texture' on the kitty.  That was created by using a little blending solution on an old rag! 

Head on over the the SSSC by clicking on the banner to the right.  Anyone can play along and upload their creations!  Let's see what you come up with!!

Sweet Blog Friend Award

I received this award from one of my dear cyber friends, Donna Moore.  Aren't cyber friends fun!  I have so many new people in the last number of online years and in my stamping groups.  You'll never meet a better bunch of people! 


I am to choose 10 things that make me happy, then chose 5 other Bloggers to share this award with.

10 Things that make me happy:

1 - The knowledge that I'm gonna go to heaven 'cause I believe in Jesus, the one true God!
2 - The love of my life, Ray.
3 - My three children and their spouses
4 - My grandchildren - all four of them
5 - My mother - who lives with us!
6 - Playing in the Praise Team at church.....so much fun!
7 - Playing in my stamp room and creating for no reason at all!
8 - Driving the Purple Dream - Our Shelby
9 -  My house -  secluded on it's five acres in the woods
10 - Chocolate!  I'm ALWAYS happy with that!

I've been so blessed in my life.  God has granted me an abundance and I am truly thankful for that!

OK, now I am to share this sweet award with 5 others:

1 - Sue - A TJ friend I met at Stamp Convention.  One of my first stamp friends I met outside of my local realm!
2 - Vicky - Vicky doesn't have a blog but she has been such a wonderful sweet person.  It makes me happy to be around her!  I met her the same day as Sue.
3 - Korin - For being an encourager and sweet cyber sister in the Lord.
4 - Chrissy - Another sweet sister in the Lord whose creations inspire.
5  - Pat - The one who really got me revved up wtih her technique newsletter.

Ladies, your "it", here's what you need to do!

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
2. List who gave the award to you and use a link to her blog (or hyperlink).
3. List 10 things that make you happy.
4. Pass the award on to other bloggers and visit their blog to let them know!

My one and only Henry

I just love my Wee Henry.  I am THE ONLY owner of this image.  NO ONE else will ever have this image.  Isn't that WAY cool!!!  I had the winning bid on Hambo's Thursday auction where Tim has an original drawing that you bid on.  The winning bid gets the image and it is never sold.  I'm soooo tickled.  I colored this Wee Henry up for my husband's birthday card.  We are getting him something that has to do with driving (can't reveal here....you never know who will be reading!).  So......I thought I'd color Henry up looking like he would be ready to go driving.  I know.....a real stretch of the imagination.....but what the heck!  Henry is colored with copics.  The background was done with prismacolor pencils and gamsol.  My bush drawing skills need some more practice I can see!!  If you think this wee Henry is cute, you should see the other two.  One with a chef hat and cupcake, one dressed as a bunny AND my personal favorite a chubby cupid!  You can head on over there and see the fun HERE.  I hope that you enjoy Wee Henry!! 

As I look over the locations that my blog readers are from I notice that there are a number of you that are from the Portland Metro area.  If you are, leave a comment and tell me where you are from.  I think it will be a blast to find other stampers in the area!

Feathered Mo!

What by chance is a feathered Mo?  Well.......here is a card that uses THE most adorable image from Mo's Digital Pencil.  It is called End of Summer.  The minute I saw it I KNEW I NEEDED it!!  I spent quite a bit of time coloring it in with my copics.  I really wanted to do it justice! I hope you like the little hint of circles on her shirt!   BUT for the light yellow background, I hadn't worked on it before the rest of the image and didn't want to mess it up so I did it with my prismacolor pencils/gamsol.  Now you know the Mo part of the title.......the feathered part of the title is the background she sits on.  It is called Feathered Tie Dye and is a technique from the December 08 newsletter.  When that technique came out I made a TON.  It was such a fun thing to do that I just couldn't stop.  Now, I have wads of the paper in my stash and it just worked wonderful for this image.  The small words (which I have no idea where they came from) were stamped on white but I colored it with air brushed copics.  I hope you enjoy this image and want to try the technique for yourself.  You'll go crazy just like I did!! 

Saturday Sketch Challenge

Here it is a Saturday again.  So.....what do you do with your Saturdays.  Catch up from the week, relax and stamp, or run errands.  Whatever you have to do, try to squeeze in a little stamp time and play with this week's sketch!  Click on the Sweet Stop Badge to the right to see what the design team created.  Then create your own and upload it.  Last week we had over 60 participants!  Isn't that wonderful!! 

This week I decided that since I had some left over strips from my last Valentine card that I would use them instead of throwing them away.  The stripped background is called Herringbone and is a Technique Junkie technique.  The badge for TJ is also to the right down a little further.  Check it out!!  The image used for this card is a digital image from Sweet N Sassy stamps.  Isn't it darling?  I colored it with copic markers.  The little hearts are hard plastic.  I had picked them up.....somewhere!  The bag is long gone but I think I got them at Michaels.  I pierced the border to give a little interest and that's it!!  I hope that you enjoy.

On a side note, yesterday I won the  Thursday One and Done auction at Hambo stamps and got a digital image drawn by Timbo.  I am the ONLY person who will ever own it.  Isn't that fun!  I' hope to have a card posted with the cute little Wee Henry in the next day or so.


Tomorrow will be a sad but glorious day.  One of the ladies at church that I have known for years will be laid to rest.  She fought valiently against a cancer that was throughout her entire body for the last several years.  She was a wonderful and sweet person.  She loved the Lord and I know that she is pain free and enjoying the presence of our Lord!  She leaves behind two teenage boys.

Mid-Week Class

It seems like forever since I made a post that wasn't connected with a challenge.  It was fun to just do what I wanted for a change.  This card uses a rubber stamp from RubberStampAve.  I think that it is sooooo classy.  Kathy (RubberStampAve owner) has a ton of wonderful images.  You can check them out HERE.  Tell Kathy you hear about her from my blog!

The image is colored with copic markers.  The background is a super fun technique called Bingo Blast.  It is a "blast" to do too........would be a wonderful technique to play with when you're mad about something!  LOL....      I added a little bit of satin ribbon left over from a special gift, some glitter on the rose to glitz it up, and some faux stitching to give it a little bit of umph.  I hope you enjoy it!

Now for a little Willie update (the dog).  Still no real diagnosis about the excessive water drinking.  He has been on antibotics for almost two weeks and I actually think he is drinking less.  One more test on his urine to see if it is concentrated or not.  I'm hoping that this is the end of the whole thing.........

Now for some fun news.  One of my best friend's daughter, Mandy, is pregnant.  On bedrest.  BUT they accidently found out what the baby's sex will be (they didn't want to know).  A different doctor was seeing them and didn't realize that they didn't want to know and spilled the beans.  I'm happy though.  I really don't care for buying yellow and green baby clothes.  I get to buy PINK!  She may be induced this week (3 weeks early) because of low fluid levels.  We'll see.  Sounds like baby is healthy and weighty enough to do it.  Now for them to get a name picked out. 

No new news on our own home front.

It's Sugar Baby challenge day!

It seems that the weeks are just flying by!   Here is this week's Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge.  I know that my card is a little dark looking but in real life it isn't.   The metallic reinkers used on the Tapestry technique from Technique Junkies newsletter really makes it glow!  The word stamp is from stampendous! and the one used in making the background paper is from stampin Up.  I tried using a new toy that I got!  A photo cube and lights.  It really didn't work very well for this type of card so we will see what the next card does with the set up.  It is a white nylon fabric cube and the lights are on tripods and adjustable.  The whole idea is a bright lit card without the shadows from the lights.  It will be interesting to see how it works in the future. 

Remember.......click on the badge to the right to see what all the other design team members did with this sketch!

BUNK!

I don't often vary off my stamping posts but I thought this little article was interesting and worth passing on to those who believe otherwise!  In the midst of 'global warming' outcries and myths, this is just another piece of information that tells us that we are just in a cycle.  Also, think about this.....Florida last week.....freezing weather.  Hmmmm.....doesn't sound like GW to me! 

US Weather Bureau Report


The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Iffy, at Bergen , Norway .   Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and there to unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone.   Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic , while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

I’m sorry, I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922 as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post.

For a complete background read extensive reports at :  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/


We'll be back to our regularly schedule stamping posts next!

It's sweet time!

Not only is it time for the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge BUT this is also a sweet Valentine for my granddaughter, Breauna!  You can play along with the challenge by uploading YOUR creation!  Just click on the the Sweet Stop badge to the right!!  The cute little mouse (I think it is absolutely adorable, BTW) is a digital design from Sweet N Sassy Stamps.  The background of the card is a technique from Technique Junkies called Herringbone.  You can read more about the Junkies by clicking on their badge to the right!  The little mouse is colored with copic markers.

Willie Update:  STILL no absolute diagnosis.....sheesh!  Now we have him on an antibotic for 2 weeks to see if there is something to cure before we start more expensive tests.  I'm praying that this does the trick for the water drinking.  The pain pills seem to be helping his random pains.  At least he is yelping less!