Orangutan birthday

I decided I had better look up orangutans on the internet, I didn't remember what they looked like. Wow. I have to say I do not think they are, um, the most glorious looking animals I have ever seen! I decided realism was not the direction I was headed! So, if you want to know what they really look like, do a google search! :-)

Orangutan and text are from Biblical Impressions. I stamped the image with versafine black. I love this pad, it has never needed re-inking, and is a really black, black. I colored it with pencils and a bit of chalk (the card is actually a good bit darker, and the grass is green, not yellow as it appears. All the cards I took pictures of that day were off). The background is wallpaper.

The last of the "Becky cards"

Here are my last two. I did a workshop tonight at the store that sells them (so cute, teeny weeny little tables to stamp on...). They loved these cards!

Question marks are from Biblical Impressions

Are you still having fun?

Here are two more cards. I love these papers from DCWV, they come in several color themes, with several designs for each color. I've used up most of the dotted papers, which is so sad! They've worked perfectly with a lot of the ATCs!

Continuing with "Becky Cards"

I am really addicted to these! I planned just to make five or six for the store, but I've made ten so far ...

The chocolate saying on these are from Sunday International.

Two more cards!

I am so glad to be using up some of the gaudy papers I have! They are mostly coming from a serious of handmade collage pads from Provocraft, which have some great designs, and some, well, meant for cards like this! :-)

Play time!

I have been having fun the past couple of days playing with Becky Christian's ATCs. What a great sense of humor she has! I am putting together colors and layouts that are definitely unusual for me - even when playing a simple game like Rummy Cube I have to keep the orange and red pieces separate!

Arte y Pico award!

Wow, I have been given this award from a lovely encourager, Diane of Diane's Designs, who absolutely made my day in doing so! I consider myself if not quite a beginner, certainly not far along in the "intermediate" stage of stamping. So, this means a great deal to me!

I'm supposed to pass it on to five others who inspire, and as Diane said in her post, limiting to five is not easy.

The five I am choosing are not all blogging yet, but their art really inspires me. In having my husband translate what seems to be the blog of origin of the design, I don't think the award needs to be for bloggers only. :-)

So, for non-blog artist, I would like to give this award to Becky. I am currently using her artwork on some cards, which I hope to post tomorrow. She has an amazing sense of humor, and I am hoping, as I create cards with her art, to learn to (in my own style), make humorous art like hers. I discovered her at this spot first, and she has also begun a website. I'm trying to encourage her to begin blogging... she has been so warm and friendly with me, I know she would be a great encouragement to others...

Jay at Indigo Inklings who awarded me the excellent award some months back, is someone who is very gracious in taking the time to give as much information as she can when answering technique questions or describing how a stamping tool is used, etc. I routinely go to her site to learn. And she's a wonderful artist as well!

Jacki at Card Castle is my "private tutor" for coloring! It's an area that is still a mystery to me, but gradually I am learning! When I first started stamping, I assumed people with Jacki's talent had to be too "lofty" to condescend to communicate with a beginner like me! But she has been soooooo helpful and encouraging to me. She makes me feel like I really can "do it!"

Trish at Tah Dah! is so much fun! She does the best challenges for smARTworks! She's quick to try new things, and share how they are done. She also is quick to encourage others, and I really appreciate her!

My last pick goes to a blogging group, the gals at Salt, who faithfully issue a challenge every two weeks that focuses on a different facet of God & the Christian faith. The about us column reads: "We are a diverse group of card makers, scrappers and altered art fans from across the world who have been brought together through our love of Jesus Christ and our desire to express our faith in creative ways.Once every two weeks we will produce work based on a challenge which we hope will inspire you to produce work of your own - and we would love to see it.So that we can all know Jesus more clearly; love him more dearly; and follow him more nearly, each and every day." They have really stretched me, and I hope they keep it up for a very long time...

Fatal Flaw(s)!

This week's Salt challenge: "His Presence" was a difficult challenge for me because I knew right away I wanted to use Psalm 139 ("Where can I go from your presence...."). I plan to design stamps from this psalm, so it's hard to find myself using a computer generated text for something I want to have my own stamps for! Note I said "stamps," not stamp ... the Psalm is too long for a single stamp!

I decided to focus on those verses in the Psalm that deal with the Lord's presence in our lives. It still was rather too long, but I just managed to make it fit onto an A2 card. As I was continuing to design it (the pink vellum in the middle seemed like a neat concept, but as you can see, it made the text just a bit too blurry), I realized I had not proof-read as thoroughly as I had thought, can you find the error? At this point, I'm not going to have time (or the heart, lol!) to redo the challenge, so I'll leave it as it is. :-)

I encourage each of you to read the full Psalm, it is a beautiful statement of the amazing love of God for us. Sometimes I find it's easier to accept God's amazing love and grace for someone else, than for myself. Knowing I'm probably not unusual in that way, I like to send a personalized version of this Psalm out to others so that they can see that God has these same thoughts toward them, and not just David. ("Oh Lord, you have searched Carol and you know Carol. You know when she sits and when she rises....").

Quick cards!

These were fun to do: I am not the fastest card maker by any stretch of the imagination. But this card just came together in minutes, I was so happy! I was simply looking at a set of SU stamps that I have never actually made a card with, and suddenly the whole concept of the card came together in my mind. It was such a good feeling!

copper buck

I had two of these bucks stamped with black embossing powder on copper glossy for probably over a year! I must have not been able to decide what to do with them at the time. When I rediscovered them, I decided to use a nicely textured wallpaper background.

Wallpaper books make a great resource for stamping! I am amazed at the wonderful things I have been able to use it for. It's great for journal covers; a good bit more durable than cardstock, and more flexible!

RAK from Jacki!

I got this card along with some amazing goodies from my wonderful friend Jacki. (She's the one on the left, I'm the one on the right. See how slender I look? Jacki is a VERY good friend!)

I am so blessed to have made not only a friend who is special just because of who she is, but an actual STAMPING friend! Where I live, stamping is almost non-existent; I have no friends nearby who stamp! Cheryl, who sells my cards at her store, does some stamping, but the demands of business and taking care of a mother 45 minutes away leave her little time for it. So, Jacki has been a wealth of stamping tips and info for me! She is also helping me to get a handle on watercoloring. As someone who loathed every art class I ever took, and am not naturally geared toward that area, this is a major help indeed!

Thanks, Jacki!!!

smARTworks challenge

This "card" comes from a smARTworks challenge that Trish submitted: create an interpretation of the painting (the source of it is linked on her sight). Well, I thought it would be fun to essentially recreate it as much as I could. I put "card" in quotes because I plan to disassemble it ... I can't imagine using it, and I don't want to waste the brads! (If I were going to actually use it for a card, I would have put copper eyelets instead). Great challenge, Trish! It was nice to make something just for fun tonight!

I used a texture stamp from Stampers Anonymous for the backgrounds on the top, text stamp and flowers are smARTworks. I used butterscotch adirondack ink at the top, with distress inks in tea dye and vintage photo for the top. I used vanilla Memories DTP and white craft ink for the bottom. Flowers stems in green craft inks, flowers stamped and embossed with white. (The emboss was an after thought when I saw the white craft ink was not enough. Because of the delay in scrambling for white embossing powder, a couple of the flowers are too dim).

My Dad

I took an unplanned, unintentional break from blogging, in fact, hardly looked at the computer for a week. I sometimes am on here more than I should be, but this week I've had no desire to, even for simple e-mailing. Life has been full of, well, "stuff!" One major thing that has been going on for about a year now is trying to find a diagnosis for my 19 year old daughter, Karen. She has some kind of mystery condition that is having a major impact on her life. It's been misdiagnosed as epilepsy, considered narcolepsy, she has some similar symptoms as people with MS, but two MRI's, six EEGs, and a sleep study later, no answers. (We really thought the narcolepsy was it, and just found out this week that the results were negative). We'll continue with the next step when she comes home from college...

Anyway, this card is made with a photo of my Dad. I'm not sure who took it, generally he did all the picture taking. He was a school teacher - I had him for History, economics, and psychology. (I learned my love of History through Dad - though admittedly not in the classroom, lol, but at home, during after dinner chats at the table). He had a great love for outdoors; he loved mountain climbing, fishing, camping, etc. For a few summers he helped direct a couple of camps in New England. I was so excited when I saw this picture and remembered this smARTworks stamp set - a perfect match!

I also wanted to share the neat legacy that my father left his grandchildren. Just after Christmas of 2004, my father was diagnosed with chronic leukemia, a cancer that normally is very treatable, and does not result in death. So I did not really worry about him, and continued with our plans for a one week missions trip to Cuba. But when we returned, we discovered that disease had morphed to acute leukemia. He did not respond to the treatments. Early in March they tried one last drug. But, Dad got pneumonia, and the doctors said there was nothing else they could do, and released him. My uncle, a retired physician, came to stay with my parents, and hospice also helped out. We had about a week with Dad, whose hospital bed was placed in the living room, though he was in a coma the last few days. It was very difficult, but as my mom says, a very “holy” time as my family – my husband, Bruce, and I, my brother, two sisters, their spouses and 12 grandchildren ages 3 to 18 -- all spent as much time as we could there. We had many hours of just sitting around Dad singing old sons, and praise and worship songs, including one all night vigil. My father loved the Lord, loved his family, loved music; I am so grateful we were allowed that time. On one of the last days that he was still conscious, all the grandchildren were gathered by his bedside to say goodbye (all but one live some distance away). Dad was really weak at that point, communicating in more of a whisper. But as the grandchildren gathered around his bed one last time, he suddenly raised himself up on one arm and with his other hand pointed upward and with all the voice he could manage he exhorted them, “Stay close to Jesus! Stay close to Jesus!” It was a powerful moment. I felt like I was back in the time of the patriarchs, where the dying father put his hands on his sons for the blessing… Thank you Lord, for an awesome dad.

Salt Challenge

I nearly forgot to do this week's challenge, and I had been so glad when it was announced because I had both the scripture and a "Believe" stamp.

I had in mind an old-world, elegant design, something appropriate for upcoming graduations, etc. But that was before I realized the believe stamp was definitely neither old world nor elegant! I suppose I could have used computer text, but with time running out, I just went for a different look. Well, it's different all right, lol! The fringe might seem over the top, but I really wanted to communicate to the receiver a sense of "lightness" about the idea of God's plan ... it's so easy to be overly intense about this subject.

Scripture is from Biblical Impressions, text is from SU.

Faith

Have I mentioned I love butterflies? :-) They are such a wonderful reminder of God's transforming grace...

This is, of course, more iridescent powder. Tomorrow I'll show a card made with it that skips the sticky emboss powder.

Butteflies are from Eureka.

Fun with metallic powders

I'm really not sure where to find the powders I used in this. I purchase them from Biblical Impressions under the former owners, and the current owners are not currently carrying it. It was called fashion dust. Images are stamped with versamark, sticky embossing powder is applied and heat set. Colors are brushed on with a paintbrush. These are interference colors (showing up only on dark colors). This is a card similar to another I submitted to the smARTworks challenge. Butterflies are from smARTworks; text is from Biblical Impressions.

Note: when working with bling dust, it's important to wait until it cools to buff, otherwise it's easy to smear.

smARTworks contest

I was pleased to find out I had tied for third place in the quarterly smARTworks contest!

Actually, I'll be honest, I wasn't really excited at first, because the last contest evidently only had two entries. So, my first thought was that perhaps Susan had just felt bad for me, that out of four entries I did not place. So, I was happy to read on her blog this morning (where the winners are currently listed) that she had the largest amount of submissions ever! Whew! In the one other contest I entered, I had been number four out of four, so this was encouraging indeed, lol!

The card here is almost identical to the one I sent in to smARTworks.

Pet Sympathy

Pet sympathy cards are another harder-to-find card. The store in which I sell does not do a great deal of business, but when I do my card switch I often discover that a pet sympathy card has sold.

The text of the first two cards is unknown, I think from an extinct stamp company, Jody Poesy. The dogs are from Sunday International, the cats are from Biblical Impressions.



I'm going to sell the third card for $50. Or at least, I'd like to!!! I had more grief with it than any card I remember making in a long time. I just was too stubborn to quit until I finished it! The tricky thing was working with the sky vellum, both in stamping on it, positioning it, and affixing it. This is one card for which I will not make a duplicate! Text is from Encouraging Impressions, birds are from smARTworks.

Ordination card

I've begun making ordination cards. My friend who sells my cards in her store told me that with all the tons of cards that various companies sell there, an ordination card has never been included. When I made my first sheet of stamps to sell, I remembered that, and made this
"Congratulations on your ordination" image.

Scripture is from Eureka, and the background papers are wallpaper.

Edit: Click on the "ordination card" label below to see an alternate version of this card in blue, and several different Ordination designs.

Violin Cards

Here are the other music cards I created for my friends. I'll retake the pictures tomorrow; I made another green card, and rounded the corners, so was going to just retake the pictures then, but the sun went down too quickly for photographing! I'll try again tomorrow. I added six other music cards to the set. I'm trying to be more generous with giving away cards; sometimes it's hard to just hand over hours of work, when I'm needing to pay off credit card debt from stamping! But these friends are so absolutely wonderful, I was delighted! I just wish I'd had more time to make others!

I really love the background of the green card. The paper is from a pack of somewhat wild papers from provo craft, but this paper is very elegant looking, I absolutely love it. It has very silky fibers going up and down it. The stamped elements are small, but I really wanted to feature the paper. The violin is from Merry Stamper, the text is Biblical Impressions.

The second card was all made from my elements in my drawers of stamped stuff. I have really been making a point this year of going there first before making a card, unless something has caught my eye. Background is from Eureka, text is computer generated.