Grateful Day

Good day to all. Did you ever have one of those days where you realize that despite all that you could be complaining about, you are grateful for those wonderful things that you have, and grateful for the wonderful people in your life? Well, I am having one of those mornings. I am grateful to have my friends, my family, and my pets. I am grateful to have my job. I am grateful that a recent mammogram/ultrasound shows that it is most likely a benign fibroadenoma and just needs to be monitored over the next few years. I am grateful to go to lunch today with a wonderful woman who crossed my path through work, but is easily a friend. I am grateful to be able to share my work in this forum. So let's get going. Today's card is for the aforementioned friend. It is made entirely of Close to My Heart products: Card stock is Juniper and Sorbet, DP is B&T Duos from the Unforgotten Paper Pack II and the chipboard is covered with another sheet of DP from the same pack. The sentiment is stamped in Juniper ink. Ribbon is from the Sorbet Collection. The card was made at a workshop a couple of months ago, but was waiting for the right time. Today is the day. I am grateful to know those of you that read my blog as well. Thank you and please take a minute today to think about what you are grateful for!

Back in action

Good day to all. Sorry I had a rough(busy)week last week. No time for stamping. Not to mention that I thought I would have lots of time to get some stuff done at a crop on Saturday night, but the weather put us all off until next Saturday! Oh well. I was able to use a couple of cards I had previously done for all of yesterday's birthdays. Happy birthday to the following: Grandpa Pagliasotti - 86 yrs, Grandma Cavnar - 85 yrs, and my good friend Cesar - 34 yrs. What a busy day. We also attended a benefit concert for a local charity called Lifeboat 14. It was lovely. I hope all of you had a good weekend despite the weather too. Well here is a card I made recently as I learn the technique of brayering. It is so beautiful and for someone who HATES sponging (I get crabby when my fingers get crampy), it is such a beautiful way to create lovely backgrounds. I need to work a bit on blending the colors together, but I actually like the hard lines in this scene. I used Stamping Up inks Night of Navy and So Saffron to create the moon and the night sky. I used the same inks to dye some ribbon and the same colors of card stock. The tree was a random stamp from Archivers and I used a white gel pen to highlight the tree. I stamped the sentiment in Night of Navy and we are off. I made four of these and my daughter used this one to give as a birthday card to her step father in early December. I "borrowed" it off his board so I could get a proper picture of it. This is one of my favorite cards I have ever made. I hope you all enjoy it as I do. I will be back before weeks end with some other projects to share. Thanks to you all.

Happy Easter Wishes

Hello all. Well, my company is giving us Friday off as a "holiday", so I won't have access to Blogger over the weekend. I decided to give you all something to look while I am away. A co-worker asked me for an Easter card for her mother, so I put this together the other night with my BFF's help, well actually her stamps. I was so honored to be able to ink them up before she had the chance to do it. I doubt that will happen very often ! I am fairly happy with the way it came out. This is from the Multi-Step Lily set from Kitchen Sink Stamps (http://kitchensinkstamps.bigcartel.com/products). There are 5 steps for these flowers - that's a lot of blue! I also stamped some ATC's for a Thank you note set I am giving as a gift to the mother to be at the shower this weekend. I was a stamping fool I tell you. I used Archiver's Card stock - Wildberry Pie for the mat and the card and I used SU Whisper White for the image and the background. I used the Scor-Pal to make a grid pattern embossed on the background panel of card stock. I didn't have a Happy Easter sentiment so I just made one! I used Ballet Blue for the sentiment. The recipe for the flower is (Soft Sky, Almost Amethyst, Bordering Blue, Ballet Blue, and Pacific Point) the stem is (Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi, and Garden Green). I wanted to put ribbon on it, but I didn't have the right one, so I went with Bling. My co-worker said that her mom would like that, so I'm glad I went with that decision. Well, I am co-hosting the baby shower this Saturday and hopefully going to see my nieces and nephews on Sunday. I hope you all have a great weekend and I will make sure to take pictures of the diaper cake I am making for a future post. Until next time.... Happy Easter!

Ian Baseball Birthday

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. Today I have a card to share in honor of a coworkers birthday and for baseball fans out there - to honor the beginning of the baseball season. My co-worker is from Chicago and a big fan of the White Sox. He does enjoy the game and has been known to "settle" for a Rockies game from time to time, so I decided that a baseball card would be a perfect way to honor his birthday! The image is Batter Ian DS from The Greeting Farm (see here: http://thegreetingfarm.com/index2.php) and was a loan to me by my good friend Angela. (It will be hard to repay as she has WAY MORE stuff than me, so I will have to search long and hard to get her something in return. **smiles**) The rest of the card is fairly simple: the image is colored with Copics (hair and skin), Stampin Up Marker Creamy Caramel (the bat), and a generic black marker to fill in the Black spots. The DP is the Softball from Reminesce and the card stock is Bazzil Black and Stampin Up Creamy Caramel. The little pennant is handwritten because I didn't have a Happy Birthday sentiment that worked there. I used some of the reverse side of the DP to cut out the words for the inside design and just used some more paper to dress it up a bit. Looks like he is ready for the big leagues! Well that's all for me. Hope everyone has a great day. Until next time...

Curl up with a good book...mark!

Hello to all! Well after the "Blizzard of 2009" hit last week, I had a few extra days away from the office for various reasons, but most of them were directly related to the snow that we had over the last few days. We are expecting more this evening just in time for the evening rush hour! I can't tell you how happy I am about that. =( Oh well. For those of you who don't have to be out driving in all the nastiness, you may get a chance to curl up with a good book. I know I have taken to bringing one with me lately so I have something to do when I get stuck waiting at places while other people do their things, like piano practice, or job bids, or even jobs. I have managed to get through quite a few books recently. Of course you never know how much time you will actually have when you are on other people's schedules, so it is ever so handy to have a good bookmark to go with the good book! I did this in December with the intent of giving it as a gift to my stamping buddies, but I didn't get them all out, so I have been using this lately for myself. Seems to fit the weather mood lately. I picked up the stamp at Scrapbook Destination as I needed a cupcake stamp and what better one than this. The paper is Stampin Up Night of Navy, Creamy Caramel, and Whisper White. The snowman is colored in with Real Red, Only Orange, and shadowed with Bordering Blue. I used Barely Banana to highlight the ground and only afterwards did I realize that it was yellow snow! Oh well. I used the emboss resist technique to cover the snowman and his shadow and then I filled in the ground and the night sky with a brayer, did a little sponging around the edge for depth and added some snowflakes/stars with a white gel pen. It is a lovely bookmark just as it is, but I took it one step further and cut a matching piece of Night of Navy, scored it one inch from the top, and stuck it together with some tacky tape, so that the bookmark will fold itself over a couple pages and stand up above the book a bit instead of getting lost down in the book. Hope you enjoy your book and stay nice and warm tonight!