LOTS TO SHARE

Hey All!  Happy Hump Day to all of you!  I hope that you are all having a wonderful week as you go sliding into the weekend!  Once again, I have a bunch to share with you so let's get started!

The first thing that I want to share with you all today is my entry into this week's HM Monday challenge.  The challenge was to make a card using any of the challenges from the last year's posts.  They are celebrating their 52ND challenge which means 1 year.  I chose the challenge of making a "get well" card.  Here it is:

At first glance, this doesn't look much like a get well card, however I made it for my best friend who just had surgery on his vocal cords.  So the inside sentiment says "Hope you are back to singing soon".  He sings in musicals and the opera, so I thought this image made the perfect get well card for him!  The image is a House Mouse stamp called "Two Part Harmony".  I colored it with my cheap colored pencils and oms.  The background paper is by Provo Craft in a pad called "brights".  I used a glitter pen to go over the light blue areas of the pattern to make it sparkle.  You can see it better here:

The next thing I want to share is the way you can look at the same image, and make two totally different cards with it.  Now I know that may not sound like much of a big deal, but I'm going to show you two cards where I used the same image, but on dramatically different cards.  Here is the first:

Every time I see this hamster I smile from ear to ear!  Is he not the cutest?  This is from Maurie Manning's Digital Pencil Too!  Maurie (she goes by "Mo") is a children's book illustrator and is so amazingly talented.  She is one of those artists that when you see her image, you know it's by her without looking to see.  Such a wonderful style.  Go see her by clicking the link above, you will love her work!  This is her hamster image, and I used it for the typical birthday card (kind of lends itself to that type of card).  I colored it with my cheap colored pencils and oms and matted it with navy blue Bazzill card stock.  You can see there on the bottom if you click on the picture that I ran a strip of the blue card stock through my paper crimper to look like a piece of the cupcake liner.  I put different colored brads in each corner to go with the dotted background paper and then added the sentiment (don't know who's stamps) cut out with my scalloped Nesties.  So you can see that this makes a perfect birthday card.  Now let's look at it in a different light:

Big difference in celebration huh?  LOL  It's funny, but when I saw this image for the first time, I thought to myself "What a cute little cupcake monster".  Then the idea hit me to make a Halloween card using that theme.  Again, I colored him with my cheap colored pencils and oms.  I used Ranger's soot distressed ink to go around the edge.  Again, if you click on the picture above, you will see that I put a strip of black card stock through my crimper to give the look of a piece of cupcake liner paper and then put the computer generated sentiment on that.  Added orange brads and some Halloween printed paper for the background and done.  Both of these cards are 5 X 7, which is usually the size I work with.  This also illustrates the advantage of using a digital stamp.  You can size it to fit the card your working on which is a dream for me.  I find a lot of the stamps too small for my preferred 5 X 7 format.  So, I hope this gives you some thoughts on looking at your stamps and visualizing how to use them differently.

The next couple of cards I want to share with you are two Fall cards.  I'll start with my wreath card. . . here it is:

The colors in this card were inspired by the pic of the week at the end of this post.  This one was, I think, more work than it was actually worth!  LOL  I stamped each of those leaves with either Staz-On or Memento ink, then colored the unstamped parts of the image with my colored pencils.  I then cut all 25 leaves out by hand.  My poor big man hands were cramping by the time I was finished!  LOL  I don't know who makes these leaf stamps.  They were purchased way before I was told that I needed to save that information and supply it to people who wanted to know.

When I make one of these wreath cards (see my winter wreath from last season here)  I always first start with a "ring" that I make out of my Nesty circles.  Using a large circle first then a smaller circle to cut out the center of the first circle.  This becomes my "template" to keep the leaves in a circular pattern and something to glue them to.  The paper is by Pizazz and I used it as the background because it reminded be of an old country door or a barn door.  I love the coppery shear ribbon which I used to make the bow with my Bow Easy, which I'm still thinking it's still not that easy.  Don't know why I have such trouble with it!  It must be my big man hands!  LOL

The next is another Fall shaker card.  This time I used a natural element for the "shaker stuff".  Here's the card:

The pumpkin stamp is by Paper Inspirations and the background paper is from a stack by Me and My Big Ideas.  As you can see, I used real pumpkin seeds!  Here is a close up:

They were such a mix of great colors and really added to the theme of the card.  They really make a good shaker sound too!  The pumpkin seeds were already roasted/salted and I washed them in soapy water before using them on my card to avoid any oil staining the background.  I really love making these shakers, and the people that I show them to really go wild over them.  They are super easy to do and you can  see how to make them by visiting my last post where I provide a link to a great video.

Well that's it!  Are ya tired?!?!  I know I go overboard with how much I share.  I try to tell myself, save the cards and post only one at a time.  But I just can't help myself.  I just want to throw it all out there at once!  Just the way I am.  And besides, the way I've been going at it lately, I'd have enough cards to post for months!  LOL

I hope you enjoyed the post.  I certainly enjoy you coming by and taking the time to read the silliness I post.  And then for you to leave the types of comments you leave is even more heartwarming.  You guys add to the sunshine in my day.  Thank you so much.

One last thing, don't forget the pic of the week below.  This was from last year.  It was taken at a walking path here close to my house.  This is the actual shot.  It was not photoshopped or touched in any way.  We had the most vibrant colors last year, and I'm hoping for the same in this year's foliage.   Take care all!  I'll be seeing you on your blogs later tonight and tomorrow morning!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

"God help me be the person that my dogs think I am."