THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST ON SUNDAY!

Hey All!  I'm so sorry I didn't get Wednesday's post up, but I've been dealing with some "stuff" and just haven't been myself.  But I'm "over it" now LOL and I've got stuff to post!  (Thanks Patti J for your sweet email!)

As I mentioned in my last post, I got this great stamp set as a gift from the artist herself.  It was such a generous gift, and the note she sent with it and the things she said were so very sweet.  But one thing she did say was there were no strings attached and she didn't expect me to do anything with it or to post anything but to just enjoy the set.  But did I listen to her???? Hmmmmmmm????  LOL  I'm here to tell you that her stamp set is one of the best I have ever owned.  SERIOUSLY!  I've NEVER seen such quality!  The polymer is really thick and they are so sturdy.  The impression that you get with them is effortless.  Add to that the fact that the set is stunningly gorgeous, and you have got one of the best sets around!

I decided to make a note card set, complete with holder and give it away.  You know the saying "Pay It Forward"?  So, here is the note card set and each note card up for grabs":

Here is the note card holder I made for the set.  The wreath is one of her stamps in the set.

Here it is open.

This is the first card in the set.  Isn't this a great image?  I colored it with my ccp/oms and embossed it and cut  it out with my Nestie ovals and matted it on scallops.  Then I attached that onto great woodgrain paper and added a red satin bow.

Here's a close up of the image.

Here is the next card in the set:

I so love this wreath image.  I formed the background by cutting the four panels with my Nesties from the same paper I used for the front, back, and inside of the card holder.  I lined them up and attached them to chocolate brown card stock.  The image is colored with you know what and I cut it out again with Nesties and mounted it with foam squares to the front of the card.  The sentiment on both the card holder and this card are also part of her set.  Here is a close up of the image:

Here is the next card in the set:

I love this image too!  I'm actually a tree/leaf freak!  LOL  When I was showing my Mom my stamp collection, she said "Boy, you sure like leaves and trees."  So no more boring with details.  Card was made like the rest. . .

Here is the close up of the image:

You can see that I used a stardust glitter pen and went over the leaves for some shimmer.  I did the same for the wreaths in the other two.

Here is the last of the four cards in the set:

Another wonderful image.  Here is the whole set together with the holder:

These make great Thanksgiving or general Autumn note cards.  I can't wait to use this set some more!  Thanks again Claire for this treasured gift.  I hope I did you proud with this  card set!

I've not told you her name yet have I???  What a dork I am!  Her name is Claire Brennan and her website is called Waltzing Mouse click HERE.   You can find the stamp set I used here:  Peace & Plenty  It has 10 images and 6 sentiments.  You can see all of her stamp sets HERE.  And talk about a genius, she has stamp sets that work in conjunction with some of the Nestabilitie die sets!  How cool is that?  OK, to wind my note card set, all you have to do is the usual.  Just leave a comment, and I will randomly choose a winner with Random.org next Sunday (November 15th at 6:00 PM Eastern Time) and will post the winner on my Wednesday Evening Post on November 18th.  Good luck to all!  I can't wait to give this set to one of you guys!

Next on my agenda is another little project of mine.  I kept seeing this cute luminary on SCS and I wanted to give it a try.  Here are two shots of it.  The first is unlit and the second lit:

I couldn't believe how easy and fast this was to make and how beautiful it looked when lit.  If you can notice, again I used the same paper that I did on the note card set (can you believe I got all the cards and this project out of 1 12 X 12 sheet!)  on the outside of the base.  The vellum paper I used for the windows was already pre-stamped with those beautiful leaves.  I bought two sheets of it on clearance over a year ago and knew that this was the perfect use for it.  You can find the a pictorial tutorial and video tutorial for this project HERE.  I plan on doing some Christmas ones down the road.  The one above is not really decorated like the ones they showed at SCS.  I wanted to keep this one simple because of the beautiful vellum.  But I can think of lots of decorating ideas for the outside of them for Christmas.

My final card today was kind of used for an inside joke with my Mom.  My Mom, sadly, has macular degeneration.  It has gotten worse over the years, and we kinda noticed that she is having some difficulty putting on her makeup properly.  Sometimes the rouge is way heavy on one side or she is wearing an extremely bright shade of lipstick that doesn't go with her "style".  So, even though it may seem a little evil on my part, when I saw this image I COULD NOT RESIST GETTING IT FOR THIS CARD I MADE FOR HER:

Here is a close up of the image:

On the inside the sentiment says, "You May Look a Little Funny, But We Still Love You."  LOL  When she first saw it, she couldn't believe what she was seeing, then when she read the inside, she laughed.  She knew I was trying to be sweet in a funny way.  This is a perfect example of why I love the House Mouse images so much.  They have an image that you can apply to just about everything!

Well kiddos, that's it for this post.  Except for one last little thing.  Some of you may have noticed that I finally posted my picture here on the blog.  The people at the House Mouse challenge kinda hinted it would be nice. I have never liked any picture of myself, but I pulled this one from the following magazine article that was done on me and Jay a while back:

I'm sure if you click on the picture, you'll be able to read the short article on us.  Our story was a part of a series of stories of how our pets are so much more than just pets.  How some are heroic or like in our case can have a healing effect on people.  But anyway, I just took a photo of the photo above and cropped it down.  It's as good as it's going to get unless someone has a miracle camera to make me look better!  LOL

OK, that's really it except for the Pic of the Week below!  Thanks again to everyone for their joyous responses to my being picked for the HM design team.  I can't wait to get started and I'll let you know in an upcoming post more details about that first post.  Again, thanks so much for your awesome support and good luck with the draw!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

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