WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR MARCH 24TH, 2010

Hey All!  It's so nice to see you here!  Welcome back for another edition of the Wednesday Evening Post with yours truly.  LOL  I have a TON to share with you in this post, so off we go!

First thing I'd like to share with you is a card I made for my sister who is sadly going through a divorce.  After 13 years of marriage and 16 years of being together, he decided that he's not happy.  She is devastated by this and I wanted to let her know I was there for her.  Here is the card:

 click on image for larger view

I love this image and have used it on other cards, but the image says so much about caring.  The sentiment is computer generated and its placement to the side of the image is thanks to my blogging buddy Sue who has done this with some of her sentiments in her last couple of posts.  Thanks Sue!  The umbrella was stamped twice, one cut out and applied to give it dimension.  I tried something different this time with the water.  Once I colored the water, I used the colors of the bunny and the frog and lightly colored over the water where they were standing to create a reflection look.  I used Diamond Glaze to give a slick look on the puddle and rain drops.  I really like how it turned out.  Here is a picture of my sister:

Isn't she pretty?  This is the picture I took for her to send to her publisher for the back cover of her book.  She is a budding author with one book under her belt and is working on book number two.  Her first book is called Bargain Party and it is about how to have a successful, one of a kind garage sale.  You can click on the link and read more.  Anyway, can you keep her in your thoughts and prayers that she finds the strength to get through this?  I'd sure appreciate it, and I know she will too.

My next thing to show you is a card set that I made for a lady here in my neighborhood.  She is such a wonderful person, and she has the sweetest little pug named Marley.  I found this wonderful image and had to get it so that I could make this card set:

Click to enlarge

Isn't this such a cute image?  It's called "Puggles" and I found it at HERE.  You really should go visit her blog too.  Wow, she has some great stuff.  Her blog is HERE.  I hesitated getting this image because my neighbor's dog is all black, and you know how I feel about coloring black things.  But after tackling this image, I do feel more comfortable doing black images.  Here is the set and how it was packaged:

She loved them and said she was only going to use them to write notes to special people!  LOL  She is very sweet and I'm so glad to know her.  She is the one that, after hearing about Gunther's injury, brought the boys treats and me some of her delicious homemade chicken soup because she knew I was hurting too!

The last card I'd like to share (here I go giving away all my projects in one post!  LOL), is a "congrats on your new home" card.  I saved it for last for a particular reason.  Here is the card:

I have wanted to own this set for a long time, but watch my money and have to pick and choose what I can get.  This set is called "Boards and Beams" from Paper Trey Ink.  This looks like a simple card, but I had to go through a lot of stages to create it.  I colored the house and trees with my colored pencils and oms.  I cut the house out.  I stamped the trees on a separate piece of paper and sponged the sky on that strip.  I then took a piece of dp that looked kind of "grassy" and cut it.  I then pieced the sky/tree panel to the grass panel then attached the house on top of both with dimensional squares.  Finally I stamped the sentiment (from same set) on the grassy piece to finish it.  Now, here's the story:

I entered for a chance at some very generous blog candy on my very good blogging friend Chris' blog Mudmaven Designs.  Well long story short, only 3 people entered and she decided to divide it between the 3 of us which I thought was great.  Well, a few days later, I get this email from Paper Trey Ink that someone had purchased a $50.00 gift certificate for me.  I was in shock!  Then I found out it was Chris.  I just couldn't believe it.  The gift certificate came with a note from Chris that said "A little advance blog candy - now you can get the trees and some goodies to go with them!  ~chris"   She was referring to a card that she had made that I loved so much.  The stamps she used on the card were from Paper Trey Ink.  Well, I purchased both that set and the one that was used for the card above.  Thank you again Chris!  You really will never know how much your kindness meant to me!  If you click on the link to her blog (in this paragraph), you'll see the gift package that I sent to her as a thank you.  Below is the blog candy that she also sent in ADDITION to the wonderful gift certificate!

She is such a generous, sweet person.

Whewwwwww!  That's it!  Done for this post.  I hope it was worth your time.  My next post will be on Monday.  We have another House Mouse Monday Challenge coming up then.  I hope you come back for that.

GUNTHER UPDATE:  Gunther is almost back to normal!  We have been walking now up to a mile, and yesterday he was let off of his leash to run and explore.  He still can't run without limping, but he sure walks with barely noticeable limping.  Thanks for your inquiries on how he's doing!

 Again, thanks so much for spending some of your valuable time with me and my blog.  I love you guys and I thank you so much for thinking me worthy enough of your time, let alone taking the time to comment on my "stuff".  You are all the best.  And by the way, WELCOME TO ALL OF THE NEW FOLLOWERS!  I'm honored to have all of you!  Don't forget the Pic of the Week below!  Take good care!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

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