THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR NOVEMBER 28, 2012

Hey All!

There you are!!!  Welcome to another edition of the Wednesday Evening Post!  How was Thanksgiving for those of you here in the US?  I can tell just by looking at you that you were all good and didn't overeat!  Look at you!!!  Have you lost weight???  You all are looking incredible!

I have just a few cards to share with you.  I've started my Christmas cards!  How about that!?!  How are you doing on yours???  From all of you I visited last week, I see you are getting them done too!  My first is not for Christmas, but for a friend's birthday. . .take a look:

What is special about this card is that this is my FIRST ATTEMPT at using water color pencils.  I'm really loving them!  I just can't believe that you touch the tip of a water brush right to the pencil and paint.  I was able to blend and shade with ease and no oms!  I think I'm hooked!  This is a Gruffies image.

OK, now the Christmas cards:

Here are two cards using the same image but different background papers.  I plan on making several of these.  They are easy to color (Bic markers) and fast to put together.  I added gold Stickles to the star and red liquid pearls to the ornaments for some texture.  The image is from Art Impressions and I so love these penguins.

This is a whimsical card created with two different stamp sets.  The trees are from Lawn Fawn and I paper pieced each one and mounted the middle and top layer of each tree on foam tape to give it some depth.  The reindeer is from Recollections and is also on a dimensional. 

I have seen people doing cards for challenges that are supposed to be done in "non-traditional" colors, so I thought I would try a version of my own.  I like the red/white/black combo and think that this is not a traditional Christmas color scheme.  The tree (Penny Black) is embossed in white and I used red liquid pearls to dot all over (faster than I thought).  The "Joy" is embossed in red tinsel so it is very sparkly.

Pic of the Week

Well, that's it for this edition. I do hope all of you are doing well.  Thanks for coming to see me. . .it is always good to see you and I love having you here.  I'll be seeing you on your blogs soon!

Hugs to all of you!

Curt O'Brien

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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR NOVEMBER 21, 2012

Hey All!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!  I hope you find yourselves tomorrow surrounded by those you love.  I'm having seven for dinner tomorrow with all the trimmings, turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, home made dressing, etc.  And those of you who don't splurge or who have excessive will power, think about this. . .if the world is supposed to end on December 21st this year, then technically this is the last holiday forever!  So splurge!!!!  LOL  (Hey, it is a great excuse huh?)

I have 6 more cards to share with you today.  All Thanksgiving.  The top two are my favorites:

This is the card I made for my Mom.  It is made with a die cut from Memory Box.  I cut the image from 3 different papers, added the ribbon, stamped the sentiment, and done.

I'm never comfortable mixing patterns, but I like these together.  One fun thing I discovered when making this card. . .see the dots on the pumpkin image?  That was strictly by accident!  I stamped the image on the back of a "dotted" paper by Bazzill.  The front has raised dots on it, but the back seemed smooth.  When I started coloring with my colored pencils, the dots appeared.  How fun!

This is the card I made for my sister.  Another side step.

I saw this sketch where they used various pennants so I tried it out and ended up making 3 more cards.  You can't see it in the photo, but the one with acorns has dark copper glitter on top of the acorns, and I went back after the photo of the one with the pumpkin and added glitter to the swirl patter on the pumpkin.  The other, of course, is a House Mouse image that is actually a Halloween stamp, but worked well for this card.

Well, that's it for this edition.  I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and I want you to know that as I think about all of the things I am thankful for I certainly count you all on the top of that list.

Pic of the Week

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Curt O'Brien

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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR NOVEMBER 14, 2012

Hey All!

How is everyone????  Can you believe we are just about a week away from Thanksgiving???  OMGosh. . .it's like I was just swimming with the boys and now it is time for Thanksgiving!  Where does the time go???

Well, I know where some of my time has gone. . .into making more cards.  I decided to play along with the House Mouse Monday Challenge this week.  I did it for two reasons: 1) I thought I would get a start on my Christmas cards, and 2) It has been a while since I played with my House Mouse/Happy Hopper stamps.  The challenge this week is to create a card that depicts one of the many things you do to get ready for Christmas.  Here is my entry:

I know lots of people who bake Christmas cookies so I thought this image would depict that.  However, I didn't think that bunnies would make gingerbread "men" so I made a gingerbread bunny!  LOL  The image is colored with my cheap colored pencils and oms.

I also got stuck this week on making side step cards.  I love dimensional cards and this style lends itself to so many ideas I just couldn't stop.  Here they are:

While I was looking for an image for the challenge above, I saw this image in my collection and this card popped into my head.  I made the little bath mat by stamping the word "bath" on a cloth ribbon, then fraying it on both ends to create "fringe".  I made the side panel into a chest of drawers with a little lacy towel hanging out of a drawer and added the wine glass and bottle.  Again colored with pencils/oms.

I created this winter scene and made it even more dimensional by cutting out the tree and having the limb extend out into open space to allow the birdhouse to hang from a piece of twine.  I also added liquid applique for a "snowy" effect.  It is glittery too, but it doesn't show in the pic.   The stamp set used is by Crafty Lounge.  There is no name on the wood tree stamp I used for the background.

 I used this stamp set again from Technique Tuesdays to create this stair step card.

The pumpkins on this one were made with an oval punch and two different colors of card stock that had textured dots.  I used the single wheat stamp in multiple distress ink colors to create the background panel.

I've been wanting to use this giant pumpkin stamp for the longest time and finally did.  I'm not used to having such a large image dominate a card like this one does, but I LOVE pumpkins and I love the vintage look of this one.

OK, that's it for another Wednesday Evening Post.  I'm off to see what you have all been up to, so you'll be seeing a comment from me in the very near future.  Can't wait to see what you've been up to.  Until then, thanks so much for stopping by and looking at my crap stuff.  LOL

Pic of the Week

Hope you all are having a great week!

Hugs,

Curt O'Brien

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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Hey All!

I hope this post finds you well, happy and safe.  I've been thinking so much of my blogging friends on the East coast and hear that more nasty weather is still in store.  My thoughts are with you.

I promise this post has nothing to do with pictures of my house but of cards!  I've been feverishly making thank you cards to send to those who came to my open house and brought gifts.  So here they are:

Ever since I've seen the "triple stamping" technique on SCS, I wanted to try so this was my first attempt.  I wanted to keep it warm and simple.  The flower images have copper Stickles centers to give it just a little bling.  I think the next time I do this, I'll do a little more background stamping.

This is one made with the SU French Foliage stamp set.  The background piece was ran through  the CB in a woodgrain embossing folder.

This card was done with a wonderful stamp by Deadbeat Designs.  I stamped them with Distress Inks.

I used a single leaf stamp from the "French Foliage" set again on this one but kept stamping it in different Distress Inks on top of the image to fill the panel.

I love this new stamp set from Technique Tuesdays.  

This was a super fast and easy card since my friend Sue in Washington sent all the components to me (thank you Sue!!!).  I just had to put it all together, stamp the thank you, glue on a couple of leaves and attach the copper brads.

I tried to go for a European postcard look on this one.  The dot on the "i" is done in red Stickles.

I shamelessly used this hilarious sentiment on the front and inside.  The inside says "It's pasture birthday."  LOL  It just makes me laugh.  I stamped and colored the barn scene and punch/pieced my little sheep.  This was for my Aunt's birthday which I missed because of my heart attack.

And finally, this is a note card set I made for a friend that I used to work with who has faithfully followed my blog since I left work.  This is a Mo Manning image (whom I adore)  I colored them with my colored pencils and oms.  My friend Brent and his wife have Chihuahuas and I thought they would get a big kick out of these.  The card box is my standard go to box from Gina K. Designs.  You can find the instructions to make it HERE.   Instead of keeping the box closed with a ribbon tied, I simply used velcro dots to keep it closed.

Well, there you have it.  I'm working on Thanksgiving cards now and hopefully will have the design figured out and some cards to show for next post.

Thanks so much for coming to see me!  Thanks to for all the wonderful comments you leave me.  Every one of them mean so much to me, not just because of what they say, but because you took the time to leave it.  And I appreciate that so much.

Hugs to all of you!

Curt O'Brien

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