NOTE CARD SET

Hey Kiddos! Happy Weekend to all of you. I hope you had a great week and you are planning to have a great weekend.

Today's post is short and to the point today. I have a note card set to share with you today. I made this for another neighbor who I talk too every so often when I'm out walking the boys. I have found that she had a very similar past life that reflects so much of what I am going through with Jay now. Her husband was very ill, in a motorized wheelchair, and eventually passed. I could not get over all the things that she went through that I'm going through now. It's nice to find someone who actually understands the frustrations of taking care of someone and to be able to just "talk" about it sometimes. She has been a great help to me in that respect, and I wanted to show her how much I appreciate it. She also has a wonderful sense of humor and drops some "hard" language sometimes which always makes me laugh. The funny part is that she is an English teacher by trade.

Did I say this was gong to be short??? LOL OK, on with the card set.

OK, I know this was not the best choice for ribbon. HOWEVER. . .I tried 8 different ribbons trying to match the "overall" color of this card stock. I found one that was almost "perfect", but it was majorly wrinkled. So, I tried to iron it, and it shriveled up and melted! So, this was the only one that didn't look totally horrible.

I made four cards for the set. Here is the first one:

This is a Gruffies stamp from Stampabilities. The paper is from The Paper Studio. I used my cheap colored pencils and OMS to color it, and cut the image out with my Nesties labels die.

Here's the next one:

This is a House Mouse image from Stampabilities. Again, pretty much of the same info on the supplies as the first one.

Next:

This is a Happy Hoppers image from Stampabilities. Colored pencils & OMS, blah blah blah. Accept on this one, I sponged the sky background with Colorbox ink (much darker IRL, sun washes it out), and I did something I've not done before on the balloons. First, I double stamped them, but before I added them on the card, I tried a technique that I've seen on several blogs that I never think of doing. I turned the cut out balloons over in the palm of my hand and used an embossing tool to "round them out" and poof out more. I LOVED how they turned out. So 3-D!! I then attached them with foam squares. I also coated them with Diamond Glaze for the shine factor. I again also added cotton batting for his little fuzzy tail!

Last card in the set:

Another Gruffies image. How sweet is that face!?! Again, colored pencils/OMS. I used a new product (new to me) that I got at JoAnn's called "Fabric Tac" to make the ribbon loops. This stuff is great! Tiny drop on one side, lightly touch the other side to stick, and tah dah. . .ribbon loop to add. (I know, little things like this seem to amuse me.) LOL

Here is the whole set all together:

So, that's it. She loved them and I was glad for that. However, she said she didn't think she could send them to anyone, because she wanted to keep them for herself. LOL

OK, that's it for this post. 9 more days until the DT announcement. I'll have one more post before it's announced.

Thanks again for taking the time to look at my stuff! I still can't believe that people come to see me! I'll be seeing you all on your blogs! Don't forget the pic of the week below!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

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

NEW NOTE CARD SET

Hey All!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I want to start this post by saying a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you who sent Jay a get well card. WOW they were wonderful. And a couple of you were thoughtful enough to include a little something for me! LOL You are all wonderful! They really meant so much to Jay, and he said he couldn't believe that people who didn't even know him would send him cards. He told me to be sure to let every one know how much he appreciated the well wishes. I'll be posting them next post. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting them from the memory card to the computer. All the other pics uploaded fine, but this batch of your cards that I took this morning for this post won't upload no matter what I've tried.

Today, I've got a note card set to share and a card using a new technique (new to me) that I saw at Stamp TV with Gina K. So, on with the post:

Here is the card I made using the technique called "Pullin' Pastels". Take a look:

This is kind of fun to do. You take a dark piece of card stock and and rub it with different colors of chalk (not ink). Then you take silhouette style stamps, ink them up with Versamark ink, and stamp the image right on the chalked card stock. The Versamark on the stamp literally pulls the chalk off of the card stock which creates the image. This card has an almost Asian feel, and I love how it looks like the images are silhouetted by twilight. I used EK Success chalks on black Bazzill card stock. The hummingbird stamp is by Stampabilities and the rest of the flora stamps are from Inque. The set is called Silhouettes. I don't know what the deal is with the color of the border. This photo was taken in direct sunlight outside, so the "yellow" border you see is actually the color of the pale green you see in the chalked area. You can find the video tutorial here.

My next project is another note card set. I made this for a neighbor who was so good to us during Jay's recent illness. She came over to offer to plant my flowers for me, and brought us food after Jay came home. She is wonderful and a wonderful cook too! Here is the set:

I call this one the "Summer Notes" card set. The note card holder is the same design I used in my last note card set, and again, you can see the tutorial here. I LOVE this card holder so much. I altered this one a little by not using the eyelets on the inside sleeves. They really have no purpose, and you really have to be careful to cover them up on the front. So this time I simply used red line tape to secure the flaps. I love how this turned out so bright and cheery. I wanted the outside to reflect "summer" and the note cards inside to reflect "summer things". Here are the inside cards:

The image is from Happy Hopper from Stampabilities. All the images for this project were stamped with Archival Jet Black ink. I colored it with my cheap colored pencils and OMS. I used my Nesties Labels dies to do the mat. I wanted to get the feel for home plate and these were close. I took white brads and used a red Sharpie marker to make them look like baseballs. Don't laugh, it is hard for a guy to work with small pieces! LOL I then added the corner brackets which I punched out and put those on DSP that resembles a grassy field.

This is also a Happy Hopper image. I colored it like I always do and then used my Nesties to cut out a frame for it. I used a black colored pencil to draw in the watermelon seeds on the frame and then attached it to watermelon paper. This paper came in one of those "stacks" but it wasn't by DCWV. I don't know who makes it, but it was perfect for this card. Added the rhine colored ribbon to finish it off.

Again, another Stampabilities House Mouse image this time. Colored it like I always do and then matted it with a piece cut out with my rectangle scalloped Nesties. I used foam squares to attach it to the card. The lemon paper was from the same stack above. Again, it was perfect for this card. If you look close (click on pics to make them bigger) you can see the "droplets" of water I added using Diamond Glaze. I also attached the yellow dew drops to each corner and then added my ribbon.

The last one is also a Happy Hopper. How sweet is this bunny eating an ice cream cone??? This is simply matted and attached with chocolate brown brads, attached a strip of DP matted with chocolate brown card stock, ribbon added and done!



Another shot of the whole set out of the holder.

Well, that's it for this post. I hope all is going well in your worlds. Again, thanks to all of those of you who showed such kindness to us. I'm such a lucky guy to have you! Don't forget the pic of the week below. I'll be seeing all of you on your blogs! Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving comments! They mean so much!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

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