THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR JULY 20, 2011

Hey All!

How the heck are ya?  I hope this post finds you well and happy.  I have to start by apologizing for my little rant in my last post.  But all of you came to my rescue to try to help me.  Alas, I had already tried most of everything you all suggested to no avail.  I have not revisited the machine, but plan to this coming week.  If I can't resolve the problem, it is going back.  I have 60 days with receipt.  Nuff said. . .

To make up for the lack of projects last week, I worked really hard this week to provide you with stuff to look at, so here we go. . .I hope you like!


See this little tiny stamp?:

And yes, that is ink on my finger. . .Anyway when I saw this tiny little stamp a card set popped into my mind.  So I brought this little fella home and it created all of this:

This is the box I created to hold the "note" card set created by that little stamp.  The box is one of my favorite projects from Gina K. Designs and you can find the tutorial for it HERE.  Now, let's open it up:

Let's see what's inside. . .

See what one little, tiny, single stamp can do???  LOL  This is my "Just a Note" set.  And this was pretty much what was in my head when I picked up that little guy.  Here are a couple of pics of them:

These were quick and easy to do and incorporate the clean and simple style.  The single stamp is by Stampendous, the music page stamp is by Hero Arts, the sentiment is by Stampabilities, and the piano keys stamp is by Stampabilities, (yes, the little guy needed a little help).   Hope you like my set and that it gives you some ideas for that little stamp that is sitting around in your collection waiting to help you with your cards!

Next on the agenda. . .get ready. . .it's coming before you know it. . .prepare yourselves . . .

EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!  Hey!  If people can post Christmas cards already, I certainly can start my Halloween cards. . . .right?  LOL  Now I know that this looks really simple and doesn't look like much. . . ahhhh but that is the intent.  For when you slip off the belly band, this is what you will find:

What do you think???  This is a "pop-up stage" card which was the highlighted technique on SCS last week.  You can find the tutorial HERE.  I so love how this turned out!  I used a combination of stamps/sets here.  I made the floor from scratch by using a piece of mottled paper then scoring the "planks", and then drawing the lines and "nail holes".  The wall paper is DP, the chair (stamped on DP and cut out), the picture on the wall, the fireplace, the witch's hat on the bear's head, and jack-o-lantern are all by There She Goes Stamps.  The bears are all from one stamp from the Gruffies line.  Everything was colored with my cheap colored pencils and oms.  You can count on more of these to come in future posts.  I have a ton of ideas for this card style!

Now to a couple of cards that have sad stories. . .

This is a Mo Manning digital image that I just love.  It is really the only "cat" image that I have to use for "cat" cards.  I was at my local Archivers store this past week and found out that one of the young ladies that works there had to put her cat to sleep.  So I made this one for her.  If you are reading this Kacy, this card is on its way to you.  (Myrna, I wish you would get yours soon!) My very sweet blogging buddy Myrna also lost their sweet cat as well, and I sent her a card weeks ago and it still has not arrived (she is in Canada).

And on the dog side. . .

Our very sweet neighbors across the street from us lost their beloved "Jake".  He was the sweetest dog, and became ill very suddenly.  I wanted the card to be simple and only highlight the sentiment.  The sentiment is a Northwoods stamp that a friend of mine got for me awhile back.  I took the card over to them and talked about Jake and cried.  Jake will be so missed by many. . .

OK, that's it for this week's post.  Hope I made up for the "bitch fest" I laid on you all last week.  LOL  I still sneer at that damn machine each time I walk by it!  But I thank you all for your wonderful attempts to help.  With or without the machine, next week's items will incorporate fabric!

Until next week, take good care of yourselves and be happy!  Thanks so much for stopping by.  Wish I could serve you some "cyber beverages" while you are here!  Thanks for always leaving such awesome comments.  I cherish them, I really do.

Pic of the Week:

Such a sweet little beauty stopped to pose for me this week.  Love that it casts a shadow on the leaf.


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 APRIL 13, 2011(ON THURSDAY)

Hey All!


I so apologize for the lateness of this post.  As some of you have asked me, yes "life got in the way".  I won't whine about what is going on, but I'm OK.  Thanks again to all of you who emailed me to make sure everything is alright.  I love you guys!


So, the poll results last week surprised me just a bit!  Over 72% of you voted that you RARELY use digital images.  Only 12% use them a lot, and everyone else was in between.   Yes, I'm in the rarely category, but I was sure that more people would use them sometimes.  I'm learning a lot about you guys!  Don't forget to vote in this week's poll!


OK, on with the post.  I have a 3-D project to share with you and two cards.  Here is my 3-D project first. . .It was a bear to photograph it.  So here it is:

With all the white, it's hard to see the sheep!  But this is a card set of 4 sheep in a little pen I made for them.  Each has one of these sentiments:


Love Ewe
Happy Birthday to Ewe
Thinking of Ewe
How Are Ewe?


Here are all the sheep let out of their pen:

These sheep are all over SCS, so they are nothing new and certainly nothing unique.  However, I did make the pen from scratch a well as the envelopes.  Speaking of envelopes, here is what the sheep look like sitting inside:

I used the MS scoring board to create the envelopes to fit.  The sheep are "clam shell" type cards that open from the top.  I used the largest scalloped circle to cut them out.  I also used the smallest scalloped oval for the "hair", and regular oval Nestie for the face and ears.  Ran 'em through a cuttle bug folder for the embossing.


Here is my second card:

This is one of those reverse image cling stamps from Hero Arts.  I've been having an issue using them until now.  I finally had an "Ah Ha" moment.  I had been trying to emboss them with white ep on white cardstock and then trying to color or paint them but with not much success.  Then I thought "why not just use white ep on colored cardstock and call it a day?"  LOL  It worked.  I used linen white ep on black cardstock to create this image.  Matted it several times and added a sentiment on the bottom.  Really was quick to do.


Last card for the post is an Easter card using a Prairie Fairy (Thanks Sue for the reminder!) digital image:

The inside sentiment says "Sending Love at Easter Time".  I love that squiggly big smile on his little face.  I did the cut out of the image so his ears are sticking out of the die cut.  He's colored with colored pencils and oms.


OK, that's it.  Hope you liked what you saw tonight.  I appreciate you coming to look and also your concern when I come up missing.  Thank you so much for caring.  I've been remiss in visiting your blogs last week as well, so I'll be catching up as usual.


Here is the Pic of the Week:              SPRING CROCUS

 I do hope you are all well.  Can't wait to see what you've been up to.  Thanks to my new subscribers.  Welcome!


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR JULY 7, 2010

Hey All!  Happy Hump Day!  I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend.  I took the boys and my Mom and her dog Chunk to the local fireworks here in Carmel.  They were spectacular.   The boys haven't ever been that close to fireworks before.  When they started with these huge BOOMS, Gunther crawled in my lap and Shotsy went behind me and leaned up against my back.  Eventually, they got bored and sprawled out on the grass.  Such goofy dogs!  LOL


This post is going to be picture heavy, so you'll have lots to look at.  I wanted to share with you a note card set that I've made.  Here is a pic of each of the cards in the set:

Here is the box I made to hold the set:

The stamp set I used for this set is by Stampendous.  I love these bright colors.  I was just going to do one of my standard note card holders, but this morning when I went to SCS, they had this box featured for the project of the week.  The box is super easy to make.  You can find the tutorial here: BOX TUTORIAL.  There is a written tutorial as well as a video tutorial.  I used Bazzill card stock for this project.  I stamped the fruit images with Versamark ink then embossed it with clear ep.  I added crystal glitter around each fruit to give it a "sugared" look.  I then cut each out and placed it on the card with a dimensional.  The base card is kraft card stock.


My next project is not a card but something for the boys.  It falls under the altered category.  Here is a pic of the project:

These are wooden letters with little metal hook thingies attached to the bottom.  I got them at Michael's for $1 each.  I used Staz-On black ink to stamp the bones and paws on the surface.  These make great leash holders for the boys.  I also made one for my Mom's dog Chunk.


Something really weird happened last week.  A beautiful hot air balloon made an emergency landing right next to my house in the middle of the street.  I grabbed my camera and took these pics:

I'm standing in my driveway taking this picture; my house is right there in the foreground.

Look at it right there at my house!!!

Here they are deflating it.  One eye witness said that before it landed there by my house, it hit the roof of the house across the street before landing.  No one was hurt, but the guy operating the balloon was acting like that was where he was intending to land.  Yeah, right.  But it made for an interesting evening.


And since we are talking about my house, I wanted to share a pic of the front of it with all of my flowers blooming.  Here it is:

I've never had this many flowers in bloom before!  I HATE gardening, but for some reason the flowers are doing it to spite me!  LOL  Thanks for indulging me on this.  But this is just not something I see every year!


OK, that's it for now.  I've bored you enough!  LOL  Thanks for taking time to look.  I'm working on all kinds of new projects so next Wednesday's post will have lots more to show you.  I'll be stopping by all of your blogs in the next couple of days.  As always, can't wait to see what you've been doing.  I hope all is well in your world!


DON'T FORGET THE PIC OF THE WEEK BELOW!!!  I got a great shot of a wonderful turtle in a pond at a local park the other day.  I was so excited to see how well the pic turned out.


Hugs to all of you!


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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