BUTTERFLIES, BUTTERFLIES AND A STRANGE STORY

Hey all! Hope you are having a great weekend! It is simply gorgeous here and my Mom and I took "the boys" out to the park for a romp. That is where the strange story comes in, so be sure to read it (and see the pics) at the end of the post.

I have two cards to share with you today. Both have a butterfly theme in honor of the beginning of Spring. Here is my first:

I so love this butterfly stamp. I also love the sentiment I put on this card (click on pic for a better read). The butterfly is from a newly purchased set from Inkadinkado. The set includes several bugs, and one I can't wait to use is a dragonfly. I stamped these with Archival Jet Black ink and then colored them with Bic markers (I didn't have bright pastels in my Copics set). I have no idea who made the paper, but I thought it was perfect for this card. I cut each butterfly out and mounted them on the card with foam squares. The sentiment (computer generated) was printed on white cs and then cut out using Nestie circles. I cut the circle in half and added the scallops to give in a "flower" feel. Below is a side view showing how the butterflies really stick out:

My next card uses the same sentiment, but a totally different card:

I love how this one turned out too. Same butterfly, just no color. On this one, I stamped the butterfly twice. On the first one, I colored it in solid black with a Bic marker. The second one I left alone and mounted it on top of the black one so that it gives a black shadow effect. This card has a lot of dramatic matting, and I also added bling, brads, and ribbon.

I just ordered (and received today) another set of butterfly stamps from Joan Fricker at Joan's Gardens, so you are bound to see more butterfly cards in the near future. I have to tell you that she is a pure joy to work with, and her service is beyond compare! Thanks Joan for such a quick fill of my order. You are the best!

NOW FOR THE STRANGE STORY (complete with pictures! LOL)

As I said in the beginning of the post, my Mom and I went to a local park to walk the boys today. We got to this really neat overlook place and I told her to stand up there while I went down below it to take a picture of her and her dog Chunk.

So, here is the first picture to give you that perspective:

So, for the next picture, I stayed in the same spot, and used my zoom to get a closer shot. When I got home, I uploaded the pictures and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here is the picture (be sure to click on it and look right below her elbow):

Is that amazing?!?! Someone had obviously carved that there, but neither of us were even aware that it was there until I came home and uploaded the picture. Obviously she is my Mom and she is "Chunk's Mom" too! LOL By the way, she is going to be 72 in October. Doesn't she look fabulous at 71???!!!??? When I called and told her about it, first thing she said was "I'm glad it didn't say "dumbsh*t". LOL

Well, that's it for this post. I always tell myself before I start a post to not make it long because you will bore these poor people, but they always end up this way. I'm sorry this one is so long too.

Anyway, have a wonderful rest of the weekend, and I will be seeing you on your blogs! Thanks so much for coming to see me and for all the wonderful things you say. I love ya all!

Best,

Curt

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

WISHING YOU WELL

Hey All! How the heck are ya? How about those two cute flowers up there huh? LOL The things I make those sweet boys do. . . A quick and heartfelt thanks to all who left comments on my last post. You are all so wonderful, and you sure know how to make this guy's day. Thank you!

Remember last post I said I had no creative energy? Now I'm clear on the opposite side of the pole! You wouldn't believe how many cards I've done. So I'm all set with enough material for at least several future posts! Now I just have to fight with myself not to publish them all at once! LOL - I'm such a dork.

Here's my card for today's post. I have to say, I think this has to be one of my favorites. I really love how it turned out, and I did some different things on this one. Here it is:

Are those bunnies just too cute??? I'm sorry to those who don't really care for the House Mouse stamps, but I truly love them, and am starting to have quite the collection. They are such a blast to color, and the images stamp so beautifully. To think that just a few months ago I was terrified to attempt them, and now I love doing them! When I saw this stamp I knew it had a ton of possibilities. Wish you well, wish you were here, wishing you luck, OK you get the idea. I wish you could see some of the stuff on this card a little better. Like the roof of the well was double stamped and glued to the top and then brought out 3-D at the edge of the roof with foam squares. It looks so cool in person! Here is a close-up of another couple of features (click to enlarge:)

See the tails? Cotton batting. . .LOL is that cute or what? LOL I also painted the pennies with a glittery copper paint. This has to be one of my favorite stamps. Once again, it was colored with my "cheap" colored pencils and OMS. It's matted on a shiny copper piece of cs from The Paper Company. The sentiment is computer generated with my favorite font, I finished it off with some large shiny copper brads.

Well, that's it for this one. Thanks again so much for taking the time to visit me and leave a comment. You all really do make this so worth while.

Don't forget the pic of the week below! I'll be seeing you on your blogs!

Best,

Curt

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

DID YA MISS ME???

Thanks so much to all of you who sent me emails asking if I was OK and letting me know that you missed me. I certainly have missed all of you too! I have no real reason for being missing in action. I don't know what had gotten into me. Has anyone felt that it was a forced effort to go make a card? I swear I felt as if I would rather do anything else than go up those stairs and "create". Each day I would say to myself "OK, after dinner, you are going upstairs." Then, after dinner, I would go check my email, get interested in a show on TV, then not go. Am I going through something that any of you have gone through? I'm also an AVID American Idol fan. So, those nights are completely out of the question, because it is too late for me to "start" something after the show is over. And of course, I would have to watch the news too. Geez! Well, the spell has been broken in a big way! I have a couple of new cards to show you, and in my "creating frenzy" over the past few days, I have created a whole bunch of new cards to share over the next couple of posts. I've also gotten several new stamps/sets to play with, so that has me excited again. So, let's get started shall we?

Here is my first card:


This one is for the House Mouse Monday challenge blog. The challenge this week was to create a "Male Card". I thought this image was perfect for that. It was very hard for me not to use ribbon, but I think it turned out OK. I colored the image with my "cheap" colored pencils and OMS, and then matted it with black and then attached it to the DP with dimensionals. The sentiment is computer generated.



My next two cards are for St. Pat's day. This next one is one of my favorites:



The image is Anna Wight's set called "Fish Friends" made by Whipper Snapper designs. Each image you see up there is a separate stamp. I LOVE Anna's work, and this is my first set of hers. I plan to get many more. With each image being separate, you can create any "scene" you want. I colored the images with my colored pencils and OMS. Also, see the photo corners up there? I bought a package of white self-stick photo corners to color. I used my Copics on these to coordinate them with the colors. This is my first "masking" attempt. I had to mask the frog so that I could have him sitting perfectly on top of the mushroom. The "Kiss Me I'm Irish" sentiment was created in Word.


My second St. Pat's Day card is more traditional, and really I'm not happy with it:







I wanted to use the Irish Blessing on this card. So I thought using Celtic squares to go with it would work. Well, it really didn't. I stamped the squares with Versamark onto green cs and then embossed them with black detail ep. There was too much detail on some of the squares that they came out looking to black. I mounted the one inch squares onto Inchie squares and then attached them to cs. The Irish Blessing was cut out using Nesties and then paper pierced. The shamrocks are sparkly stickers. It turned out OK, just certainly not one of my favorite cards. It also weighed a ton.


Well, that's it Kiddos. I also wanted to thank all of you who were so supportive and left such wonderful comments on Gunther's stamp set. You all certainly made me a very proud "Dad".

It's nice to be back, and I'll try to keep it that way. I'm going to spend lots of time catching up on your blogs over the weekend. Can't wait to see what you all have been up to!


Don't forget the pic of the week below! It is so sweet! I took it yesterday right out of my window of my craft room. She was just perched there, and I didn't even wake her when I opened the window! Enjoy!


Take good care all!


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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