THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR OCTOBER 5, 2011

Hey All!

There you are!!!  I was just sitting around waiting for you to come by.  Boy am I glad to see you!  I'm really excited about this post because I have posted TWO NEW VIDEOS OF SHOTSY AND GUNTHER DOING A COUPLE OF AMAZING THINGS!  Would you mind taking a minute or two and watching the videos right over there on the right sidebar?  I'd love to know what you think of what they are doing.  I so appreciate you indulging me with my boys and their brand new videos.  I'm so anxious for you to see them.

Tonight's post actually is a themed post.  Yes Bonnie, it is all about Halloween!  However, the actual theme is that I made three very distinctively different cards but used the same color combo on each one of them.  I consider Orange, Black, and White the traditional colors of Halloween, so that is what I used on my cards.  I also wanted to keep them simple and pretty clean.  Here is the first:

This card is a play off of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven".  I never found that story scary at all, but I always love to hear it and watch it performed by the late Vincent Price.  You can watch him perform it HERE.   I stamped multiple bird cages to create the background but I don't know who the stamps are by. . .they are from different sets.  The "Never More" I created using an old Martha Stewart letter stamp set I bought a couple of years ago.  The raven is also by Martha Stewart.  Very simple and clean and based on a classic.

My second uses the same color scheme:

Again, simple and clean.  This spider stamp was part of some stamps that were gifted to me by the ever popular and multi-talented Mark from Deadbeat Designs.  What a fun spider he created.  The webbing was created using a Martha Stewart punch, then I went over it with a silver glitter pen for some sparkle.  The eyes of the spider are done in orange Stickles.

My last card using the same color scheme:

Again, this one was created with gifted stamps from Mark.  They are so appreciated Mark!  You are so talented.  I really love your stamps!  I didn't even do matting on this card!  That is a rarity for me.  I LOVE these skeleton hands.  I stamped both the left and the right hands randomly, then the little skulls, then the bones.  I added googly eyes on the skull (Mark did the same thing on his HERE where I got my inspiration).  I also added orange Stickles to the little skull eyes for some sparkle.  Inside I'm going to add the sentiment "No Bones About It. . .Have A Happy Halloween!"  Corny, but goes with the card front.

So there are the cards for this week.  Believe it or not, BONNIE (who does not "do" Halloween) sent me the most awesome Halloween card that she made along with a Halloween stamp set!  I will be featuring a card next week using the set she sent me.  It was wonderful of you to do that Bonnie!  It meant even more because of how you feel about Halloween!

Pic of the Week

SPOOKY MOON

OK, that's it for this post.  I hope you enjoyed it and I sure hope you watched the videos of "my boys".  I think the two videos shows you some of the many reasons they have stolen my heart and why I love them so much.  Thanks for taking the time to see them.

I hope you are all well and doing fine.  I think I got to all of you that left comments last week, and I will do the same this week as usual to all who leave me a comment.  I love reading what you have to say, and you are so valued.

Hugs to all of you!


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR MARCH 9, 2011

Hey All!

Hope this post finds you happy, safe, and dry.  We certainly have had some weird weather across the country, and I always worry about all of you and hope that you are OK.

Sorry I'm a little late tonight. . .but I had some unexpected happy mail today, and I just had to use it for tonight's post.  My good blogging buddy Mark at Deadbeat Designs took pity on me from my last post where I said "I don't have any Southwest themed stamps".  Well Mark sent me a gift of some:  Take a look:

I took a picture of the box because I was so impressed with how he did my name.  How cool is that?  And this from a guy who has a broken hand!  I just loved this.  Now, here is what was inside:

How fun!  I was so surprised and excited.  See those fun little stars???  He makes those!  They are origami stars and I think they are the coolest.  Here is a close up:

OK, so see the horse and rider stamp?  Here is the card that it inspired:

Another Zindorf inspired card.  I had this stamp of the 3 horses forever, and had always planned to use it for this type of card, but always felt I needed something else in the scene.  When I saw the horse and rider stamp that Mark sent me, I immediately thought of using it this way.  I made the "leather" straps by running a strip of dark brown paper through the "bubbles" Cuttlebug embossing folder.  I then covered it with Versamark ink, and sprinkled clear ep on it.  Heat set it, then repeated the process one more time.  It really gives a cool leather look.  I then added the brass brads.  Made the corners too the same way (hard to see in the picture).  I created the horses' shadows by stamping the horse image on acetate, then flipping it and rubbing it onto the card.  really works great!  Thanks again Mark!  It was really thoughtful of you.  Did any of you see Mark's "Six Tags of Texas"?  He did an incredible job with them.  Go take a look HERE.  

OK, so Spring is less than two weeks away!  OMGosh I can't wait to get rid of this crappy, snowy, cold, miserable, nasty (SLAP) OH, sorry weather!!!  I'm now in SPRING MODE and will make NO MORE CARDS WITH SNOW, FLAKES, SNOWMEN, ETC.!  Here is my first Spring card:

This is a Northwoods stamp and I love it!  Tulips to me always represent Spring and Easter.  I colored the image with my colored pencils and oms.  Punched out the butterfly and sprinkled it with two different colors of MS glitter (can't tell in the pic but it is turquoise and green).  This was the ONLY "Happy Easter" stamp I have, but it worked.  The paper is by Creative Memories.

My last card is one of those that I call a CWTGIOW card (Can't Wait to Get it Over With)!  LOL

OMG!  I love the reverse image stamp (by Hero Arts), but no matter what I did with it after finishing it, I didn't like anything I did.  The image is a reverse image so I stamped it on water color paper with Versamark, embossed it with white ep, then used an aqua painter and distress inks to color the images.  So, anyway, this is what I came up with.  Not happy with it at all.  I have three others like this, so I'm going to try to create a note card set with them.  Hopefully I'll have better luck!  

That's it!  Thanks for stopping by. . .I'm afraid I've been behind again getting to all of you, but I'll be back at it starting in the morning with my first cup of coffee!  I always love to see what you've done over the past week.

A big thank you to all of you who went over and left Cheryl some kind words regarding the loss of her sweet Ollie.  She appreciated them so much, and you all are just the sweetest!

Love you guys!


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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