THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR MARCH 16, 2011

Hey All!

Top 'o the day to ya!  For those of you who are visiting on St. Pat's Day . . .HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY to ya don't ya know!  For those who aren't and the day is over, may good luck be with ya!  Sorry I'm so late with this post, but some ornery little leprechauns were playing some dirty little tricks with me blogger. . .I was getting to the point of wanting to stick a pot of gold up their little . . .Oh, sorry!  I got a little carried away with me self!  LOL  On with the post then lads and lassies. . .

Since it is after 1:00 AM here, it is technically St. Patrick's Day, so I'll start with a St. Pat's card which I am entering into Ted's challenge (HERE) which is to use the colors of the national flag of Ireland.  Here is my card:

I don't know if Ted will disqualify me for this, but I think he said we needed to also use a shamrock.  I believe these are clovers, but what the heck. . .I say close enough.  And if you disqualify me TED, I'll have to hit you upside the head with my sheleighly!  And don't ya think I won't be a doin it either!  This is a House Mouse image colored with my colored pencils and oms.

Next is a get well card for a friend of my blogging friend Patti at Cherish Each Precious Day.  Patti asked me to give a shout out for her regarding cards being made for this poor woman.  She sounds like a very sweet wonderful person going through some rough times, so I wanted to help.  Here is the card:

This poor woman broke her femur (OUCH) and has so many complications.  I knew what stamp I was going to use the minute I read her story HERE.  So if you'd like to send this dear lady a smile, won't you hop over to Patti's and get the scoop?  Thanks!  This card is on its way Patti!


My last thing to share is a 3-D project.  I saw this on Splitcoast and just went crazy over it.  I think it is the cutest idea and I had to give it a try.  Take a look:

It's a box/card that holds one of those travel size tissue packets.  Yes, another House Mouse image (one of my favs - I LOVE that baby bunny)  The image is colored with colored pencils and oms as well.  Here is kind of a side view:

For the deets on how to make this clever creation you can go HERE. 


Well that does it for another Wednesday Evening Post.  I hope you've enjoyed it.  I'm so glad that you stopped by and I hope I made it worth your while.  And in honor of the day, let me leave you with an old Irish blessing:

May the road rise to meet you

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

may God hold you in the hollow of His hands.

I hope you are all well and happy.  Please keep the people of Japan in your thoughts and prayers.


Love you guys!


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."

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR MARCH 2, 2011

Hey All!


There you are. . .  It's really nice to have you back!  Is that a new hair cut?  New outfit?  Whatever it is, you look incredible!  So glad you are here because I have stuff to show you!

Wow, based on the response to last week's post, you all will probably find this one a tad boring.  I had the largest response EVER in the history of my blog last week.  I had over 1,000 page views,  67 comments, and 18 new subscribers!  I'm amazed and so grateful.  Thanks so much for all the great comments from you all!  

I have added SOMETHING DIFFERENT to tonight's post.  At the bottom of the post I have posted a special video that I made just for you all. . .so be sure to check it out if you are so inclined.  On with the projects!

First, I'd like to share a card I made for a special day in Texas.  My blogging friend Mark of Deadbeat Designs informed me on his blog that today is "Texas Independence Day".  So in honor of this, I created a card for Mark:

There is not a lick of stamping on this card.  The top border, the covered wagons, and the cacti are all cut out of some fun paper I found at Mike's (Michael's).  Even the sentiment is computer generated.  OK, I know it is considered cheating in the stamping world, but I don't have any southwestern themed stamps so a crafter has to do what a crafter has to do.  Hope your day was great Mark!  This card is on its way to you!

My next card was made as a thank you.  I know you all must think that I live in the most idealistic neighborhood, but we do have lots of nice people here.  I helped a neighbor who had fallen on the ice.  I took her to the emergency room, went back to take care of her dog, went back to sit with her at the hospital, took her to get her prescriptions filled and then brought her home.  When she was feeling better, she took me to dinner and gave me a local grocery store gift card to thank me.  So to thank her for thanking me (getting kind of sickening isn't it?) I made her this card:

It is a combo card and little gift.  Here is the inside:

The front image and the scrolly stuff was embossed on white card stock with gold ep.  Then I used distress inks to rub over it all and to edge it.  I just added a pocket to hold a couple of individual packets of flavored tea.  No special card size, just a regular A2 card.  It closes fairly flat and still fits nicely into a regular envelope.  The inside flap is where I wrote my thank you note.

The last card I have to show you is yet sadly, another sympathy card.  There is a little sweet elderly couple that lives a few houses down.  I just learned that her husband died yesterday.  I don't know them well, but I wanted her to know I was sorry for her loss.  Here is the card:

I know you have all done this before. . .See where I placed the bow???  Can you guess why I selected this placement????  A BIG FAT SMUDGE!!!  LOL  Sometimes you just gotta get creative when you weren't planning on it.

OK, that's it for the cards. . .As promised, I created a short video with all of you in mind.  So many of you have grown fond of my "Boys", and always include them with your hugs sent to us.  So, I thought it would be fun to make a short video of us taking a walk and invite you along.  So, won't you join us on a leg of our walk?  If you'd like to, just click on the video below, and come along with us.  I think you'll laugh at the end.  It is about 7 minutes long, and we'd love to have you walk with us.

Thanks for joining us!  We're glad you walked with us and hope you enjoyed it!  LOL

BEFORE I LET YOU GO, CAN I ASK YOU FOR ANOTHER SMALL FAVOR???  A very sweet blogging friend of mine had to say good-bye to her beautiful fur baby yesterday.  I have cried off and on all day over this.  Cheryl has a very short, sweet tribute to her sweet Ollie and a picture of her on her blog HERE.  Won't you please go and give her some encouragement and a hug?  They went through so much with Ollie at the end.  My heart is just broken.  Thank you for going to see her.  I appreciate it and I know she will.

OK my very sweet friends.  Thanks for stopping by.  I love you guys!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Hey All!

How the heck are  ya????  Hope you all are in the middle of a wonderful week.  I know it will be a little better for one of you, because I have a winner of my blog candy to announce.  Now, I was going to make you wait until the end of the post, but who the hell am I kidding?  You'd scroll right past everything to the bottom to see if your name is there.  So, drum roll please. . . . . . . . . . the winner of Curt's Playhouse blog candy is. . . . . . . .Gina Wrona!!!  Congrats Gina, I'm very happy for you!  Please email me with your snail mail address (to confirm you saw this post) and I'll get your package right out to you!  For all of you who didn't win, I'm sorry. . .I truly wish I could send you all a package.  I'll be having another blog candy soon. . .so stay tuned.

On with the post. . .

A couple of weeks ago, Splitcoast Stampers had their weekly project.  It was a quilt card.  I'm not a quilter, but the lady across the street who always looks after us (last big snow she called and said she had an extra rotisserie chicken in case we needed it!) is a great sewer and has a beautiful quilt hanging in one of the rooms in her house.  So, I decided that was reason enough to make her a note card set.  Here are the pics:

This is the box that I made to hold the cards.  I made a quilt for the top of the box as a hint of what is inside. . .here are the individual cards:

And all of them together. . .

I thought that these would be difficult, but they were pretty easy once you got a system going.  To make the patterns easier to place, I cut a square the size of the finished "quilt" (4" X 4").  I then covered the square in a tight grid of strong tape.  Once that was ready, I slid the square into the left hand corner of my Score Pal.  Then starting at the top, placed each piece based on the pattern I was following.  If you go to the quilt card tutorial HERE, they supply you with a website with tons of different quilt patterns.  I really had a blast making these though it got tedious by the box lid quilt!  LOL  My neck was getting stiff.  All the squares are 1".  Since this is a "note card" set, I did not use sentiments, plus I didn't want sentiments to detract from the pattern.  Hope you enjoyed these and try one or two.


I have just a couple other quick cards I wanted to share. . .

This is a sympathy card I made for my blogging friend Audrey who recently and sadly lost her very young nephew.  I wanted to send my condolences because she is such a wonderful blogger and such a wonderful friend.  Again Audrey, I am so sorry. . .


The last card was a combo attempt at "clean and simple" and a "man" card. . .

Good "man colors", but I was bound and determined to use a ribbon on it.  So I did one of those neat folded styles.  The Fleur de lis  bottom part is done in gold embossing.  Simple yet manly wouldn't you agree???  LOL


OK, that's it for another Wednesday post.  Still working on organizing some fun new changes that are coming for my blog.  I want to keep it fresh and fun for you so you keep coming back.  I want it to be fun and interesting and hopefully I've shared something that inspires you or I've shown you a new technique that you would like to try.  Whatever the case, I just want it to be worth your valuable time to come here.


PIC OF THE WEEK

FROSTY FEEDER

OK, I thank all of  you for stopping by and visiting me.  You know how much I love having you here and I so appreciate all of you!  Hope you all have a good rest of the week, and I'll be seeing you on your blogs in the next few days!


Love you guys!


Curt


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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR FEBRUARY 16, 2011

Hey All!

First and foremost, thank you so much for all of your wonderful words of encouragement regarding my week from hell.  Each and every one of them meant the world to me.  I feel like I was being such a whiner when I posted that.  There are others out there far worse off than I am, and I need to remember that and be grateful for that. . .

OK, I'm going to start off with cards, then I will unveil the BLOG CANDY at the end of the post.  I not only hit 250, I'm now at 260 at the time of this post.  Welcome to all of my new followers, and I hope you find this blog worth your time.  On with the post. . .

First card is a card I'm entering into a challenge.  As many of you know, this is very rare, but the host of the challenge berated me miserably into playing along. . .   :P  Ted at Happily Ever Crafter has a challenge this month which is to create a Valentine for someone special in your life.  HOWEVER, the stipulation was that the sentiment on the front AND inside the card had to be done in your own handwriting!!!  I hate my handwriting as many of us do, so this was definitely a challenge for me.  Here is my card:

As if you can't tell, the "Always" is in my own handwriting. . .here is the inside sentiment:

OK Ted!!!  I played. . .are you happy now?!?!?  I have been seeing loads of these flag stamps and I really do like them a lot.  I also created  the background paper simply by stamping Versamark ink on plain red paper to create the watermark effect.  Moving on. . .

This is my attempt at the "Zindorfian" techniques.  I Love Michelle's work, and when I saw this tree stamp at Michael's on sale a couple of months ago, I knew I would use it for this type of card.  If you are not familiar with Michelle Zinidorf's beautiful work, you can visit her blog HERE.    


Next is this one:

This card used 4 different stamps.  I don't know why this card was stuck in my head, but I'm glad it is out.  I had pictured a bird on a limb with a little balloon in its beak to go with Mark's "Happy Bird Day!" from Deadbeat Designs.  It's still a little plain and I feel it needs something, but it is now out of my head!


Last but not least. . .

This is a box I came up with to hold this. . .

This is just a sheet of paper scored and then a pocket added inside to hold the large size chocolate bar.  I made one each for my Mom and Jay's Mom for Valentine's day.


OK, now for the blog candy.  Here is the picture followed by the list of what's in it:

It includes:


1 - Cuttlebug embossing/die cut set (includes 4 mini folders and mini dies)
1 - Package of Tim Holtz Tissue Tape
1 - Ranger Distress Ink Forrest Moss (my personal favorite color)
5 - Laurie Furnnel unmonted rubber stamps (winter themes)
2 - 1 Pound Scrap Packs
1 - Crafter's Workshop 6 X 6 Template
1 - Sweet November rubber stamp
1 - Sugar Nellie rubber stamp (Strawberry Tea)
1 - Elizabeth Bell rubber stamp (Sugar Plum Rainy Day Emma)
1 - Hero Arts Sparkle Clear Stamp set with gems
1 - Quickutz Embossing Folder - Plants
1 - Pink Poison rubber stamp
1 - Decorated 5 X 7 journal
1 - Package of 2 mini frames
A few unlisted surprises


How's that?  Here's what you have to do to win:


1.  Jump up and down on one foot and say booga booga
2.  Stick your index finger in your mouth and make a popping noise
3.  Twirl around over and over until you are dizzy
4.  Point at a perfect stranger and start laughing hysterically
5.  If you have more than three ears, you get a second entry
6.  If you have ever worn two different colored shoes out in public you need not enter


LOL, that's about what I feel other blogs put you through just to win some stuff.  Not here.  Just leave a comment on this post and I will use Random.Org to choose the winner.  You have until next Tuesday (February 22nd) at 11:59 PM EST  I will announce the winner on the next Wednesday Evening Post.  Simple enough?  Good luck to all of you!


PICTURE OF THE WEEK

CAN SPRING BE FAR AWAY???

Thanks very much for taking the time to visit me.  I know how busy you all are and I am humbled that you spend some of your valuable free time with me.


All my best to you guys!  You are the best!


Hugs,


Curt O'Brien


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

I'M HERE - UPDATE

Hey All!


I'll try to keep this as brief as I can. . .


Well, it was a week from hell. . .First my internet was out until last night.  I was going absolutely nuts without it.  Something about the wiring being effected by the ice that kept the signal from getting to the "box".  Finally it was fixed, and then the mountain of email to go through and sort out.  But that is the silver lining because there were so many emails from you guys worrying about me and wondering if I was alright.  I was overwhelmed by the amount of emails showing such concern and saying such wonderful things.  I love you guys!


The second BIG catastrophe was horrendous!  I inadvertently left our garage door open all night.  It just so happened that it was the coldest night of the year where the temperature dropped to -4F.  Well I'm sure you guessed it by now. . .my pipes froze!  Jay woke me up around 6:45 AM saying that we didn't have any water.  Sure enough not only did the pipes freeze in the garage, they burst!  Water flooded through the garage and froze instantly to everything!  It was a horrible mess.  I was covered in water trying to shut the water off.  When I couldn't find the shut off valve, I went out with the guy from the water company and started digging through 7" of snow and 3" of ice trying to find the main water shut off.  My jeans and coat froze solid, and when I walked the ice would crack on them.  I finally got the water shut off.  Long story short, we had to replace the water heater and the water softener.  So total bill for my stupidity . . . . .$4,200.00  I was just heartsick.  That was such a big hit to our finances. 


I then heard the news from a neighbor that our next door neighbor had a heart attack (ETA - She survived it and it will be OK).  I had just finished helping her shovel her driveway the day before and she seemed just fine.  It just made me feel awful and so weird how things in your life can change in an instant.  She had just brought Jay and I over some homemade potato soup with bacon and cheese the other night and I was returning her container with a thank you card when I heard the news.  Just really made me sad.


On top of all of that, Jay had a neurologist appointment to discuss going on a new drug with potentially dangerous side effects.  I also had to take him to the eye doctor to have tests run on his eyes to make sure he doesn't have a particular problem because the new drug could cause some big problems with his eyesight.  So just the anticipation of him being on this new drug causes me some concern and worry.  When he takes the first dose, he has to take it in the neurologist's office and be observed for 6 hours to make sure his heart rate doesn't drop too low from the drug.


So, it has been a stressful, emotional roller coaster week for me.  But it was nice to know that so many of you worried about me and were keeping me in thoughts and prayers without even knowing what was happening.  You guys are amazing.  I even heard from some whom I have never heard of before who follow my blog but have never left a comment!  Thanks to all of you.  It's nice to know I have so many out there that care about me.


As far as the post, I'm going to wait till next Wednesday to post.  I've got the blog candy prize pack to offer up and some fun stuff to show, so I'll just make it a colossal post then.  Hope that is OK.


Again, thanks to all of you out there who sent me emails of concern.  You don't know what it meant to me. 


See you guys on Wednesday. . .God willing :P


Best,


Curt O'Brien


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

THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST FOR FEBRUARY 2, 2011

Hey All!

Welcome to February, the official month of LOVE.  And I love that you came by to see me again!  As of this writing, I am officially at 249 followers. . .only one more needed for my blog candy give-away to kick in.  So which one of you lurkers are going to step up and follow me openly. . . huh???  LOL  I've been cleaning and reorganizing so the stash for the give-away has grown.


I want to start off tonight's post with highlighting a brand new crafter who has entered Blogland for the very first time.  I'd like for you to meet BONNIE and her brand, spanking new blog "The Pink Dawg House"!  (APPLAUSE) Bonnie has been a blogging friend of mine for some time now.  She is so talented and is the "Mom" to 3 Miniature Schnauzers, so you know she is A-OK in my book!  She does beautiful work.  So, can you show her a huge, warm welcome to this blogging world of ours and go leave her some love so she'll continue to be a citizen of this wonderful world of ours?  You'll love what you see!


OK, on to tonight's post. . .Here is the first card:

This card was inspired by another very talented blogging buddy of mine, Jackie of Just Stamp It.  Look HERE to see what inspired me.  I loved the beautiful simplicity of her cards.  I am always nervous making clean and simple cards.  But when I saw this stamp set, I new it would make the job easy.  This image is from Stampendous.  I stamped it directly on the card base and colored it with markers.  I stamped the image a second time and cut out two of the flowers (top and bottom) and placed them slightly offset with foam tape.  The butterfly and sentiment are from different sets.  I used FlowerSoft for the centers of each flower.


My next card:

I so love this wonderful take on a side step card.  Here is the site complete with a video tutorial.  My doctor and his wife are expecting their second son this month, and I wanted to make them an out of the ordinary baby card.  When I saw her dresser cards, I was in love and new this was what I was going to make.  The bear is cut out from embossed paper by K & Company that I bought over a year ago.  The wonderful charm is from a gift goodie bag from my wonderful friend America (a former teamie at House Mouse Monday Challenge blog).  That top drawer is the same color as the other two, it is just the lighting.


Last card is my least favorite:

This is one of the main reasons I don't use die cuts on cards that I make.  When I saw this die cut (by Kwik kuts) I had this card in my head.  However it just doesn't do it for me.  The butterfly cuts in two pieces, the intricate top cut and the solid side.  It also cuts two slits on the body.  I used those slits to slide a ribbon through to hold the two sides together.  I wanted a dramatic look with the over-sized butterfly, but it was a little bigger than I thought it was going to be.  I'll try something else again with this.  The background paper was made using the a background stamp by Hero Arts.


Pic of the Week:

KISSING HORSES

It is the month of love, right?  Look at the teeth on the brown one!  LOL  I love horses.


OK, that's it for this post.  Next post should be really exciting if I can get that 250th follower!  I'm also working on some new features for my blog that I think you will like.  I'm always wanting to make your visit here worth your time and fun for you.  So you can look forward to that in upcoming posts.


It has really been a rough week here in Carmel, Indiana weather wise.  OMGosh, we don't have snow, we have ICE and lots of it.  I have 2.5 inches of solid ice coating my driveway.  I know that a lot of you all over are having hard times with this crazy weather.  And I'm sending my friends down in Australia my most positive thoughts with the horrible storm you are facing.  Godspeed.


Thanks all for stopping by.  Love you guys! (month of love, remember?)


Hugs,


Curt O'Brien


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