RAK from TruCarMa!!!

Ok for those of you who've followed my blog from the get-go, you know I'm a complete freak when it comes to coming in "contact" with my stamping idols! When I started this blog and found comments from the likes of Leslie, Jenn, Beate, Debbie, etc, I nearly peed my pants (just ask my husband, he saw me totally geek out about it!). WELL - I had another pee my pants moment (as I like to call it!) a little while back!! I've been a big fan of TruCarMa, aka Carole Burrage, ever since I happily stumbled upon one of her cards many months ago on SCS. There have been many times I've forwarded a link to one of her cards to my sister, saying "this is so stinkin cute!" or "isn't this the funniest card EVER??". I love her sense of humor which comes across both in her art and in her posts about her art! WELL - imagine my surprise when out of the blue I got an email from Carole herself, telling *ME* that I made *HER* day when she stumbled upon my blog & saw her name listed as one of my favorite SCS galleries! And then she went and mailed me this RAK as well!!! I have an actual, original TruCarMa card in my possession!!! I couldn't be more excited!!! As most of you have probably heard by now, Carole has started a blog of her own (and here's the card she sent me on her blog). Make sure and check out Mother's Little Helper - I just LOVE it!!! Her cards are without exception fabulous, and she has THE BEST sense of humor, her writing is so much fun to read! I am so sad I've been on Blog Hiatus recently - not only did I miss her appearance on Millionaire, but I also missed her being the SCS Featured Stamper!!! I knew that would happen before long!!! Congrats Carole, and thanks again for the RAK - you really made my day, even if I'm ridiculously late saying so!!!

Time to drool...

I know all of you who keep up with blogs have seen this already, but for anyone who may have missed it, check out Fran's amazing stamp room!! Can you say TO DIE FOR???

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!! Tonight I put my son to bed, cleaned up the diningroom, and ventured into my scary (hey! fitting on Halloween Eve!) stamp room and snapped some photos of the PILE of cards I've been wanting to blog about!! I'm not thrilled with the photos - I bought a new Ott-Lite (my old one had a cord that buzzed and drove me batty! Heh heh, another Halloween pun!) and it's not quite as nice as my old one, so I don't like my card-photography-setup as much anymore. But oh well - I'm forging ahead, but my photos may not be quite as good as they used to be!

So anyway - this is a card I had my hostess club girls do this month. It was completely inspired by this amazing card by the incredibly talented Vicki, aka summerthyme64 - check out her SCS gallery and blog! I think if you click on my photo you'll see a little more of the detail that went into this card. These details consumed a bit more time than my club girls would typically want to spend on a card, but my point was to show them how adding some simple additional layers to a card really makes it POP. I wish you could see this one in person, the photo really isn't doing it justice! "Spooky" was spelled out using the Big Deal Alphabet, then the dashed line and Sahara Sand "shadow" were added for dimension. We stamped the images in the O's just like Vicki did, using the Haunting Halloween set. I showed them how to color with SU markers to add dimension, ie the kitty was colored with Only Orange then shadows added with Pumpkin Pie - I believe I learned how to do this from my stamping idol Leslie, but I can't find the link at the moment! (ETA: Here's the link to Leslie's coloring with SU markers - I didn't actually do her technique justice, check it out! But she did teach me that I can use varying shades of a color to add shadow - yes, perhaps obvious to some, but I need these things spelled out for me!) A little stickles made the witch hat & spider a little more fun. Finally we sponged the edges with Going Gray and used the color spritzer tool to add some fun "splatter". The bat background on the purple panel was embossed with a fun "black sparkle" powder I found at my favorite stamp store. And the background paper, which we also added some dotted line faux stitching to, is from K&Co. I really love this card (if I do say so myself!) so a great big thanks to Vicki for the fabulous inspiration!!!

Ok, one last thing before I post this - I have to be the obnoxious mom yet again and post a photo of my son, just because I happen to think he's adorable! He had a Halloween party at his preschool today, so here he is this morning in his costume. He went as a little 50's greaser! The costume was inspired by his Aunt Laura telling me that there's a Converse factory outlet store nearby, and that I should buy him some hightops and dress him up like a greaser. Thanks for the great idea Laura! Then my mom got wind of this, and had a woman from her theater group (the one who makes the costumes for their shows!) sew a little leather jacket for him! You can't see it with the jacket on, but I also put a temporary tattoo on his arm, a heart with "love" written across it. I thought it would be hilarious if it said "Mom", but sadly I couldn't find that. :-)

Happy Halloween everyone, hope you have a spooky Wednesday!

PS for the rest of you...

Yes, I am alive!! And baby is doing just fine. It's just been a pretty tough fall with my husband traveling for work a lot. I haven't been able to find much time to stamp or blog (which makes me sad!). But I so appreciate the comments you continue to leave for me, asking me how I'm doing! You all are so wonderful!! I hope to return to the blogging world in full force soon... xoxoxo

Reply to Chris

(Edited to add: Here's a far better comparison by Sophia than I could ever do - check it out!)

Hi Chris - thanks for leaving a comment yesterday - I have no way to contact you other than posting a reply on here, I couldn't email you from the comment. :-)

I am looking to invest in some more coloring supplies and was wondering how you like and use your pencils. I am trying to decide between those, COPICs, and the SU markers. Any advice?

I LOVE my Prismacolor pencils! I go back and forth between loving them the best or preferring to use reinkers or ink in the lids of my stamp pads. I don't own COPICS, I am sure they are WONDERFUL based on what everyone else says about them, but they are way too pricey for my budget. And I do like the SU markers, but they aren't really my favorite way to color. I use them more often for something small & quick, but I prefer more of a watercolored look for larger images. I think this is all really a personal preference thing though.

As far as using the pencils, I started by reading the tutorial on splitcoaststampers ("gamsol magic"). I have since found that baby oil works well too if you don't want to use gamsol (aka odorless mineral spirits). But I will say I never used my pencils (had them for YEARS just sitting on my shelf) until I learned how to blend with the stumps & gamsol (or baby oil), then I fell in love with them all over again!

The Prismacolors are not cheap either, btw - but at least you can get them at Michael's with a 40% (or 50% if you get the right ad!) off coupon.

Good luck!

We both survived!

Well Carter and I did it - we survived our first day of preschool! :-) It had its rocky moments - when we arrived at the classroom he put the death grip around my neck, and cried when I said bye-bye and left - but I waited outside a few minutes and he stopped crying pretty quick. His teacher said he had a really good day - he especially enjoyed loading and unloading gravel in a toy dump truck outside. That is very typical Carter. He also created this crayola masterpiece - his first real art project!! Apparently they do an art project every time, so I'm sure eventually I won't know what to do with these - of course I can't possibly throw them away! (I say this now... we'll see as the stack grows...) Since I didn't manage to take any card photos today I thought I'd at least post something creative! :-) The biggest downside I see with this preschool thing, though, is the nap situation. Carter usually naps ~1-3pm. At school they have quiet time from 12-1pm. Today he actually slept there (I'm shocked!) but for only 45 minutes, which isn't long enough and spoiled his chances for a real nap at home. By the end of the day this lack of a good nap really showed - he was a little monster this evening!! So now we'll see if my few hours of free time in the morning are worth dealing with a screaming child in the evening... the jury is still out! Ok I've given you your fill of posts about family stuff - will try to get back in the card groove before next post!!!! Take care!

October already? Are you serious??

Wow I cannot believe how fast time is flying by. I swear time started ticking faster as soon as I had a kid. Does anyone else feel like that? Remember when you were a kid and summer vacation seemed like an eternity? And it took FOREVER for Halloween and Christmas to roll around each year? Of course back in those days they didn't already have Christmas stuff appearing on the shelves of Target in October... but that's another subject. (Hmm guess we didn't have Target then either - oh the horror! I can't imagine life PT - pre-Target!!!!) :-)

ANYWAY... if case you thought I fell off the face of the earth, I thought I'd post a quick update. The past week I actually felt a bit like I fell off the face of the earth - or something. I came down with some sort of nasty sickness. Not sure what it was, but it had me lying in bed for a day & a half, and getting so dehydrated my OB sent me to the hospital for a couple IV bags. Thankfully my DH was able to stay home from work and help with the kiddo. I certainly didn't have the energy to do much in that arena. But anyway - after the IVs I was feeling MUCH better (that was Friday), and have been since - and baby is fine too.

Before this sickness hit my DH was gone for 2 weeks, traveling to Korea on business. I have a hard time finding free time for things like stamping when he's gone - a full day with Carter, with no help at dinner or bedtime pretty much wears me out. And doing that for a couple weeks straight, well - very tiring. I guess I'm just a wimp. Every time Joel travels it gives me even more respect for single moms - I really don't know how they do it!!

But my happy news (well, mixed feelings, actually...!) is that tomorrow is Carter's first day of PRESCHOOL!! Two mornings a week he'll be there from 9am-2pm. That's 10 hours a week of time for ME!! Maybe I'll keep my house cleaner. Or maybe I'll get errands done faster (not having to drag Carter along with me!). Or maybe I'll nap. Or maybe I'll STAMP! Very exciting. But at the same time I'm starting to get really nervous about tomorrow. I left him with a nanny when he was 5-8 months old, when I tried going back to work after maternity leave - but now it's been over a year since I quit my job, and he's stayed home with me the entire time. It's going to be a huge change for both of us for him to go away for a few hours like this. I hope we both adjust ok. :-) Actually I am soooo looking forward to it - I'll adjust just fine, as long as he does. If I have to leave him in tears each time, that will sort of spoil my happy feelings about the free time and make me feel like a mean mommy. So here's hoping he surprises me and adjusts just fine!!

I have some awesome cards to post in the next few days (hopefully!) - I've received some wonderful RAKs I want to share. I also have a card I made for a swap a few weeks back - forgot to take a photo before I sent it off (duh!) but now I have it back so I need to get it posted. :-) And if I use a little of my new free time to make more cards... well here's hoping I get back in the blogging swing real soon! (I need to - I owe so many people thank you RAKs and other various cards!!) And by the way, apparently Google reader stops counting after 1000 unread posts - mine now just says "1000+" unread. BOO HOO! It may be time to just forget about catching up, mark them all as read and start fresh. But I hate doing that because I know I'll miss some amazing creations from all of you fellow bloggers out there! Anyway... since I don't have a card to post, thought I'd share a somewhat recent photo of Carter. I took this one to share with friends/family when we told them about the little cupcake brewing inside me - notice the tshirt. :-)

Take care!!!