Live Life in Color!

This is supposed to be my Friday post, which I would post later tonight, but we have a dinner to go to tonight (Joel's company's holiday party!) so I'm posting early. For those of you in Austin, fyi - it's at Hudson's on the Bend!! Woohoo!! Score!! :-) Ok on to the card...! Some of you may remember my rubber disaster from a while back. I mentioned briefly in that post that I had gotten some glorious new rubber from smARTworks. I had planned to use more of the stamps and tell you all about it AGES ago, but, well, you know... I'm very hot and cold when it comes to stamping and blogging! These days I am **HOT** (ha ha) so I am FINALLY using some of my awesome new stamps!!! When I saw this image in the smARTworks catalog, I immediately fell in love with it (and her gorgeous friend who comes in the set!). It's called Express Duo #1. Today I decided to pair her with this week's sketch challenge on SCS (SC157). I used the technique where you ink up the stamp (I used various SU markers), spritz your paper (I used watercolor paper) and spritz your image, and then stamp. The color runs all over the place and looks super cool!! After my image was dry, I restamped her and embossed with silver EP. Then I went in with my new Spica glitter pens (*heart*) and added a little sparkle here and there. I just love this look!! I was trying to make this card really bold and colorful, because the stamp just says "bold and colorful" to me! So then I wanted to use the sentiment I also bought from smARTworks - "live life in color!" - but it was too big to work on this card. So, I wrote it myself. Hmm. Not sure if that was the wisest choice. Not in love with my handwriting! Oh well, too late now. :-)

Ok so why do I LOVE smARTworks so much? First of all, I love lots of their stamps (and btw, Dina is giving away the sets SHE DESIGNED right now - check it out!). They have an image of Van Gogh's Starry Night, my all-time favorite painting, that I MUST put on my next order! But more than that - the owner, Susan, is just sooooooo nice! First, last summer - I actually applied to their design team call. I made it past the first round (woohoo!) but then dropped out because I was feeling too morning sick to stamp (waaaah!). I felt terrible for having to back out, so I offered to send back the round 2 supplies she had sent me, but she told me to keep them. I thought that was super duper nice. THEN - when I placed my order this fall - she THREW IN a super cute little stamp set, because she just thought a pregnant gal needed it. SO NICE!!!!!!!!!!! I've mentioned a couple times lately - I love when the business owners go the extra mile - and I think Susan absolutely does just that!!!!

Ok 'nuff gushing. Thanks for stopping by today!!

• Stamps: smARTworks ABC-Express Duo #1
• Paper: Real Red, Watercolor paper, Basic Black, striped & yellow DP from My Mind's Eye
• Ink: Versamark, SU markers
• Accessories: Silver EP, black brads, grosgrain ribbon, Spica glitter pens