Ode to Jon

Today's card is dedicated to my brother Jon, or as he's referred to around this house, Uncle Jon! Uncle Jon came over the past two nights to help me with dinner and the evening routine while Daddy was away on business. I'm so fortunate to have both my brother and sister living here in Austin, they are forever helping me with their niece and nephew! (I'll have to do an Ode to Laura in a future post!) This card is very Jon-esque because Uncle Jon happens to be a chemist, although these days he doesn't hang out in a lab, he uses his (vast) chemistry knowledge working for a company which writes online learning resources - basically a perfect union for him of his chemisty and computer geekiness. :-) As for the card - the sketch came from this week's Mojo Monday challenge over on Julee's blog (MOJO57), more or less. The cute image and sentiment are from Sweet 'n Sassy - the set "You're a Genius". Now I have to admit, I wasn't thrilled about something on the Sweet 'n Sassy website - they had this set filed under "for the boys". I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that's only because it features a boy image, and not because they think only boys like science (their girls sets are flowers, purses and princesses...)! This sort of thing just hits a nerve with me - I used to volunteer through the Society of Women Engineers and the Women in Engineering Program at UT to encourage young girls to study science - it's hard enough to break stereotypes and get girls into math and science!! It reminds me of that awful move by Mattel years ago to have a talking Barbie that said "math is hard." ACK! But I'm sure Sweet 'n Sassy didn't do it intentionally... I hope anyway. My sweet blog friend Anita sent me a cute card made with this set, and I had to have it when I saw it!! (I'm a bit of a chemistry geek myself!) (Oh and btw, when I use the word "geek", it's meant as a compliment...) :-) See the little flask embellishment? I stamped that image on polyshrink! I loved shrinky dinks as a kid, what fun that I can still play with them as an adult! A couple other details that are perhaps hard to see - the flask in the little chemist's hand has clear glaze pen over the green liquid, to make it look more liquidy. And his eyes, buttons, and shoes are all covered with black glaze pen. Isn't that saying funny???

So anyway - thanks again Uncle Jon, this ones for you (ETA: this is Beaker doing his version of Ode to Joy, hence the name of the post, Ode to Jon! Not obvious to most.) *smile*:

• Stamps: You're a Genius from Sweet 'n Sassy
• Paper: Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Basic Black, white, The Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Adirondack Pitch Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Polyshrink, heat tool, tag punch, Orange Peel Stickles, Clear & Black Glaze pens, Hobby Lobby ribbon