Simply Betty's 11th Day of Halloween

On the 11th day of Halloween my ghoul love gave to me...11 bats a flying! Only one more challenge after this one, but I am having so much fun with this challenge from Simply Betty. I know I have never participated in a challenge this long, but what fun it has been. I went with some brighter colors here because when I thought of bats for some reason all I could think of was the phrase " bat out of..." well you know and in the interest of keeping my blog PG, I won't fill it in. But that is the reason I chose this image and why I chose the colors I did. My image is from Simply Betty Stamps and was colored with Copics and the Atyou Spica markers. All the bats are from K&Co and the papers are DCCWV. Thanks for stopping by!

Another Thank You

I am trying to finish up my thank you cards for Christmas. This year I am doing something a little different. Instead of making one style card or something still Christmasy looking, I am trying to make each card more of a reflection of the gift that was given. Like my parents gave us the coffee maker so they got this card. Kip's aunt gave us a really nice electric wok, complete with steamer basket and everything. Since I use a wok for mainly Asian cooking, I decided to go with an Asian inspired card for her. This is a stamp from Simon Says Stamp and it was colored with Copic markers. This is one of my favorite Asian stamp sets too, the images are cute and it has a boy in it instead of just girl images. The paper is from the DCWV set Far East.  The gold brads are from Jo-Ann's I believe. I found these a couple of weeks ago as I was going through my storage drawers and they were buried in the very bottom because I rarely use gold on anything, I almost always prefer silver. But since I found these they have been on at least three different cards.

It is COLD here, I think when I left the house it was 13 degrees. There was a little bit of snow flurries when I left for work but they didn't last. I love snow, or at least once a year I do! We have only had flurries a couple of times this year, but I think they are predicting a little closer to the weekend. Stay warm!!

I love Mushrooms...and some rambling

Especially on Pizza! But for some reason I love images of mushrooms. While I was coloring this image, I think I finally remembered why. Obviously, I decided to color this one green but I kept thinking it wasn't right, I kept wanting to grab red, I was wanting it to look like a Smurf home! I loved the Smurfs when I was younger and still have a few of them in the house. That was even my nickname for quite awhile, not because of my affinity for the cartoon, but it was because I dyed my hair blue and wore it that way for several years. I still have friends that call me that from back home. On to the card: another thing I am doing with my self challenge is trying to work with colors I don't use that often and different color combos, and trying new things. The images are from Simon Says Stamp. there are several little woodland creatures in the set alone with another mushroom or two. The mushroom was colored with Copic Markers and the hi-lights drawn in with a white gel pen and the dragonflies were colored with a Spica marker. The acrylic drops are clear but I used some Stickles behind them to make them shimmer. Katy did a tutorial on the ClearlyiStamp blog the other day talking about adhesives that Clear Dollar Stamps carries and I picked up that little tip. That is a great blog for tutorials by the way. 

A couple of weeks ago on Splitcoast there was a discussion about shipping times from various companies and how sudden growth had caused some companies to experience some delays. Since the discussion was talking about business growing pains I added a comment about understanding how that happens because I have had friends that have had the same thing happen with their businesses. Anyway to make a long story short Heidi from Simon Says Stamp contacted me and asked if she could send me some stamps to try. Of course I said sure! That was the end of the conversation, she didn't ask me what I like or styles I prefer or anything. So about a week later I have this package in the mail with five stamp sets in it. The selection she sent me was so funny, I think if I had gone to their site and picked them myself, I would have ended up with the same sets! Not only do they carry their own line of stamps they have lots of other stuff, including all the Hero Arts stuff I can never find in stores around here.

My SIL and I went shopping for paint last night. Kip and I are redoing the downstairs and I have been given kinda free reign to pick out the colors. Well, as long as they aren't weird combinations and the colors don't scream at you or sear your brain. Right now every room in the house is off white. I can live with that, and like the white space, but would much prefer the white to be paired with bursts of color.  Since part of this new space is going to be my creative area, I want something stimulating, not boring. So she is helping me pick out colors and asked what colors I like and since I love yellow that was one of the choices I gave her, but she kept showing me muted golds or varying shades. I finally had to show her YELLOW and RED! I did manage to find some samples that I think we might both be able to live with so stay posted to see what we end up with!