It’s Julie’s Birthday today!!! She is the owner at E-scapeandscrap … and this is the card I sent her in the mail:

Happy Birthday Julie!!

Love Love LOVE these House Mouse Stamps. This image was coloured with my Copic markers and the background lightly chalked on. I sprayed it with an irridescent spray, which of course doesn’t show up in a web-ready low-res photo … but it is so pretty! I printed the ‘happy’ onto cardstock, then cut it out with a Wizard die and attached it to the card with 2 faced foam tape and sheer coloured ribbon. The flower on the envelope was coloured with Copics and gitter glue was added lightly.

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This is another card going into Anne’s set. I love Stampscapes images (the cabin) and I don’t get to play with them nearly enough.

The background is a fabulus grungy shadow stamp from Hero Arts. I bought it at a stamp convention and it’s such a favourite of mine.

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I have the BEST dentist, and he has the BEST staff. Honestly! I have been going to him for over 25 years … and when I started going to him I would lay in the chair and cry I was so scared. He would have one of his staff come in and hold my hand. I’m much better now, ha ha — but only because he was so good with me. I have a cleaning coming up and I like to bring the hygienist (Anne) a set of cards. She loves them — and actually USES them. It does your heart good when you give someone a gift that they really like! Some of  the cards (I will include 6 in the set) I have already posted at one time or another, so I will just show you the ones you haven’t seen before.

I did the word-art, then printed it on a transparency. The beautiful daisy is actually a sticker, and I used white eyelets to hold the transparency onto the printed paper panel.

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I had a crazy stressful week last week. Mostly because it involved what I call ‘high finance’, and hey - I’m creative. I don’t do numbers well or easily yet I was dealing with numbers out the wazoo all week. Once the last piece of the numerical puzzle was in place, I headed to Michaels to treat myself. Bought a pretty package of 12×12″ patterned card stock and came home to play in the studio. This is the first card I made with the new papers:

Here is a detail shot - some of the papers have glitter on them and they are so pretty!

 I used a Nestability die to cut out the label … and coloured the Hero Arts stamp with a teal marker as the ink. My teal ink pad was too dark for my taste.

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I have some photos to share with you today … the first shows the beautiful sunset in the mountains this weekend. The smoke from the forest fires in BC had a lot to do with the deep colours …

Next are the elk pictures … Cooper (who is incredibly alert) heard the elk early yesterday morning before any of us did. He had his sisters up and barking and they didn’t even know why! I could hear them snapping branches in the back yard, so peeked out the window. Yup - the elk were back! I was pretty excited - we haven’t seen a herd this size since late fall! I stood outside in my pjs and watched them for a long time - and even managed to snap a couple of pictures that weren’t blurry.

It is always exciting when these animals wander through the yard, but this time we counted NINE calves! There were only 6 or 7 females, so obviously there were at least two sets of twins. There was a male with the herd, sporting beautiful velvet antlers. If all this wasn’t wonderful enough - he was calling out a fair bit — so I got to stand on the deck listening to him. I got a picture of him too - with his mouth open as he was calling - but it is blurry. Darn! If you look close, you can see his open mouth and the rest of the herd is moving ahead of him. I cropped the picture and enlarged it a bit below the main photo.

A few of the females were bedding down in the yard and I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get the dogs out for their morning pee when the male came by and moved them out.

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I have to admit, this isn’t really a FINISHED card. I will add gems or something to the center of the butterfly, and probably words across the bottom of the green embossed strip. But the base card is done and ready for when I need it, so I thought I’d share.

Once again, I used the Stampin’ Up Top Note die, and the Cuttlebug Butterfly die/embossing set. Can you tell I like butterflies???  :-)  The butterfly was cut out of the same background paper, and after embossing it I sprayed it with a pearlized Glimmer Mist.

This is Cooper ‘helping’. He always comes over when I am taking pictures of what I’m going to post to check it all out. He doesn’t like having his picture taken - YET. I know he will learn to enjoy it and be posing like Brandi and Sasha in no time. Meanwhile, he remains bashful and ever helpful.

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This is another card that is going into the package my Mom ordered.

I used mostly dies for this one … the Stampin’ Up Top Note die (which I had been DROOLING over since it came out and I use it a LOT), and the way-cool Cuttlebug Butterfly die and embossing set. The white dotted strip is one that I ran through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I added glitter glue on the butterfly so it is easier to mail than with adhesive gems or pearls.

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Oh goodie. Like I needed to find something else to buy for card creating?  :-)  Flower Soft - I’d seen it advertised and thought “oh yeah - looks good”. When I was ordering my Cuttlebug embossing folders, I decided I’d try a jar - just to SEE. Well it’s pretty cool!!!  Of course I only have one colour, so I can see that I will need some green as well - but for a first attempt - here is my card.

My Mom ordered some note cards, so this is going into her pack.  You adhere these teeny tiny bits and they look like a flower garden. I can see that I didn’t choose the best image to try it out on - but it is still a neat 3-d effect. I’ll be playing with it more once I get this hectic week over with.

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Here is a simple little ATC I made to swap with Sue …

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We adopted Cooper from the “Pawsitive Match Rescue Foundation“, and they have the song “True Colours” playing on the home page. I hadn’t ever really listened to the opening lines of that song, and it just GRABBED my heart. What a perfect song for an organization like this!

Sometimes Cooper has just the saddest eyes. Even though he has come a long way, his past must haunt him sometimes.

Select words from the song “You with the sad eyes / Don’t be discouraged / Oh I realize / It’s hard to take courage…

But I see your true colors shining through. I see your true colors and that’s why I love you.

Layout created with Julie Mead’s new “Spa Refresher” backgrounds and elements. The frame is from my “Our Dad Element Pack” and fonts are Louisiana and Anzeigen Grotesk D.

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