Helloooooooooo - Anybody out there????

I wasn't sure if anyone still stops in to visit my blog anymore because - well quite honestly - I haven't stopped in to post! I have been taking a much needed "break" from creative pursuits to focus on some other areas of my life that have been taking a backseat for the past couple of years. My goal in 2010 (not a resolution because I don't keep those anyway) is to try to maintain a balance between the mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and creative parts of my life so if I don't post anything new for a week or two (or even three) don't worry - I'm probably still alive just otherwise engaged.

So, like the majority of the Central & Eastern United States, Illinois got hit with a Winter storm last night and it continues today. I'm pretty sure we got at least 9" here where I live and it is still lightly snowing. I didn't mind though - it allowed me to sleep in past my 5 a.m. alarm, stay in my jammies all day (no kidding!), and play a little in my studio.

I made two cards today but I will only show you one. The first one I made is a replica of a Nintendo DSI - and it is VERY plain and boring - but my 9 year old nephew will love it!!!! The second card I made was a bit of an experiment. A friend of mine gave me a wallpaper book a while back and it is filled with textured wallpaper. I began this card by choosing a page from that book - it is a peach, rough-textured piece - almost like rough, painted plaster. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to use a rose for the main image and either CHOCOLATE CHIP or HANDSOME HUNTER cardstock for the cardbase. When I went searching for ribbon I only had 3/4" satin ribbon in CERTAINLY CELERY so I chose HANDSOME HUNTER as the base.

The next "little" problem is that none of the rose stamps I own seemed to work with the card I envisioned. I recently purchased an Epson Artisan 710 photo printer and decided to see if my Copic markers would work on the Epson Photopaper without it getting sticky like most other photo papers. I printed out 2 rose images that I had saved to my computer onto the photo paper and then began coloring with the Copics. WORKS LIKE A DREAM!!!! I colored the images, cut them out and then popped them up onto a background from a second sheet of wallpaper.

The bow was made using my BOW EASY and attached with a glue dot and crystal effects. The finishing touch is the gold rimmed, porcelain rose medallion in the center of the ribbon. It was one of a pair of earrings I purchased a couple of years ago at a garage sale for 10 cents.

The layout is reversed from how I planned it - SOMEONE put it all together upside down and when SOMEONE tried to fix it the ribbon was stuck and wouldn't budge!!!!! Fortunately I hadn't glued the bow down yet though so I was able to turn it around so the tails are at least going in the right direction! If it weren't "stuck" I would also have moved the ribbon up just a little so it wasn't dividing the card exactly in half. Overall - I like it even if it's not just exactly how I originally "saw" it.

Hope you enjoyed the post today.

Until next time -

Happy Stamping.

Jill