Oh well...

So much for getting back to blogging.  lol   But I made a card today and then saw the latest Case This Sketch challenge -- I made the card without seeing the sketch!  So I'm taking a breath and jumping into my first challenge.  Scary!

Here's the sketch:

And here's the card I made:

How serendipitous, right?  The background was made with Stampin' Up! markers from the Brights collection on Whisper White cardstock, matted with Old Olive cardstock.  Ribbon is also Old Olive grosgrain and the patterned paper is from an old collection, Tea Party.  The image is from Woodware Craft -- "Autumn Agapanthus."

I hope you like it!  ~  Irene

Gratitude

It isn't uncommon these days to hear people grumble about the lack of good customer service:  Food servers who don't ask if everything is good or who seem inconvenienced if we ask for a refill of water; Cashiers who throw the change back at you; Salespersons who act as if they're doing you a favor by waiting on you.  But now and then, we come across a company and customer service representative who exceed all expectations and then thank you for letting them help you.  This post is about one such company:  Crafter's Companion, and specifically their representative, Bindy.

I've been a fan of Crafter's Companion since about 2008, when I bought their Ultimate Tool, an all-in-one tool for scoring, cutting, embossing.  I've been a loyal customer since.

Recently I had some issues and without batting an eye, Bindy went above and beyond to resolve them, and then went abover and beyonder!  Needless to say, I love this company!

To thank Bindy for all of her help, I made her a card, because her service just blew me away.  A sincere thank you for excellent customer service from my new friend!

Image and Sentiment: Blow Me Away, SugarPea Designs.
Colors:  Spectrum Noir IB2, IB3, BT5, LV1, LV2 and PL2
Cardstock:  Stampin' Up! Pale Plum (retired)
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug's Tiny Bubbles

Belated Birthdays

I'm terrible at remembering birthdays.  No, I mean really terrible.  Like, if it weren't for Facebook reminding me, I'd rarely remember anyone's birthday.  And it's not like I haven't tried.  I have whatever dates I know marked in my address book by the person's name.  I even have one of those Birthday Reminder perpetual calendars.  The sad truth is that I'm not organized enough to LOOK at any of them with enough time to actually get anything made or sent out.  Not a good thing when you're a card maker.

So this summer I decided I'd get caught up.  I didn't really want to create a ton of belated birthday cards.  So instead, I thought I'd just make a bunch of Thinking of You cards, encouragement cards, silly cards, etc.  I figure, if the point is to get at least two cards out each year -- birthday and Christmas -- I won't be doing too badly with a non-birthday card at an unexpected time of the year.  Right?  lol

I've been on a color binge lately.  I've spent so much on alcohol markers, I figured I'd better hunker down and finally learn how to use them.  I posted the card I did for my brother.  That was fun but time consuming -- all those little paint brushes took over two hours. But by the end of it, I think I'm feeling confident coloring wood.

My next try were people -- I've been afraid of coloring flesh.  I haven't finished putting those cards together, so that will be for a later post (I also recently got some really funny and sassy sentiments that I can't wait to use with these images).

Finally, I wanted to try my hand at blending on flowers.  I'm still struggling a bit to get good blends, but I wonder if I'm trying to do something that shouldn't be done?  I see others' coloring and they don't seem to worry to make the lines look as smooth as I'm trying to get, so maybe I don't need to?  Of course, I'm my own worst critic.  And really, while I don't want to KNOW that people toss my cards, the reality is that most of them probably are getting tossed -- eventually.  So do I really need to work so hard?

Anyway, I wanted to try my hand at exotic flowers with stark color differences.  Yeah, after the first flower, I gave up that idea.  lol  So I just limited myself to some gradients and shading.  Here is one of the cards I finished.  I think it came out cute, if I do say so myself.

I colored the flower, from Stampin' Up's Secret Garden (now retired) with Spectrum Noir markers.  The leaves are from Stampin' Up! cardstock and vellum (from Secret Garden framelits and various sizzlets).  The sentiment is "Garden of Life" from Rubbernecker, stamped in Old Olive (one of my favorite greens).  I also spritzed the background with various Stampin' Up! markers using their now retired color spritzer (which Tim Holtz has redesigned and released).  It's hard to see in the picture, but I like the effect and texture it gives the card.

Now to decide to gets to receive this... hmmm...could it be you? :-)

Thanks for looking!

Happy Birthday!!

July is my birthday month.  In fact, it's a big birthday month for my family -- my niece, my cousin, my brother, and I all have birthdays this month.  So off to card making I went.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of my niece's and cousin's cards -- oops!  But I didn't forget to take a photo of my brother's card.

Again, unfortunately, I still haven't found my camera since my move (it's in here somewhere, I promise!), so the photo was taken with my sad little cell phone.  But you still get the idea.

My brother is an amazing artist, so I took the paint brush from Sweet Stamp Shop's Artsy Fartsy set and stamped it all over to create my own background paper.  I colored each one with Spectrum Noir markers -- I'm still learning how to use those, so it's not perfect.  I then took a Versamark pen, colored over each brush, and clear embossed them.  Finally, I sponged over the whole thing with Distress inks.  I cut the panel down and popped it onto a panel of Stampin' Up's Taken with Teal cardstock (now retired) edged with black ribbon scraps from my stash.  All of that got adhered to a white card base.

Because my brother is an awesome artist, rather than a birthday sentiment on the front, I used a sentiment from Lil' Inker's Snarky Sentiments -- if you know my brother, you know he'd completely agree with it.  lol

Happy birthday, baby bro.  Love you!