The Shadows Will Fall Behind You

Happy Independence Day!! If you've visited me in July you know that this is one of my favorite holidays for oh so many reasons.

This is the first year I will not see our awesome neighborhood 4th of July parade, but I have an important obligation today.

I am the official photographer for the Fiedler-Boeselt Chili Wars.

These chili wars are really an embarrassing and scandalous tale of cheating, judge bribing, and just flat out fraud. The trophy has been passed from one undeserving cook to another, eluding the REAL winners.

And I think you know who the REAL winners are. Or should be. The intrigue rivals a good Downton Abbey episode, except hotter, and with Fritos.


So this holiday weekend, we are hoping that a sense of patriotism and the overwhelmingly positive influence of the American way will guide our judges to the CORRECT decision. If not, we have lured them to an undisclosed location with no exit and they will be at our mercy. So there's that.

America is, after all, the story of the power of optimism. We will let those dark, dark, chili shadows fall behind us on this sacred day and move forward to victory!

Today is ALSO the Mix-Ability challenge at Splitcoast and it's called "I Love a Parade" - oh the irony of my first parade-free 4th! But what she wanted us to do is show something that appears multiple times. I chose balloons, which I made with my Dots & Stripes stencil, sponge daubers and Real Red, Smoky Slate and Tempting Turquoise ink. After I sponged the balloons, I stamped through the stencil with the background from Calling All Heroes and White Craft Ink. Then, I drew the strings using a really light touch and a pencil. I had tried this using a black marker and it was too heavy - I wanted the strings to be very light and the little mechanical pencil was perfect. BTW, I HATE normal pencils - they freak me out for some reason - I only like colored pencils - but I do own about 30 of these and I love them when I HAVE to use a pencil.

Then I added a greeting I thought was perfect for today - from the Ray of Sunshine set.

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Speaking of rays of sunshine - I have a ray of sunshine for you! If you are one of my demonstrator friends, you might like a tool I built for me and my downline - it's a link generator! It will save you that step of adding &dbwsdemoid=XXXXX to all your product links (and risking a typo - ask me how I know) so that they go right to your store. 

See the tab at the top that says Link Generator? Click that and see what it's all about! Once you find the product you want, click Ctrl+C when you're on the cell with the link in it and BOOM. :)

This is a no-strings attached free gift from your favorite spreadsheet nerd - enjoy! :)

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Now - on to the important work of the day - BE GONE CHILI SHADOWS - GET THEE BEHIND US!! God Bless America!!

Loveyameanitbye.