Take a Hike

I had my ginormous stamp sale tonight, and it was awesome. I also had my monthly class this morning, after a two month break, and it's so awesome to see a community come back together, having missed each other over the last eight weeks. I'm so lucky to have such awesome stampy friends.

Today I am just going to try to catch up on life after a long stretch of traveling, my retreat, work and general craziness, and I started with some watercoloring, to see if I still knew how.

I decided to do regular stamping instead of no-line watercolor, but I didn't want a black line, so I went with Morning Mist Versafine Clair, and stamped my Woodsy Lady from Ellen Hutson and her flashlight.

Then I watercolored her with Daniel Smith - not many colors - and I listed them all below. That puffy jacket is soooo fun to color! All of the Leading Ladies stamps are so fun - adorable girls, and all of them big enough to color.

Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Designer Dies,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Designer Dies,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Designer Dies,... [ ELH ] Essentials by Ellen Clear Stamps,... [ ELH ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Morning Mist [ ELH ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Terre Ercolano [ BLIC | ELH ] Transparent Brown Oxide Purchase... [ BLIC | ELH ] Verditer Blue [ BLIC | ELH ] Indanthrone Blue [ BLIC | ELH ] Undersea Green [ BLIC | ELH ] Quinacridone Deep Gold [ BLIC | ELH ] 01767-8060 - Daniel Smith Extra Fine... [ BLIC | ELH ] Aussie Red Gold [ BLIC ] DANIEL SMITH Extra Fine Watercolors... [ ELH ] New Gamboge [ BLIC | ELH ] Sepia - Daniel Smith [ BLIC | ELH ] Da Vinci Cosmotop Sable Mix F Brushes... [ BLIC | ELH ] Fabriano Artistico 140 lb. Cold Press... [ AMZUS ] Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock,... [ ELH ] Neenah Cardstock, Neenah Heavyweight,... [ ELH ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSW | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | SBC ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART | SBC ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Multipurpose Liquid Glue by Stampin' Up! [ SUP ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ]

If you're in my Daniel Smith Split group - here are the split numbers of the colors I used. (if you're not, click here to join): E18, E20, C16, D15, C15, C8, C22, C17, D17, C14.

I took such a fun hike when I was in Santa Fe - hiking is one of my favorite things to so. I love the peace and solitude of the woods, and at that elevation, it's even more magical. Here's a photo I took when my hiking companions went on a different trail and I got some alone time with just the birds and this beautiful view.

Now speaking of alone time - while I was by myself on this section of the trail, I sat down on a rock slightly off the trail to rest, and while I was there, several people came by - I was right at the split to three different trails. Not one of them noticed me. They looked at the trail map, or straight ahead, but none of them looked just slightly off the path to see another human just feet away.

THIS IS HOW A SERIAL KILLER GETS YOU, PEOPLE!

Thankfully, I am not a serial killer, but it did surprise me that not one person that came by saw me.

The temptation to scream and just scare the bejabbers out of the unsuspecting hikers was overwhelming, but I squashed it. I only do that kind of thing to my friends. :)

Do you hike? We are lucky enough to have beautiful trails and greenbelts all around Austin, so a hike is only minutes away here no matter where you are, and I love that. I will always need to live somewhere where I can walk into the woods. There's only so much concrete a person can take.

There's other cute stuff in today's release at Ellen Hutson, so check it out! The thing I love to the moon and back about her Essentials by Ellen stamps is that they come in the super heavy duty stamp pockets with a flap so I can just put them in my bin - no getting out the label maker, transferring the set to the pockets and NO creating trash with the packaging. It's a HUGE thing that seems like a small thing, but to me it greatly increases the value of the product.

Here are some other cute ones being released today. The new Leading ladies stamps also includes the City Lady set, which is adorable. I love her eyelet top and the Mary Tyler Moore sentiment - one of my all time favorite shows.

Then, for you mermaids, there's Beach Lady with matching dies.

Here's the full set of Woodsy Lady

And one more cute elements stamp set I love - Pattern Play. It's perfect for the MISTI.

And I do hope your troubles, if you have any, take a hike - but I also think taking a hike can help you with your troubles. I must have a little whiff of Thoreau somewhere in my DNA.

Loveyameanitbye.