Missing Walter White

Now that my retreat peeps have left, it's too quiet here. I had so much fun at this retreat - I can't even begin to describe it, and it's so sad when everyone is gone.

We had a long discussion there about Breaking Bad and about how much we all missed Walter White, mostly because of the Team Unscripted videos Katherine and I did, where we turned Ellie and Ed's beautiful RV into an imaginary meth lab when we were left unsupervised. It's always a TERRIBLE idea to leave Kat and I unsupervised when we have microphones and our Iphones. (Here's a link to the photos and videos from retreat.)

But that gave me an idea for a card - the Breaking Bad part, I mean - when I saw the beautiful Kitchen Sink Stamps Cabin by the Lake stamp set.

The part where Walter goes up to the granite state and to that desolate cabin is such a turning point in the show - the cabin image just spoke to me and made me miss Walter even more, so I thought a sort of melancholy card was in order.

But before I get to the card, while we are still talking about retreat - I was enabled in a major way at retreat to purchase God's one true paper trimmer by the owner of the meth lab  this paper trimmer - Miss Ellie. I AM IN LOVE! While I love the Stampin' Up! 12" paper trimmer, I am a power cutter. Disposable cutting blades are not meant for people like me - I had to cut more than 500 pieces of cardstock for Saturday's Christmas stamp-a-stack, and so an individual trimmer for normal people doesn't cut it. So please see the supply list for the life changing, self sharpening heavy duty trimmer. Bonus - it's made in England, not China.

And speaking of my stamp-a-stack - Saturday's SAS is now available as an online class! The cards are beautiful, and feature the Hearts Come Home Bundle. You've all seen samples of this bundle and the beautiful dies included, but I worked hard to come up with three cards that are unlike any samples you've seen online with this holiday pairing. Check the class out here, and remember - if you purchase the bundle in my store, I send you the class for free!

So back to Walter White and his cabin.

I wanted a non-wintery setting for the cabin, so I decided to create a more summery lake scene, using the Colorbox stylus, foam tips and numerous inks. For the sky, I used pink and yellow, and then added blue on top to make it a nighttime scene, but leaving some pink and yellow shining through. I work with the stylus from the edges of the card in, and to get the best results, you really need to work on glossy cardstock - so happy that we carry this again. For the water, I stamped only the detailed water image from the set in Pacific point, and then used the stylus to add Marina Mist ink over that, as well as Daffodil delight for the reflected sun.

All the green inks below are for the ground, and I used the browns for shadows. The cabin was stamped on Whisper White, not glossy, and I cut it out and sponged the edges with early espresso using the stylus, to make sure the edges were in shadow.

I love the duck stamps and how they blend in with the water stamp and have their own reflection.

The sentiment is from School Days.

I love how moody and peaceful it looks.

This card is for today's Kitchen Sink Stamps & My Sweet Petunia blog hop and giveaway!

If you comment on every blog in the hop, you will be entered to win one of two prizes: - a mini or original MISTI (winner's choice), and another lucky winner will get a $50 shopping spree at Kitchen Sink Stamps. It just so happens that today - actually this very day - is Kitchen Sink's 10th anniversary! In honor of that, Maria is having a sale - 35% off all in-stock items, with free shipping at $65 and above. Sale excludes out of stock and special order/retired items, and the sale runs from today through 9/29 at midnight Pacific. Use coupon code KSSDECADE to get the sale pricing!

So here are the rest of the hoppers - go see what they've done and good luck! Comments close at 11 PM Central time on 10/2 and winners will be announced on the MSP and KSS blogs on October 3rd.

Maria Colosimo

Ilina Crouse

Jeanne Streiff

 You are here >>>Lydia Fiedler<<< You are here 

Kia Gibson-Clapper

Ceal Pritchett

Giovana Smith

Chris Dayton

Stephanie Severin

Lynn McAuley

You can enter my September giveaway of an Arkon Pro Live Streaming Stand - the one I film all my tutorials with PLUS a ring light for the perfect lighting awesome selfies and live streams one of two ways:

• Place an order in my store any time during the month of September for an automatic entry. BONUS - use host code M2U9DE6V on your order to be entered in a drawing for free Stampin' Up! products as well! 
• Comment on this post and you'll be automatically entered. If you place an order in my store AND comment on that post, you'll receive two entries!

And remember - you can always use my code - UNDERSTANDBLUE - at Arkon for 20% off. They sell all sorts of mounts - hands-free phone mounts for the car, GoPro mounts, tripods, you name it. and they are GREAT people and provide great service.

Loveyameanitbye.

Congrats - on Your Terrible Idea!

You know how good it feels when you come up with an idea that you think no one has thought of, and is just brilliant?

I had that feeling recently and was so proud of myself.

I love bubbles. I don't like regular water without bubbles so my water of choice is LaCroix - mostly the plain, but I like some of the flavors too, like coconut and grapefruit. But mostly the plain.

I also really like iced tea - that's what really runs in the veins of most Texans. And as you know, UNPOLLUTED tea with no sugar.

Since I frequently "cut" other beverages with fizzy water to cut the sweetness - like orange juice and cranberry juice, one day I thought - WHY IS THERE NO CARBONATED TEA??

In my mind's tastebud, it was glorious. The perfect drink. Not sweet, with delightful bubbles and BONUS - caffeine!

The next time I made iced tea, I made myself a bubbly tea.

And it. was. horrid.

I don't know why - because those things separately are delightful, just like fizzy water and orange juice are. And they are even better together.

But with tea, some horrible transmogrification takes place that just leaves you embarrassed and thirsty.

So yeah. There's an idea for the trash heap of history. Thanks a lot, dumb me!

I made a card to congratulate myself on this numbskullery. It's also for a Falliday Fest challenge - I can't reveal what the challenge is, but if you're coming here on October 9th, you already know! Welcome, visitors from the future!

I wanted a very splashy, bright background that had hints of fall but still the pretty blues of summer, so again I went to my trusty Schmincke watercolors.

I die cut a bunch of congrats sentiments from masking paper and adhered them to watercolor paper, making sure they were really stuck down with my bone folder so the edges were nice and tight. You'll want hot press watercolor paper to really make this work well, but remember - perfection is for serial killers - it's completely okay if it's not perfect.

Then I just dabbed primaries around the die cuts and let it dry naturally before removing the masks. I find that the heat gun can not only drive pooled water under the masking paper but it can also loosen the adhesive. It's best just to go throw out your gross bubbly tea while you wait for the air to do its work on your card.

Then when I pulled the masks off I was left with this fun background.

links to supplies

InLinkz.com

How fun is that? I thought this would be a great, cheery card for one of my team members for a job well done.

It is a sparkling season. Just one WITHOUT sparkling tea, thank you very much!

Don't forget - I have a new online class featuring Christmas Pines, and also a November class which you can get for free by participating in the buy 3 get one free DSP sale that starts tomorrow! Here are all the details.

Now go forth and have better ideas than I do!

Loveyameanitbye.

Cereal Killers

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the lack of originality in the movie industry.

Every day, you hear about some terrible plan to just remake a perfectly good movie.

Why is this happening? Is it a lack of knowledge transfer from one generation to the next, so that millennials will not have any clue watching the "new" Mary Poppins movie starring Beyonce and Jimmy Fallon that it's based on something that was already perfect and should have been shown to them by their negligent parental units?

It's distressing and boring. And I didn't know those two feelings could coexist, but they can. I feel them.

While I was thinking about how distressing and boring it was, I was thinking about how many things in our daily lives have evolved into nearly new life forms, unlike a simple staff change for classic movies.

For example - the phone. There's a huge difference between a rotary phone on a party line and an Iphone you can catch Pokemon on. (Although, you could make the argument that we're all still on a party line, what with the NSA and whatnot.)

Cars now have navigation and DVD players and hiney warmers and coolers and can park themselves and open their own doors without your assistance. Quite different from the Cutlass Supreme that stalled at every stop sign and made me stick a pen in the carburetor to restart it.

But then I thought about cereal.

I don't know why I thought about cereal, but I did. And I realized that there hasn't been a cereal innovation in FOREVER!

Chex and Honeycombs and Apple Jacks - those were cereal innovations. Remember Golden Grahams and Raisin Nut Bran? THOSE were just happy smacks right in your cereal-loving face.

But there's been little activity since then. Nothing is crunchier or more interesting in the cereal department. It's just more of the same, like a movie remake.

I'd like these two industries to just get it together and start being original again. On behalf of Mary Poppins and Raisin Nut Bran fans everywhere. Please - just get it together.

In the meantime, while we wait for them, let's make some pretty Christmas cards, shall we?


This weekend, I had the first of my four annual Christmas Stamp-a-Stack classes. I love these, because we get to feel festive when it's 103 degrees out, and then come November, all of us have 40 cards ready for the holidays. (PS - the projects we made are available as my most recent online class.)

Normally after a class, I don't stamp because I'm stamped out, but Saturday I could not get enough of these dies, and I came home and made one more card.

Big Shot Die Cutting & Embossing Machine	Star of Light Stamp & Die Bundle	MISTI Stamping Tool	Wonder of Christmas Stamp Set	Clarity Stamp Stencil Brushes	Silver Glimmer Paper
Fancy Frost Embossed Paper	Whisper White Thick Cardstock	Paper Trimmer	Pool Party Ink	Daffodil Delight Ink	Memento Tuxedo Black Ink
Tombow Mono Multi Glue	Stampin' Dimensionals

InLinkz.com

I just brushed ink onto the amazing embossed Fancy Frost paper with my Clarity Stamp stencil brushes for that nice soft blend. I LOVE this paper. All the different patterns are super fun, but the star pattern was perfect for these dies.

This was very quick and easy and would be easy and fun to do in multiples for sending out holiday cards. I have the strip that I cut out of the Fancy Frost paper and can use that on another card.

So take a minute this week and please try to invent both a new cereal and a new screenplay.

The world needs you.

You're our only hope.

Loveyameanitbye.

From Russia With Love

It's amazing how, at the end of the day, all good things lead back to bacon.

Yes, even in papercrafting.

Yesterday, I was making my sample for my Virtual Stamp Night challenge at Splitcoast this weekend (come play!) and I had a bacon-related revelation.

You know how your paper warps when you do watercolor or embossing techniques? Well I usually glue my card together and then go slip it under the pile of magazines on my coffee table until it's dry and that flattens it out.

But then I realized - I have the perfect card flattening tool - and I don't have to dig through a pile of magazines to find my card after I use it.

It's a bacon press!

I've had this bacon press since 1990 - and I've actually never used it for bacon. The secret to good, flat bacon is to start with cold bacon in a cold pan. But it's so cute and heavy duty that I couldn't get rid of it.

And then today - it hit me like a lightning bolt - it's the PERFECT card press!

A few minutes under the bacon press and my card was perfectly flat! God bless bacon!

The VSN (Virtual Stamp Night at Splitcoast) theme this weekend is Around the World in 80 Days, and each challenge this weekend takes inspiration from a different country.

For my challenge, I chose Russia - specifically the Imperial Faberge Eggs. The story of Faberge is very intriguing, and the majority of the eggs made by the House of Faberge were made for the Romanovs to give to each other. It's a fascinating story for me, because it starts with a gifted French artist, goes through a horrid governmental overreach, and ends up with Aqua Net. Not even kidding. Read about it.

What's cool about Faberge is the uniqueness of those eggs - and how just the name Faberge calls that particular magic to mind.

So I chose my favorite Faberge egg as inspiration - it's a deep cobalt blue egg (currently owned by Prince Albert of Monaco) with ornate gold detail. It's stunning. So I used the First Sight stamp set (coming in the Occasions Mini January 4th) to emboss in gold, and then I spritzed it and added Turquoise, Violet and Ultramarine Brusho. I let it air dry so the color stayed vivid.

The ultramarine separates so that you see both blue and violet, which I love.

Speaking of color - my new online class is available now! It's a color combo study for the upcoming Picture Perfect stamp set - available January 4th. Here's a peek of one of the layering images in the set - I stamped out the four steps for this image.

This class shows you 24 total color combos - 5 combos for the hummingbird, taken from real bird photos, 1 hummingbird combo that give it a vintage, sepia look, 10 combos for the rose stamp, 5 for the starfish and 3 for the leaves.

These are unique combos you will be surprised by, and I also give alignment tips for this multi-step stamp set.

If you're a demonstrator and pre-ordered this set - you'll love this class for your own classes. If you are not a demonstrator - if you buy this set from me beginning January 4th - this class will be free with your purchase!

A little something for everyone.

Hope  you come play along with us for Virtual Stamp Night - the challenges are amazing.

Loveyameanitbye/

9 AM Is Not Too Late For Tacos, Brian

So I was talking to Brian King this morning while I was on my way to get the traditional Sunday breakfast tacos.

He was mortified that we were being so Bohemian as to have breakfast tacos at such a late and slothful hour, so I justified myself by telling him about the 8 million other Bohemians in line in front of me - nearly every one of them with a dog in their car. Seriously - everyone that I saw this morning had a dog in their car - everyone at the Starbucks drive through and everyone at the taco drive through and many cars in between.

I wondered out loud what kind of strange looks I'd get if I packed up the cats every Sunday morning and just started driving around town with them looking out the windows at people.

Why are dogs considered normal car companions and cats are not?

It seems discriminatory.

Although, in reality, a cat would never sit in a seat and look happily out the window at passersby. It would scream like its soul was being sucked out by Voldemort, poop, barf and then shoot onto the accelator or under the brake, killing us all.

Perhaps I have answered my own question.

Today I'm playing along with the Global Design Project - CASE The Designer challenge - and the designer is the decidedly un-Bohemian early riser himself. The inspiration project from Brian is this cutie:

As you know, I'm not a red and green Christmas person, and I love holiday designs with aquas and reds instead. So, since I was already braving the frigid 41 degree temps this morning, I decided to take inspiration from Brian's frosty theme, and his beautiful color combo to make my card.

I like trying to use the images in a new way - my rebellious streak - so I used the berry images to create an emboss resist snow in the background. Then using a ruler and my Versamarker, I created an echo of a window shape to frame the bird in, and embossed those as well. I sponged the entire background with Pool Party and then used my MISTI to stamp the bird body from Joyful Season - first in Real Red, and then in Cherry Cobbler - I like the mix. With a blender pen and Tangelo Twist, I created a beak, and I used the blender and Cherry Cobbler to draw in an eye and the darker area near the beak. I didn't want the outline image of this two step stamp to break up the softness of the overall card so I just left it off. But I did want him to have legs, because otherwise that would have just been awkward, so I masked my finished bird, and again with the MISTI, I stamped the legs from the outline stamp image onto the bird. The glimmer paper snowflake is from the retired snowflake card dies. And because I'm in denial about Cool Caribbean being retired, that's the card base.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

I think this would make a fun card for winter birthdays too.

This was really fun to do, and a  nice Sunday diversion before I dived into part one of the annual Alton Brown Fruitcake ritual. This is a million dollar recipe, both figuratively AND literally - these organic dried fruits are expensive little suckers and you use quite a bit of rum and brandy. The whole process takes from now until Christmas, at which point these exquisite little gifts are ready to package up and make people happy.

My grandfather on my mom's side made amazing holiday treats - notably rum balls, which is to this day one of my favorite recipes, and one I have yet to share outside our family, like our closely guarded cheesecake recipe. And he LOVED fruitcake. I did not share his love though, because at that time, fruitcake was made with those hideous, gummy fluorescent candied "fruits" that sit in those plastic containers at the store, boring their evil into you while you're trying to buy oranges. I was always repulsed by those red and green sort of bitter, gummy things - WAIT - maybe THAT is why red and green give me the twitchies at Christmas!

Anyway, I never bonded with it. Until I watched the show where Alton Brown made this free range fruitcake. It has real fruit in it - and real fruit that I liked, and not jellied or dyed anything. Add cake and rum and brandy spritzing for a month and I am a total fruitcake convert! It's seriously amazing. If I can be converted, anyone can.

I make three full batches so that I can divide them into mini loaf pans for a precious few gifts.

We are doing our traditional handmade or re-gift only Christmas again this year, so a few lucky people will be getting these amazing cakes! And I try to mail at least one to a faraway friend each year.

Speaking of faraway friends - all my faraway friends can now get my newest online class - featuring the Reason For the Season bundle. I have some fun, surprising designs with this set that can be used all year - not just at the holidays - so even if you're done with holiday cards, you won't want to miss this. AND, this punch matches a NEW adorable stamp set you'll see in the Occasions Mini, so it's a great value.

Here's what the bundle looks like. And if you purchase the bundle from me, the class is free :).

Please feel free to play along with this challenge - and if you share your card in the Splitcoast gallery, please use keywords GDP and GDP012.

And don't forget - the Online Extravaganza starts today - and it's a great sale - get the details here. If you use host code SWQG4DAV when you are shopping you will be entered into a drawing to win a stamp set from the upcoming Occasions Mini! All orders of $30 and over are eligible!

Then go make yourself some fruitcakes! You will not regret it!

Loveyameanitbye.

Why Water Is the Devil's Work

Okay - pre-post disclaimer:

If you are even slightly inclined to think or comment "we need the rain" or "I love rain" or "I sleep so great when it rains" - you need to stop reading this post right now - go fix yourself a beet salad with green bell peppers and Velveeta and read something by Henry James, because we will never come to agreement on this or anything else, and I still want us to be able to be friends. In spite of the fact that you like beets and green bell peppers and Velveeta and Henry James and rain.

Go on.

Okay - for those of you who remain - I have to tell you the revelation I had after I woke up in a dire panic at 4 AM to the sound of rain on Friday.

Well I actually didn't have the revelation at 4 AM.  All I had at 4 AM was anxiety and the sound of water hitting various objects in the back yard, a nervous cat, and my mental to do list.

I had the revelation at about 8 during my walk in the woods, after being awake for four hours unnecessarily.

I realized why water induces complete panic in me and all other normal people. (Here's the part where my parents start calling me to tell me I'm crazy. HANG ON I AM TYPING A BLOG POST.)

Let's go back to the cave days, when all our little amygdala reactions made sense and we weren't all numbed by yoga music, Angry Birds, Kardashians and the Kindle.

Let's say the cave version of me is sleeping in the cave and am suddenly awakened by water sounds. This can mean one of the following things is happening.

• The cave is flooding. We live in a cave for God's sake. It's on the ground. If it fills up with water it's Poseidon adventure, but with larger foreheads and probably lots of rodents. 
• Someone (I live with cave people, after all) is peeing in an unauthorized area. This is every woman's worst nightmare. You know I'm right. Every woman on earth is in a state of high alert, asleep or awake, for a peeing sound.
• It's raining. My favorite Saber Toothed Tiger one shoulder throw is out on the grapevine, getting wet, and ensuring that I'll smell like a long dead goat for the rest of the year's social occasions.
• Let's say I live in a barren desert cave community - the sound of water at night can only mean that the tiny amount of water that my dear husband Thag walked miles to bring us is spilling onto the sand and we're all going to die. 
• We live near the ocean and suddenly a giant tsunami is consuming our world, and because we are cave people we didn't notice earlier in the day the ocean disappearing from view and all the animals fleeing for their lives. Now we are starting to be clued in, as the water starts to cover up our cave address pole, or whatever cave people had outside their caves.

The modern manifestation of these worries for me is this crazy terror that that the roof is just going to turn into cheesecloth, or all the pipes will burst. Rain is just terrible. And it's completely not my fault. It's just my cave self-preservation genes.

This is why you should walk every day. It really helps you solve mysteries in your everyday life and relax you after you've been terrorized at night by rain. Seriously!

I also saw deer prints - running deer prints - for nearly a mile. That was a much longer trot for me than the deer - his/her stride was about 10x mine. I think the rain was chasing him :).

I do really love - rain aside - being outside. Which I can't do when it rains. Yet another reason to support the normalcy of pluviophobia.

One thing I can do when it rains is stamp, though.

Kim's challenge for Hope You Can Cling To (we are giving away more than $5000 in crafty prizes, btw - are you playing? Still tons of time!) was to have use a transportation theme - representing all the requirements a cancer patient has to go to and from treatment, and what an important role these trips play. She's so creative.

I decided to do something that's been in my head for a while, born out of something I used in my latest online class featuring the Hearth & Home Thinlits. I combined my fave galaxy background I featured here with the Sleigh Ride Edgelits, with an extended cut from the window die. Then I created the Police Box header and flyer in Photoshop, glued them to my die cut, and then coated the whole thing with gloss medium.

I tried the windows in vellum and they just didn't look right, so I cut teeny pieces of Pacific Point cardstock to make the dividers and put them on Whisper White. I randomly sponged on Night of Navy on the Police Box to make it look a bit distressed. The sentiment is from my favorite Project Life Set - Let's Get Away.

Let's Get Away - from rain. This weekend at my class - half the class couldn't make it because of flash flooding - and then halfway through class, my venue started filling with water!

It's always an adventure here, that's for sure.

Speaking of adventures - I have a new online class ready for you - holiday themed of course! You can read about that here, and catch up on any other classes you missed. 

AND - don't forget my mini-retreat in Dallas in November - we are close to capacity for this event! Reserve your seat today! The event runs from 10-3 on Friday before OnStage.

Loveyameanitunlessyouarerainbye.

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

I also have a new online class for you!

This one is featuring the Hearth & Home Framelits, Happy Scenes stamp set, as well as