The Girl's Got Moxie

I don't remember my life before everything I owned had a smudge of paint on it.

I remember that it existed. I just don't remember the details.

I don't remember when I didn't like sushi.

I don't remember a lot of things.

But I do remember the day I discovered Cath Edvalson and the Moxie Fab blog.

I'm weird about challenges. I'm too right brained for some and too left brained for others.

Her challenges spoke to me. They were the perfect blend of inspiration and flash. Her style is very bold, and her challenges were bold.

My favorite cards I've EVER MADE I made for Cath's challenges.

Here's one. Here's another. Here's another. Here's another.  Here's another.

As I go into mourning that she is leaving Paper Crafts and Moxie Fab World, I feel such a deep sense of gratitude for her that it's hard to feel completely sad.

Cath - you made me a better artist. I love you. I'll miss you, but I hope that whatever is next for you is also a part of my life.

Thank you for being so sweet and gracious in real life - I felt very star-struck when I met you at CHA even though you are the most down-to-earth, humble lady in our industry.

Bless you and wherever your new path brings you. You've got moxie, and little else is required.

I made a card for her and our hop today. (To see the full hop list please click here.) I wanted to send a "just keep swimming" message, as well as  a nod to the orange and blue style path she set me on with her challenges.

I used an old Stampin' Up! set - Oriental Brushstrokes. I created the background with a credit card and ink and acrylic paint. The turquoise paint was applied with the end of a piece of drywall tape. After I stamped the image in black, I filled in the fish with Crystal Effects - you can sort of see the shine here.

God speed, Cath. :)

If you came here from Shemaine, then your next stop is Jenn.

Thanks for coming by!

If There's a Cure For The Blues, Please Don't Tell Me

Sometimes, people who know I love blue will send me beautiful photos of blue Morpho butterflies. I actually have a framed Morpho on my desk. They are some of the most stunning creatures on earth. They are the world's most perfect blue, with a shimmer - nature's glitter. I would love to see a whole swarm of them in real life.

I was telling someone the other day that where I grew up, we had GIANT butterflies - just huge - bigger than a softball or a good sized Texas grapefruit. They were blue or yellow and they were amazing. Some of the other bugs that weren't nearly as pretty also got frighteningly large, but the butterflies made it all worth it.

When I saw that Moxie Fab world issued a "Cure for the winter blues" challenge, there wasn't even a second's hesitation in my mind about what I was going to do. It had to be the butterfly. 

So here's what I did. 

First, I inked up the butterfly from Wonderful Wings (retired) in Bashful Blue. I stamped off once, and then stamped it on a white card base. Then I filled it in with the same color ink for a shadow. 

Next, I wanted to do a Bokeh effect, because I've been playing with photography Iphone apps, and the Bokeh effect is one of my faves. I read about it for my real photography in this book - Creative Composition. Basically it just means little spots of light. To make my Bokeh, I took a pencil with one of those nice smooth white erasers (I don't use regular pencils outside of this application, so all my erasers are perfect circles) and I inked it on my blue ink pad and stamped all over the card. Then, I scribbled some metallic blue gelato onto the lid of my stamp case and misted it and used that with the eraser - you can see the shimmer in the photo above. 

To color the butterfly, I used a water brush and a PITT artist pen - big brush - to shade it. Then I went back over the dots on the edges of the wings with a metallic PITT pen. It's so shimmery up close - the sunlight kind of washes that out in my photo. I cut it out and I also cut in between the upper and lower wing sections for dimension.

The sentiment is retired, but one of my favorites - it's from Nature's Secret and my beloved Richard Bach. I'm so glad I kept both of these stamp sets.

If there's a cure for the blues, I don't want to know about it.

Loveyameanitbye.

Today Stinks - Literally!!

I think potpourri should be outlawed in public places.

Don't get me wrong - it's fine with me if you want your house to smell so intensely of cinnamon that primitive spice traders show up at your door with jewels to trade.

It's a free country.

But when I walk into Michael's, as I did this morning, and am hit with such an overpowering potpourri smell that my liver curls up, my face sweats, and my head aches in the first ten seconds, it seems to me that second hand smoke would actually be preferable.

Follow that with a quick sprint through Bed Bath & Beyond, and I am about to have total organ failure!

I can still smell and taste it. Bleh.

I wish Michael's had a drive through. However, I did use my snazzy Micheal's phone app to save 40% off one item and 25% off my total purchase including sales items, so I am pretty happy about that. I never did like paper coupons, so this is awesome.

But it DID inspire me to make a card, as such bizarre things often do!! I laughed so hard when I saw this stamp from the Unity Kit of the Month that I HAD to use it on a card for this stinky occasion.

I took my design principle from this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger challenge, which is not only Moxie Fab, but reminds me of the accessories of my youth!

Here's the Tuesday Trigger:

It cried out for a retro treatment, and so that's what it got. I put the image in the corner so that I could use one iteration of each of the colors in the inspiration piece.

 Stamps: Unity KOTM November 2011 Ink: Basic Black Paper: More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie, 

Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Taken With Teal, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip Accessories: 3/4" Circle Punch, Taken with Teal and More Mustard Stampin' Write Markers

Does that not crack you up?? I especially love the element of my beloved procrastination in the sentiment. So there's my Moxie Friends with Flair!

Now - do you want to meet my new favorite gadget? GAH I am in love with this thing!!

Meet the new Kindle Fire!

I skipped over the whole Kindle phase the country went through. It didn't interest me.

I really, really like real books, so I didn't see the point.

But after I experienced IBooks for a while, I started to see the allure of having all those e-books in one place. But the Ipad is not a good reading platform. It's too big, you can't read on your back - if you brained yourself with your Ipad (I tend to fall suddenly and violently asleep while reading) you'd really be sorry. It's just a really awkward way to read.

But when I started to see the specs on the new Fire, I was intrigued. And my mom loves her next generation Kindle, so I thought I'd dive into this one.

And holy cow am I glad I did!

First of all the packaging and presentation is very Apple-like.

Then, unlike any other piece of the digital world I've ever owned, when I pressed the on button, it said "Hello, Lydia" and already had my account pre-loaded on the device!! No syncing, entering passwords, plugging into my PC - it's a DIGITAL MIRACLE! All I had to do was start reading!

And did I read! I don't really have time for real books anymore - I get most of mine on audio so I can listen while I walk. But this thing is bewitching. I read for 4 hours straight in my first sitting. I love the bookmarks and all the little fun tricks. The size is really, really nice. Big enough to read comfortably and small enough to hold comfortably.

If you're an Amazon Prime member (which for me - since I don't shop in real stores willingly, and buy pretty much everything on Amazon - pays for itself a thousand times over) you can even share your books for free with other Kindle users. So really, every one of your reading friends can have a virtual book club - how cool is that?

You need one of these. It's totally going on the Blue List. 5 stars from this girl. If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see all the features, which I haven't even played with yet because all I've done is read.

Anyway, I hope you have an unscented, literary, stampy rest of the weekend!

Loveyameanitbye.

You Gotta Have a Little Narwhal

Remember that little narwhal from Elf? When Buddy the Elf was leaving, he floated up and said "Bye Buddddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" in that goofy little voice?

Loved that little fella. When I was little - well, actually to this day - I really had Dr. Doolittle aspirations. I loved all the lizards and horny toads in our neighborhood, and we had these SPECTACULAR blue and yellow butterflies that were almost as big as our heads. There were black and white shiny zebra bugs all over our willow trees, and oh yeah - there was the asp I befriended...

If I spent enough time outside to make little friends these days, this is what I'd pick: a baby wild hog, a polar bear, a narwhal, an elk, a bunny with a stopwatch, and a fox :).

Stamps: Friends 24-7 (retired), Nikoart (various) Ink: Poppy Parade, Peach Parfait, Summer Sun, Gable Green, Tempting Turquoise, Orchid Opulence, Basic Black  Paper: Crumb Cake, Whisper White 

Accessories: Merry Medley On Board Chipboard, White Acrylic Paint, SU Fancy Fibers Bright (Retired), SU Postage Stamp Punch, Post it Notes

I made this card for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger, which I found extremely beautiful.

I was trying to figure out what we all love about rainbows, and I settled on variety. There's a little something for everyone. I mean, you gotta have a little narwhal or life is just boring!

Also, has anyone ever noticed that they are the unicorn of the sea? Do you think some drunk North Atlantic fisherman (I actually know nothing about narwhal habitat - shocking - so substitute appropriate body of water here) saw a Narwhal and made up the whole unicorn thing to explain why he never came home that night? Just occurred to me.

Anyway, to make the little postage stamp, I cut a 1" square into a post it note with my paper cutter and then used that as a mask to sponge colored squares. I then punched them out with my Postage Stamp punch and stamped the critters on them.

Hey look - it makes an L! :)

Hope you're having a colorful week!!

Mayan Calendar Predicts Blogger Outage!!

Not really. That's just stupid.

But it would be funny if it did. Or if we could find it in Nostradamus' writings. Actually, I'm pretty sure someone will.

Anyway, I'm super grateful for all the wonderful things that the people at Blogger do for me, absolutely free of charge, and so I'm not going to yell about a little downtime. After all, a single website is very difficult to keep running smoothly, so I can't even imagine what a squillion websites take in terms of support and expertise.

So thanks for my blog, Blogger peeps!

I made a card for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger - on time and under budget, believe it or not!!

This was our trigger image, called "Skirting the Issue":

I was inspired by the earthy colors and stripes to do this...

Stamps: Simple Delights (SU! Retired) LaBlanche Paper: Whisper White Ink: Basic Black, Crumb Cake, Cameo Coral (Retired), Wild Wasabi 

Accessories: Blender Pen, Glue, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Tim Holtz Embossing Folder

I just used the inspiration colors to color the image, and represented the stripes with that sunburst. 

Here's a closeup of my glittery dragonflies...

We should delight in simple things. Like Blogger working seamlessly 99.99999% of the time. :)

Happy weekend!

Share Your Secrets...

Does anyone remember a book called the Silver Nutmeg?

I absolutely adored this book when I was little. I read it dozens of times, I'm sure.

I think LOST borrowed a few things from this book, but I can't find my copy (Mom - do you have it?) so I can't check, and it's out of print now, and so all the copies are $400. Maybe Steve Jobs loved it too and he will put it on Ibooks with all the beautiful illustrations it had.

The story was about sort of a mirror world a little girl finds under a pond. In the mirror world, things that were lost in the real world are found. I think this book was the first place I ever saw the word coriander - the whole thing was so exotic and mysterious and fun.

Anyway, this book was my random thought when I saw the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger because it features one of my fave complementary color schemes, and I just LOVE color "mirrors" on my cards. It's my go to design element. So imagine my delight when I saw this ...

Since a very retro book popped into my head I thought I should do a retro card. I got out one of my fave sets EVER and decided to make the mirrored colors the star of the show with a simple direct to paper swipe. Then I added a little glitter and some pearls to my sassy stamper and popped her up off the card. Stamps: Stampin' Fun for Everyone (retired) Ink: Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise
Paper: Whisper White Accessories: Pearls, Glitter, Dimensionals

If you do have a secret mirror world under the pond out back, maybe you should share that secret with me - over STAMPING! :)

I won't tell a soul, I promise...