The Fur Never Lies

Daylight Savings Time is stupid. So is Standard Time. And I DON'T CARE WHICH IS WHICH SO DON'T CORRECT ME WHEN I'M TALKING ABOUT THE TIME CHANGE.

Time is time. It doesn't change.

The government doesn't control it. I've written about this before, but as you can see, I'm cranky from springing forward - AGAIN.

So why do we let them?

Why are we not lighting torches each spring and fall and loading up the train that goes under Parliament??

Because we are weak. From exhaustion. From the time change.

I understand time because I have animals. Also, I can see the sun, which apparently isn't visible from state and US capitols.

Animals are unaffected by idiot politicians, and so they provide me with an ability to tell time that is free of Congressional buffoonery.

Here's how it works. When the angle of light starts to change each year, my cats change their fur.

These cats live in a perfectly temperature controlled environment 365 days a year that is a constant, narrow range between 65 and 70 degrees. Their fur has no reason to bulk up and/or thin out based on temperature. It, like most things (insert deep symbolism here), responds to light and ONLY light.

My normally sleek little panther, Maddie, as the light changes at the end of summer, about doubles her fur volume, despite the fact that the temperature outside has not dipped below 100 degrees. It's actually really hilarious to see her in her little fur coat while we are fanning ourselves and going shoeless. But her fur knows what time it is.

The fur never lies.

Here, for example, is a sun ray exposing the scandalous truth about my black cat - she is not, in fact, black, but mostly a deep mahogany color that you can only see in bright sunlight.

The kind you get in March.

Without government intervention.

She's also busy shedding her little coat as she does each year on or about an equinox. Without the government.

I'm also capable of discerning when the sun comes up and goes down, which is what should govern our days. Not fatheaded idiots.

I've never met anyone who just RELISHED a time change, and so, to all of my friends, I say - YOU ARE FABULOUS. You complete me. We agree on everything. Now, join me in storming the capitol with torches.

Stamps: Sweetie Pie, Million & One

Ink: Basic Black, Smoky Slate

Accessories: Silver Ribbon, ShinHan Touch Twin Markers: BR94, YR27, YR25, R136, Y36, R139, R131, YR29, R2, R15, YR24, BR91, YR31, BR92

I was SO excited yesterday (despite my cranky exhaustion from the time change) to see the new Sweetie Pie stamp set and the matching Sweetie Pie Frames - EEEEKKKKk so cute!!!

I had to not only expedite my order, but bust it out today at lunch and make a card.


Aren't these ADORABLE????

I'm going to have so much fun with these - but today I thought it would be fun to include all of them and make just one of them stand out to go with that fabby greeting.

I hope this brightened your day - I know you're as tired and cranky as I am. But you are fabulous. :)

Loveyameanitbye.

An Open Letter To Art Guilds

There's one way, and ONLY one way, to suck the fun out of art - and that's to have a meeting about it.

I am a member of a lot of art guilds here, as is my sister.

I joined these guilds because I wanted to make art. I thought that's what art guilds were for.  I figured we'd get together and learn techniques and make things. Their websites make it look like that's what you'd do. There are lists of workshops and activities, all of which look sparkly and fun.

But what I've found is that what most groups exist to do is to gather people under fluorescent lights and read minutes from previous meetings. Or calendar entries. Or any other number of things that a person could read for themselves, not under a fluorescent light and not on a weeknight when they've already worked all day and just wanted to do some freaking art. For fun.

I sat through such a meeting this week and inside my head I was screaming like Janet Leigh in Psycho. WHY AM I HERE? WHY ARE PEOPLE READING TO ME? WHY AM I PAYING DUES FOR PEOPLE TO READ TO ME? WHY AREN'T WE DOING ART? SHOULDN'T I BE MEETING DURING THE DAY WHEN I GET PAID TO MEET AND HAVING FUN AND GETTING PAINT ON MY FACE AT NIGHT? WHY IS NO ONE ELSE SCREAMING?

Is there anyone who LIKES to go to a bright, uncomfortable room at night after work and have people read a calendar to them? WHY do people do this? More importantly, why do CREATIVE people do this? What compels people to inject a large dose of boredom into what should be a fun gathering? And, if there are people who get a large dose of oxytocin flowing through their brain when people read minutes to them, why can't art groups do the art FIRST and the minute reading last so that the normal people can go home after the fun part and get the paint out from under their nails while the minute lovers moan softly as someone reads each word from the last meeting, in which they read the notes from the meeting before that?

These meetings are the bureaucratic version of sourdough starter - they pass the seeds of boredom from meeting to meeting through the note reading, carefully preserving the essence of numbness so that it can grow and feed the next catatonic session. I can't take it.

I did a sampling of my Facebook friends just to see if maybe one person out of 1300 really loved hearing a moving presentation of previous meeting minutes or upcoming dates in chronological order, and I failed to find one such freak. Which is good because I would have had to unfriend them.

But I did get some funny little quotes out of the deal:

"As the adage goes, meetings are events where the minutes are kept and the hours are lost" ~K

"I had a boss who gave us permission to leave any meeting we felt was not a good, productive use of our time. He wondered why no one would show up to his meetings. " ~K

"OK, I just have to say this. I HATE POWERPOINT!!! Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not include a powerpoint presentation in your meeting in which you read the stinkin' slide to me word for word. And, if you really want to make me want to punch you in the throat, give me a handout with the powerpoint presentation printed on it." ~K

"Also, I hate it when people, with zero subtlety, pat themselves on their own backs expecting a hero biscuit for accomplishing the same work their colleagues perform on a regular basis." ~B

"Unfortunately, it's my job to read the calendar to everyone every Tuesday." ~J

"I worked at a company who had meetings about scheduling meetings" ~C

"Yesterday's meeting was about what they were going to meet about today. No joke." ~D

"I especially hate the ones (most of them) where it's obvious the only reason for the meeting is because it's the day for the meeting - nothing gets discussed except what's been discussed in a thousand emails and the last meeting." ~L

So here's my question - WHY DO WE PUT UP WITH IT?  I have yet to find one person who loves meetings, and yet we're all subjected to them. Why? Who are the tyrannical minority?

I am most definitely not going to give up my very limited, precious few free hours each week listening to someone read a calendar or minutes from the last meeting. I'm done.

Stampers don't do this - we come in, we sit down, and we start stamping. No one ever asks for minutes or reads a calendar or reads the latest running bank balance.

I beg of all of you - if you run or belong to an art guild - MAKE IT STOP.  You are driving off enthusiastic and creative artists with your dump truck full of boring and pointless nattering. Use your website and email for facts, and use your humans for their hands and brains and hearts. Anything else is disrespectful of the the limited time we all have on this earth.

There. I feel better.

Today's Mix-Ability challenge was the perfect opportunity for me to put this feeling onto a card. The challenge is to use a watercolor wash -YIPEE - my favorite!

So I made a card that I think is quite the opposite of an art guild meeting and more like what we should all be doing. 

 

The stamps are Sketches (retired) and Spread Joy (Limited edition, retired).

I made the wash with reinkers - Orchid Opulence, Tempting Turquoise and Summer Sun with my aquapainter. When that was dry, I stamped the Sketches image and painted it with gouache. Then I masked that image and stamped the sentiment over it.

It's so peaceful it almost made me forget that meeting. Almost.

Oh - and I PROMISE I will not come back here tomorrow and read you this blog post before I start a new one. :)

Loveyameanitbye.

I'm Giving Up...

A few years ago, I decided to quit giving up things for Lent.

I've given up something for Lent most of my life. I remember one year I gave up refined sugar - as a person who doesn't eat many sweet things, I remember thinking it wasn't all that much of a struggle.

Of course, it happened to be the one time of the year that I craved my only once a year single Wild Cherry Pepsi. I survived.

But then, at some point, I decided I'm giving up giving things up, and instead, I would do something that is actually more of a challenge for me - I would ADD something positive for 40 days.

This has taken various forms - daily readings, extra walking time, etc. It's amazing how even if you feel like you already have a routine, adding a single daily thing can be so difficult. It's much easier to do everything tomorrow, but that's not the deal during Lent, so I hang in there.

This year I decided I would add the one thing that I should be doing anyway every day, but always push to the bottom of my to-do list: mailing cards. As a person who half-heartedly - well, I guess I should be honest - doesn't even try to battle my spiritual gift of procrastination, my love language, this will most definitely be a struggle. I will be gravely tempted to stray and just do it another day. I will find it difficult, but social media will help me. Each and every day, I will post the card I'm mailing on one of my social media channels - Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. I already Instagrammed the one I mailed today.

A valuable resource I'm using to pull this off is the Random Acts of Kindness forum at Splitcoast. This forum exists solely to make people happy by sending them RAKs, or BRAKs (Birthday RAKs). Today I chose a BRAK. Hint - it was someone whose birthday is on St. Patrick's Day. If you want to see the cards I send and who I send them to, just peek at my other channels and follow along.

Now in my study of my mad procrastination skills leading up to this Lent, I noticed that I have 102 unpublished blog posts.

So this means at some point in the past (usually during challenges like Virtual Stamp Night or Hope You Can Cling To), I was organized enough to upload my cards into a draft post for future blogging.

But the future blogging never came, so I'll be trying to get that number lower as well.

So in that effort, here's a card from our Hope You Can Cling To challenge that I never blogged. This challenge was all about Elvis, so I chose Heartbreak Hotel as my inspiration.

To make the background, I used Golden Fluid Acrylics, some Delta acrylic paint and a credit card. Then I cut out the heart with the Heart Framelits. I cut that in half with the Finishing Touches Edgelit. Then I sponged the edge of the heart with Early Espresso.

So maybe a card is coming your way this Lent :). I've got 40 chances!

Speaking of 40 chances - don't forget to register for my pre-convention Unwind retreat - it's first come first served and I only have 100 seats! Register here.

Loveyameanitbye.

That's Washi Said

Heh.

I couldn't resist that title.

I did, however, resist washi tape for many years, before succumbing to its sweet, sticky little song.

I now require organizational devices for my many rolls of pretty, pretty tape.

(Glares at all the enablers)

Yesterday was my monthly card class and we washi'd it up with one of my faves - this lovely Pool Party washi from the Retro Fresh collection. It looks soooo yummy with Melon Mambo.

Isn't that a happy card? I love that bold greeting - that's from the Starburst Sayings Bundle.

This card is for the March Challenge Chicks challenge - Spring Flowers and also for my Show Me Sunday Google Hangout with my downline - just a show and tell with some stampy prizes. Nice way to spend a drizzly day.

Oh - and in case you had concerns that your new pig wouldn't get along with your cat, I'm here to reassure you with this video.

Loveyameanitbye.

Broken Things

I remember one time my dad asked me about a quirk I had when I was little.

If a pencil or a piece of chalk (fast forward to extreme art personality here) got broken, I was unnaturally mournful and stressed about it.

Sometime after college, he asked me if it was because I thought that things had a sort of a spirit when they were whole.

I hadn't thought about it before he asked, but yes, I believe that is what I believe(d).

I've noticed that a lot of my fellow artists have this same anxiety about wholeness. Many of us, especially those who teach a lot of classes, get stressed when our beloved art supplies are abused or degraded in one way or another. Many of us, for this reason, have two sets of everything where we can afford to, because we can't bear to have stained wood stamp blocks or frayed markers. It's a mania of sorts. It's painful.

But then I saw something this month that completely astonished me and made me realize that there are these permanent themes in art - and that we are really not all that unique :).

It's called Hari Kuyou - and it's a Japanese ceremony for broken sewing needles. Yes, you read that correctly.

It is believed that these inanimate objects have souls and by using them, some of their pain is released. Broken or worn needles, pins, and some small scissors are brought to the ceremony and thanked for their good service in creating sashiko, kimonos, or even for daily mending. Then they are gently laid to rest in a soft tofu cake.  Source

And this...

It was believed that the tools and utensils used roughly should become the monsters (the Gods named Tsukumogami) to attack people 100 years later. Tsukumogami, or “artifact spirit”, are a type of Japanese spirit. According to the Tsukumogami-emaki, tsukumogami originate from items or artifacts that have reached their 100th birthday and thus become alive and aware. Any object of this age, from swords to toys, can become a tsukumogami. Source

Aha! It's not just me.

I love the idea that broken things get honored for their service. It's like the Navajo tradition of giving ceremonial thanks to the hunted animal.

So when Dina found Kintsukuroi - I was thrilled. It's the subject of today's Mix-Ability Challenge. Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing broken things with gold, thereby making them even more beautiful than they were before they were broken.

Here's an example:

I think there are other examples too - I think that animal rescues do this. I love what The Furrtographer does - he takes beautiful photos of shelter animals so that people don't see a scared, broken animal in a cage, but a beautiful little creature they can imagine being loved in their home. He has also adopted a series of blind kitties, who look flawless under his care.

Photo credit The Furrtographer

And just because he's awesome, I have to share this photo of his - perhaps the greatest photo ever taken. Who could imagine that this kitty is a broken little orphan and not a beautiful, confident and  much beloved pet?

Photo credit The Furrtographer

My apologies if you have the sudden urge to adopt a cat. Well - actually, I'm not sorry at all. :)

So all that to say - today's challenge speaks to me in a squillion ways -  thank you, Dina.

Now, please enjoy, by contrast, this terrible low resolution Iphone photo of the beginning of my project. I started with garbage - literally - a piece of used grid paper that I had inked, sprayed, sponged and abused in 1,000 different ways, but in Lydia style, could not bear to throw away. It had too much potential. I've kept it for months without knowing what to do with it.

So today I stuck it onto a piece of the Sizzix multi-purpose adhesive sheets and then die cut it with the Beautiful Butterflies die. Then I hand cut it up into a mosaic and stuck it onto Basic Black cardstock.

To "fix" the broken spaces with gold, I used a teeny spatula to put InkaGold into the open spaces.

The much better photo of the cleaned up version follows.

The greeting is from Really Good Greetings and I used the Deco Labels Framelits and the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder (SAB).

I guess if it's going to get broken, you may as well fix it with something sparkly and gold.

I just love this technique. And the philosophy.

Hope you can play along and make something imperfectly beautiful.

Loveyameanitbye.

Happy Birthday to Ways To Use It!

Wow - time flies!

Today, our Splitcoast Ways To Use It challenge turns 9 years old! 468 Thursdays and 468 ways to use what you already have in a new and different way. Amazing. And all brought to you by creative women who volunteer their time to freely share ideas and inspiration. My hat is off.

I'm addicted to challenges. I love starting my design process from a totally different place than I would normally.

For example, I normally start designing around an image I feel like using. I decide whether I'm going to color it, or paper piece it, etc. But for me, it always starts with the stamp.

But challenges make me start at a completely different place, and I love it. It breaks all my habits and makes me actually be creative. I ALWAYS learn something and I always love the result - sometimes they stretch me to the point where I feel like someone else designed my card. I love that. That is truly getting out of a comfort range and into a creative space.

 Today's birthday challenge is to use calendar elements - it could be a grid, a number, a date - anything you'd find on a calendar. I chose a few things: red, for a red letter day like today, squares for the date blocks, and a fun date and sentiment from our Remember This rotary stamp. The shapes were made with the Postage Punch.

And just for the heck of it, I filmed it. I didn't design this card until I started filming, so forgive my hemming and hawing. :)

OH - and I have a GREAT recipe for you after the video.

Okay - so now for the recipe. My friend Sue Farrant shared this with me - she uses some fun Ipad app to find and store recipes called My Recipe Book. The original recipe is from ambitiouskitchen.com, but I modified it. Here is my modified version. And it's AMAZING. Even better left over.

Crunchy Salad with Quinoa and Ginger/Lime/Peanut dressing.

Ingredients

• ¾ cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 Cup diced red cabbage
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1/2 Cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 Cup diced green onions
• 1/2 Cup honey roasted peanuts, crushed
• Fresh lime, for a bit of tang (I used one half, squeezed - next time I’d squeeze both)
• For the dressing:
• 1/4 Cup all natural peanut butter (next time I’d use a sweetened one or up the honey)
• 2 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar (I used white wine vinegar - what I had)
• 1 tsp sesame oil (I used hot sesame oil)
• 1 tsp olive oil

Directions

1. To cook quinoa: Rinse quinoa with cold water in mesh strainer - it will be bitter if you don’t, you knuckleheads. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 ½ cups of water to a boil. Add in quinoa and bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. Remove from heat and fluff quinoa with fork; place in large bowl and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes. You should have a little over 2 cups of quinoa.
2. To make dressing: Add peanut butter and honey or agave to a medium microwave safe bowl; heat in microwave for 20 seconds. Add in ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, and both sesame and olive oil and stir until mixture is smooth and creamy.
3. Add as much or as little dressing as you’d like to the quinoa. I always start out with a little bit of dressing and usually add more to suit my taste preferences. Alternatively you can save the dressing for later and add when you are ready to eat; however the flavors of the dressing usually soak into the salad so I love adding it to the quinoa first. (I added all of it)
4. Next fold in red pepper, onion, cabbage and cilantro into the quinoa. Garnish with peanuts and green onions (I didn’t read ahead and just incorporated them). Serve chilled or at room temperature with lime wedges if desired.
   
   
   
   
   This is seriously the bomb. Keeps great in the fridge - it's a week's worth of lunch. You will love it. 
   
   
   I had a peanut sauce I used to use for chicken that no one carries anymore and this sauce is now going to be my homemade version. Now I just have to learn how to make sweet chili sauce and I'll be all set. 
   
   
   Anyway - have a happy Thursday - hope you find a way to use something I've shared :).
   
   
   Loveyameanitbye.

Introducing NAPPY HOUR!

(Northern friends - I'm offering you the opportunity to leave the room right now so that you don't cry and rend your garments dramatically at the following description of an Austin winter day. Stay at your own risk.)

Yesterday was a glorious day.

85 degrees, sunny, slight breeze - beyond perfect. Since I spent the first half of the day updating all my Apple devices because of that security breach (please do the same if you haven't already - info here) I HAD to get outside in the afternoon.

So my sister and brother-in-law and I went to a local spot with a beautiful outdoor patio to enjoy the sunshine.

This restaurant has a little covered area on one side of the patio with long built in padded benches with pillows for booths. They are beautiful, shaded, and oh so comfortable.

Predictably, after a snack, the sleepies set in, and my brother-in-law came up with a BRILLIANT idea - Nappy Hour.

Nappy Hour would immediately follow Happy Hour, and during Nappy Hour, you would be allowed to stretch out on these lovely padded benches like a cat and sleep for an hour. All patrons would have to participate in Nappy Hour of course, so that it was quiet enough to nap. I'm yawning in excitement about how great an idea this is. I could use a Nappy Hour myself today!

We will RUN to the first restaurant that implements this fabulous Nappy Patio idea, now that we have entered the 11 month stretch in which Austinites never eat indoors.

Now while I was waiting for updates to finish yesterday, I cruised around looking for inspiration and I found it from Sandi MacIver - one of my fave paper artists. She was coloring and posting her progress on Facebook and I just had to CASE her - it was gorgeous! I made this card for today's Love Fest challenge on Splitcoast - Lots of Lovely Layers.

I just embossed the image from So Very Grateful in white, and colored it with a blender pen and Pool Party and Bermuda Bay and white reinkers. The base of the card is embossed with the Pretty Prints embossing folder and just lightly swiped with white ink.

I think it's yummy.

It's so yummy that it should be followed by Nappy Hour. I'm getting verrrryyyyy sleeppppyyyyy.

Hey - don't forget - I'm hosting a retreat in Salt Lake the Wednesday before convention - to reserve a spot (it's first come first served), click here.

Loveyameanitbye.

Shady Feline Sleeping Habits EXPOSED!

First - an important word from our sponsor. Also known as me.

If you are coming to convention, you know I do a happy hour there on the Wednesday before the festivities. Last year it was so big they almost called the fire marshal :). It was loads of fun.

So this year, the plan is going to change so that none of us spend convention in jail.

I'll be holding an all day retreat on Wednesday - with at least three 90 minute classes, more with time permitting, for up to 100 people per class. I want to keep the class price low - the goal is to spend the day together and have fun and relax, since we will be running like race horses for the four days following. I of COURSE will have prizes and entertaining breaks and quite possibly celebrity guests :). You won't have to do anything but show up. This is intended to be a fellowship event and a thank you to everyone whose work inspires me, and to all of you nice people who come and look at my blog.

Since I do have limited space available to me, I can only do a first come, first-served pre-paid event. So until I have all the details ironed out, I'm going to let people reserve a spot before they make their flight arrangements, and when I'm maxed out I'm maxed out. So here is the form to indicate that you want a spot at the retreat, happy hour or both! Since there will be multiple sessions, I will also let people attend more than one, but we'll figure those logistics out later.

If you're NOT coming to convention because you're not a demonstrator, I am compelled to tell you that this year, registration to convention is waived for all new recruits :) - no strings attached. Contact me for info.

Now - on to the shady sleeping practices of felines.

I have two very affectionate, loving felines who cannot be more than an inch from me at any moment, due in part, I'm sure, to the traumatic circumstances of their first three weeks of life. They are draped over one of us at all times. They even cry if we are in different rooms.

But I've noticed something very odd. If they are sitting on my while I'm watching TV or at my desk, I can pat them and they purr - even in their sleep. They roll over to let me pat their bellies, and generally revel in the patting.

Here's where it gets weird.

Every night, they plop down on me to sleep, just like they do during the day. I sleep like a zombie with zero movement, so they prefer me.

BUT, if I touch those little fiends or go to pat them while they are sleeping on my belly, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! They shoot off me like a ROCKET!! It's so bizarre!

So this is my theory.

Before we domesticated cats and they roamed the savannah, I think that they used to wait until larger animals went to sleep - like rhinos maybe, or wooly mammoths - and then they snuck up on them and slept on them to steal their warms!! So it was IMPERATIVE if there was any sign of the host organism stirring they had to jet off into the grass never to be seen again.

Nocturnal warm stealers.

Traces remain in their little limbic systems. But I am on to you, warm stealers. I am on to you.

Now talk of convention made me want to play with my World Map stamp which I completely forgot to order until last week. So I thought I'd do a little simple masking technique, which I royally screwed up, but made a video of it because, like most mistakes - it didn't matter :).

See? Not all those who wander are lost. :)

LoveyameanitseeyainSLCbye.

I'd Like To Thank....

Thank you speeches are fun.


Since the Olympics are dominating the airwaves right now, I've been thinking about how fun it is to see someone truly be thankful for something which most people consider a solitary victory.

I think the reality of life, my belief in rugged individualism aside, is that if you are engaged in any pursuit that depends even in the smallest way on inspiration, you most definitely never have a solitary victory.

Art is uniquely a collective pursuit.


One of the things I am compelled to do in my alone time is view and learn about art. I would say for every single card I make, I've viewed 1,000 cards and/or techniques. That's the ratio, probably conservatively.

I bet it's not just me. I bet you do too.

So please imagine me climbing onto a festooned stamping medal platform in an obnoxious red white and blue Ralph Lauren sweater and saying the following:

• Thank you for making the 10 minute video that I know for a fact took two hours of prep and 6 hours of editing and photography and an hour of uploading. It inspired me, cost me nothing and only took ten minutes of my day.
• Thank you for cropping, brightening and adjusting your photo and adding a full supply list to your Splitcoast gallery, even though it took you ten minutes to make the card and an hour to edit it. It helped me make my version of your card. 
• Thank you for Facebooking your messy desk and your work in progress. It made me feel happy and normal. :)
• Thank you for pinning your favorite cards - I re-pinned them.
• Thank you for commenting on my blog and my gallery and my Instagram pics - it makes my morning walks so fun to interact with you while listening to little birdies and drinking tea. 
• Thank you for posting your hilarious failures. It keeps it real. 

Now we should play the stamping national anthem. I am imagining that it is traditionally played on a kazoo. 

 Today I'm hosting the Splitcoast Mix-Ability challenge, and it's based on a happy accident.

I was actually filming an upcoming tutorial for Splitcoast when I had a little artistic accident that resulted in a super fun little abstract landscape. And believe it or not, it happened when I was CLEANING! (pauses for fainting)

The black part of the image is actually the product of me cleaning my brayer in between prints. So basically it's trash - but I discovered some pretty images in the cleaning process. Spooky little misty landscapes. The greeting is from Really Good Greetings.

Here's another one with my fave retired set EVER - Branch Out.

So I made a little video for you of this simple process. I hope you try it and come play in the challenge!

Loveyameanitthanksabunchbye.

Secret Ham Directives - EXPOSED!

Something awful has happened in the world of deli slicing.

I don't know when it happened or why it happened - I only know it happened, and I don't like it.

Back in the olden days, I used to be able to go to the deli counter and say "I would like some ham, please, sliced as thinly as possible." I would then get ham, so thinly sliced you could read the teeny font on a Facebook notification email through it as plain as day.

But then, without anyone notifying me or asking for my approval, a secret directive was given to all deli slicer operators: "NO MATTER WHAT A CUSTOMER ASKS FOR, GIVE THEM A THICK, CHEWY PIECE OF HAM THAT CAN BE USED AS A TOBOGGAN IN CASE OF EMERGENCY."

And no matter WHAT I say to these people or HOW I describe my ethereally shaved ham needs, I get these danged ham slices that are the thickness of bologna. It's revolting. We have to take back our rights.

Last time I went to the store, I said I'd like a pound of ham, sliced at less than 1. 1 is the thinnest setting they have on their little diagram at the counter, and it's "thin" only in the loosest sense of the world. Secret ham Nazi alliance guy brings back toboggan ham and says "how's that?" Well it sucks buddy - it's not acceptable - I WANT THE THINNEST HAM POSSIBLE. He says "well it's really not going to hold together thinner than that." HOW IS THAT YOUR CONCERN? I DO NOT CARE - I WANT YOU TO TURN IT INTO POWDER.

GAH. Yesterday I said "shaved until it almost disappears" and I finally got some acceptable ham. But not without a lot of glaring and crazy eye.

I WILL stand up for my shaved ham rights. Do not cross me.

This week I went to a fun Prismacolor demonstration at the UT Art Co-op. The instructor was great and she taught us a fun new-to-me resist technique with gouache-*. (Which is a stupid word by the way - it makes me feel like they couldn't decide whether to call it goo or wash.)

What you do is draw or stamp an image in a permanent ink on watercolor paper. The Prismacolor people recommend going over the lines with a Sharpie after you do that, but I forgot. Then do a pale wash of yellow or blue all over it - I did Summer Sun reinker mixed with water. Then you paint gouache over the parts of the image you'll want to preserve for coloring. Then, paint India Ink all over the whole piece. I had this Soho student grade India Ink left over from my drawing class. This step is scary, because now you have a black piece of paper and you feel frightened and alone.

But then, under running water or in a tub of water, you scrub off the gouache with a toothbrush and it reveals your image and anywhere else you had the gouache, leaving the background black. VERY fun. The last step is to color and embellish your image!

I used Derwent Inktense Pencils, Caran D'Ache Pablo pencils, a Montana refillable white acrylic marker and a Prismacolor .03 art marker to color and detail, and then added Crystal Effects to the eggs, because that's today's Mix-Ability challenge - to use a clear medium.

This card is also for today's kickoff of the Member Company Love Fest challenges on Splitcoast!

It was really fun to do, and a very zen-like recover from yelling at people about ham. Although I'm sure I'll yell again.

Loveyameanitbye.

In a Surprising Twist - LASER CATS

The inside of my head is crooked.

And I know exactly HOW crooked, thanks to Photoshop. Every time I take a picture of something, I have to rotate it exactly three degrees to make it straight.

The same is true of my stamping. I stamp EVERYTHING crooked. It's not me, it's my brain!

So in an insane flash of brilliance one day, I figured out the solution! I'm illustrating it with this simple card I made for customer thank yous this month. How cute is that cat??

Stamps: Cool Kid, Countless Sayings II

Ink: Basic Black

Paper: Whisper White

Accessories: Bosch Laser Level, Rhinestones

So you wanna know what the secret ingredient is in this card??

It's the cure for the fact that my brain tilts everything exactly 3 degrees to the left - it's - DRUMROLL PLEASE -  this amazing laser level - squee!!!

Seriously. A laser is now part of my stamping arsenal. A LASER. Behold this lasery awesomeness in the following quick video!

Now RUN, don't walk, into the garage and start appropriating tools, or better yet, do what I did and buy your own. But then you better find a good hiding spot, because everyone is going to want to steal it. I had to do a lot of research to find one that would work for putting flat on a work surface for stamping. So I will NOT let this sucker into the garage!

Loveyameanitihavealaserbye.