Library Card - Beate's WSC

Read my post below for lazy Sunday details. Here's the first card I've made all weekend! Thanks to Beate for the WSC! All the stamping is in Encore Silver, with brushed silver cs for the inside layer. Cropadile for embossing, and I just dyed the chipboard flower with a sponge and classic Night of Navy. Stamp sets are Snow Flurries, Season by Season and Musical Score. Love Season by Season, BTW.

Let's talk about Mozart

So today, I got ready to embark on my 13 mile stomp and discovered I was missing a screw out of my prescription sunglasses. Being a boy scout at heart, I'm always prepared, so I smugly ran for the eyeglass repair kit, resting in its proper place, and tried EVERY FREAKING SCREW IN THE KIT IN A MADDENING EXERCISE THAT ALMOST MADE ME DO SOME SORT OF DISCOUNT LASIK OVER THE INTERNET!!! GRR!! None of them fit. And can I ask you why in the world glasses are put together in a way that requires the use of a sharp, pointy and slippery object to repair them? THAT IS THE DUMBEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD OF!! When I INVENT glasses, you will be able to fix them WITH LENS CLEANING CLOTHS!! DUH! So much to invent, so little time. My only choice was to take the copper colored wire from my stampin' up wire works box that exactly matches my glasses, my stampin' pliers and wire my frames together for my walk. So there. Anyway, despite the red battery pic on my Ipod (my gas tank is empty too girls, this is how I roll.. ;) ) I reveled in Mozart's requiem a few times under an infinitely grey sky. For hours while I walked, I searched and searched for one little spot of blue, but no, only Mozart gave me a little color while I walked. It was really nice. You should ITunes it if you don't have it. Beautiful. So in honor of my friend Wolfie, and my grey morning, I give you one of my cropadile camp projects - this somber grey beauty is all about texture. And I truly love this color. The girls at my camp did it in soft sky, which was lovely as well. The second project was a coaster box - a shameless CASE, and really fun. Then we did a cute book with eyelets that are double set. Do you know about double setting eyelets? When you do this, they're pretty on both sides. Surprisingly easy and a great way to use the crop a dile, which I love even more after the camp. What a great tool. And I've only scratched the surface really...

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever noticed how people get all up in your grill at the grocery store? I may truly be the only person that is neurotic about this, but I do have a terrible anxiety about being in crowds, and I think this is related. Whenever I'm in line at the grocery store, people like to make an end run around their carts and hang on my back like monkeys... breathing on me, touching me, standing close enough to get a DNA sample. Absolutely drives me insane. I put my cart behind me in line to try to keep them away, but I am not making this up - they come around it. I left my beloved retail "church" (Whole Foods downtown) all shaky and crazed after an insanely up close and personal experience with about 5000 of my Austin neighbors. Yikes, people. Can we just observe like even a one foot personal space barrier? Is that too much to ask? It would change the world, really. Unless you feel like buying my groceries, I'm not interested in touching you in the check out line!!! =) Okay, I'm all stoked about Beate's challenge so I gotta go, but hopefully a post with my entry soon!!

Cyberchondria

The word of the day. Means you find diseases on WebMD and instantly have all the symptoms. Like when I got smallpox a few weeks ago. I love words. I have two big posts for you - I'll save one for tomorrow so I can go in chronological order. Tonight's post is the ssecret sstamping sssisters challenge entries and sssssgifts! check these ssschicks out!! First, the creative geniuses - sPam and sChriss!!! Aren't they adorable? What you can't see is the cosmo and the beer in front of sPam. She likes to double down at the bar!! She's an animal! =) Next, the insanely cute candy cone - 6x6 DSP - from sPam! Filled with some of my favorite mini candy bars drenched in dark chocolate - dark for Halloween - muuuaaahhhahahahhaaa! (Are you scared? You should be!) Then we move on to sPam's answer to the challenge!! sChriss' stamping throwdown to us was to create a paper piecing challenge, which for some reason, none of us can pronounce and revert to saying paper pieRcing... So sPam busted out the SAB set AND the cuttlebug in a play for world stamping domination!! Notice how she slyly snuck in the pieRcing with the piecing to throw us off the pronunciation trail... sssssly sPam.. sChriss "The Coyotinator" answered back with the sassy legless cow ensemble, drawing on her seemingly endless stash of heart-rendingly beautiful background papers and her signature cutting and layering that just makes us all feel lazy!! In a WWF style throwdown, sPam produces the incredible bookmark accordion book stamped with a friendship theme (HUG) and layered with what we all agree is absolutely spectacular paper in the Fall Flowers DSP, layering, hardware, non-card object - OH MY!!

These chicks are amazing aren't they? World stamping domination is definitely within their reach. I heard today that there is actually "professional" gaming, where kids play video games and compete for a million dollars!!! When is the world stamping league going to fire up??? Surely we can put that together. Imagine the outfits!!

Tomorrow after hopefully a 13 mile walk I will post the projects for my crop a dile camp, which went great today. Thanks to the ever creative and sweet Neelam, Katherine and her friend and experienced & speedy stamper Karen, Luressa & my momma! I will also try to actually stamp something for a Beate or SCS challenge and post that. Hoping for a lazy Sunday. Hope everyone is having a fabby weekend so far! L8R

Defib me!!!!!!

Yikes. The last two days have been so crazy that I got heart attack symptoms yesterday!!! I won't tell the whole boring story, but let's just say if your girl over here could have a day off, it wouldn't hurt!!! I have officially had the two longest work days in the history of human working. Deep thought of the night. Why the HECK did we invent working anyway? Seriously. No one gets chest pains over gathering berries and discovering fire. Grr. But it's over, and my camp is tomorrow, so it's stampfest 2K7 and how can that be bad??

Now, to the good stuff. SSSSSSSecret stamp society sisterhood was ssssasssy and we had some Sfun!!! I could go on and on about the fried asparagus and the green chile macaroni, but I think I'm supposed to be artistic here. Can you call a dismembered pig artistic? Yes? THEN CALL ME MISS VAN GOGH BABY - I CUT HIS LEGS OFF AND YOU LOVE IT!! =) hehheh... I also did terrible things to sheep, chickens, cows, OH MY!! I put these with envelopes into little bags for my SISTAHS and brought them to dinner. So fun.

First of all, Chriss started laughing hysterically and was almost removed from the restaurant when I asked her if she shrink plastic'd her adorable kitty on her Halloween card. Let me do a horrible re-enactment. Me: "oooh - it's SOOOOOOOO CUTE - did you shrink plastic him?" Chriss: HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAH (breathe) AHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HHAHAH. There's more, but my fingers hurt!! Her abs are like STEEL now from giggling at my retarded vocab. Then, Pam revealed that she, in fact, is the inventor of the IPhone (although when she invented it it was the EYEPhone). I have such famous and funny friends!!!! They don't know about my penchant for taking my Paper Snips and SNIPPING off the legs of little sheep!! Oh, how I hope they never find out!!!

Maybe they hoped I'd never find out about their version of offroading! Apparently Chriss likes to use her 4WD setting to go barreling over roadkill! It's true! Apparently she and Pam go find dead coyotes after the SSSSS events and they run over them! I'm waiting for details! I'll keep you posted! YOU ARE BUSTED, LADIES.

No Pam, I don't wear fake eyelashes. I think there's something wrong with your EYEphone! Ha!

Now Chriss, do tell about the new wine bar. I'm intrigued. In the meantime, I should let everyone know that there are teeny condos in downtown Austin going for a cool $3 mill!!! Who wants in??? It's about what I spend on stamps, so I can swing it. Maybe I can get some kind of minority loan status for having a legless green cow as a roommate.. you think?

Now, my L list - HEY - I'm as good as Oprah - I can have my own list dang it - please check out mimobot.com. I'm in love. Yes, I'm a geek. But these people - I don't know, they have something. And I placed an order and a very nice man called me about it. God Bless the Internet!! Also, please try the Cinnabon brand of Cinnamon Bread. Wow. And pray for me. Milk prices are going up. Your beloved Understand Blue goddess is quite literally made of butter, milk, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, half and half and sharp cheddar. This is not good news. Actually today I'm made of banana pudding. Had like 4 pounds of it. Hence the happy mood.

Signing off for now, but stay tuned for the revelation of the secret camp projects *YAY*, the presents Chriss & Pam gave me at the SSSSSRUNOVERCOYOTEFAKEEYELASHEYEPHONEFRIEDASPARAGUSFESTIVAL.

xo, ME.

Grisly Discovery in my Stamp Room

I know that my audience has been traumatized by my spiders, my baseball injuries and countless other atrocities enumerated here on Understand Blue. But NONE can surpass the sight that would have met you had you joined me at my stamping desk this weekend. I can barely talk about it. Behold the headless and legless bodies of cows, sheep, chickens and pigs. oooohhh - the HUMANITY!!!! I wasn't even COOKING!! ;-) Now I would love to show you (insert the shower scene music from psycho here) what came next, but alas, I cannot. The results of this horrific crime must be saved until after the SSS happy hour tomorrow. Jane, it's the last Wednesday of every month. Don't pretend you don't know about it. It's on the INTERNET!! =) Come with us!!!!! Stay tuned for my livestock tales!!!

Knit Happens

It does. I made this card for my friend Jane, who can't stand the Dilly Dally stamp set. Why Jane? It's so stinkin' cute!! look at this little guy.. Admit that you love him. He's had such a hard day. Speaking of knit that happens, I passed a dreadful stamping milepost. I was trying to use my beloved white gel pen on a secret project for the Secret Stamping Society Sisters and it wouldn't work. Wouldn't work? It ALWAYS works!!!! Grr... Oh. I used it up. That might be a good reason it doesn't work any more >:-O

Here is its pathetic, dried up little corpse. How sad. It's been such a good friend to me!!! Thank goodness I tend to buy things in twos and threes, or this could be quite a tragic Sunday post with dramatic wailing and gnashing of my cyber-teeth!!

Weekend Sketch Challenge #20

I'm pretty sure some day Beate will ban me for not following instructions, but here's my take on her awesome challenge. I turned the squares sideways but was fairly obedient for the rest.

The embossed strip at the bottom is Aluminum tape from Lowe's, stuck onto ballet blue cardstock and then cuttlebugged. Yes, that is officially a verb now.

I watched a great show on the Discovery channel last night about the history of earth. About 2.5 million years ago, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere - mostly CO2 - and the oceans were full of iron particles, which made both the sea and the sky appear emerald green. It was the presence of oxygen that turned them both blue. So see, none of us could even BREATHE without blue. =)

Have a great Sunday. Hopefully more to come.

Inspiration Challenge

This card is for today's inspiration challenge on SCS. Her original image looked very Monet to me, so I did a very loose impressionist technique, and added the "remember" as an afterthought because her image is very old fashioned and takes a look back I think.

Blue Gatorade and Temporal Disruptions

Strange happenings in the Understand Blue Universe today. First, at 6 AM, my friend Joe who works next to me, came in, turned on his light and put his keys on his desk. I said "Hey Joe".... nothing. So I get up to give him a hard time and Joe isn't there. All the lights in the office are off still except mine, and I start to get a little freaked. Like a dumb horror movie heroine, I stupidly walk around the office, turning on lights, peeking into everyone's office and finding... no one. I was very nervous. I had distinctly heard keys and the loud bang of someone hitting a light switch. When Joe gets there, I tell him what happened, and he starts telling me that when he got in his car this morning, his seat and his steering wheel were in totally different positions! The whole way to work he was unnerved... We decided that maybe that parallel universe everyone talks about got a little too close to us this morning. Brrr. Eek. Okay, so then yesterday morning, I was putting on my makeup, and I spilled a whole glass of blue gatorade (my white trash juice I like!!) ALL OVER MY DESK!! Little punched and stamped elements - ruined. Ink pads - sticky. Room - smelling like grape. Me - crabby. But I decided maybe it was a message from God about the state of my desk. Had I not had so many unfinished projects on my desk, the damage would have been significantly less traumatic. So the reason I haven't posted a card tonight is because I've been cleaning and organizing. TOMORROW I stamp!! Late, but I will. Busy day tomorrow. The picture above & left is a collage I am making for a save the date card for my friend Kristin, who is engaged. (see the love letter on the roof?) Tomorrow we are going to come up with a layout for the STD's - OH MY, THAT DOES NOT LOOK GOOD ABBREVIATED!! =) - and so tonight I got a little headstart. Tell me if you like either, neither or both. Also, a fun card to start this post that I made in my club when this set was a hostess set. Always makes me smile. Head on over to Just for You by Jenn and wish my good buddy a Happy Birthday!! I hear she's 25!!! She doesn't look a day over 24.

Sometimes you need a little... height

I ought to know!! At an undignified 5'2"+, I understand that sometimes things need a little extra boost to really be seen.. I'm not a patient cutter, but every time I do it, I get reacquainted with how much it really adds to my card art. And an artificial shadow (even in my beloved Photoshop) is never as good as a real shadow.. So here's one I cased from the display boards at convention. Nice of them to elevate the blue!

The pace of life - what happened?

I am feeling a bit philosophical tonight. Work is insane, I feel like I'm being pushed into fall, and I watched a fabulous show tonight - Kid Nation on CBS. I'm not a fan of reality TV with few exceptions (a guilty pleasure - American Idol) but this show squeezed my heart tonight. 40 kids are plunked down in New Mexico and have to make a town work with no grown ups. One itty bitty kid, Jimmy, 8, was so scared and homesick.. The other kids wanted candy and their own beds. The show will take place in 40 days, which seemed like an eternity at 8. Now, it's just a blur that passes us before we know it. I would love for the days to drag like they did when I was 8 and had already played hot lava, electronic football, eaten all my neighbor's vegetables, broken at least one valuable item before 10 AM and was totally bored and wondering how in the world I would survive till dinner. Oh, to have that time back....

I suppose none of that is really all that philosophical, but I don't express myself all that well when it's after 8. So I leave you with this adorable card I CASE'd from convention. Now that? That's cute. Have a good night.

Georgia must be nice!

I've been there - I worked in Atlanta when we had a branch there and I loved Savannah on a visit in the 80's, but man, are the stampin' chicks sweet there! In addition to Jenn, I have a sweet talented lady there who sent me this UNBELIVABLY ADORABLE CARD!! Her "backstory" is that she does the most amazing things with punches that I have ever seen. She uses the shapes to make insanely adorable animals and things you would never dream of when you looked at your punch. Well yesterday (one of the extremely rare days when my post person (it's a chick - what do we call those?) actually managed to put the mail that belongs to me in my mailbox (a September miracle!) I found THIS!!!!! Aside from being cute enough to eat, I was shocked to see the tea that I drink all day at work inside!! I love this tea, and your card is awesome. Thank you Meredith!!!!!

Reflecting on Reflections

I got a great photoshop magazine a while back and just now had time to read it. They had an incredibly easy tutorial on creating reflections of images... so FUN!! So here are my very first attempts. Imagine how cool it will be after I blur and do effects!

Here are some of my favorite things - blue fish (it's okay if in your head you just said "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish... we understand each other!! =) ) and bunnies. I can tell I'm going to have fun with this!!! Don't EVEN think the next card I post won't have a reflection!
Hey - have you seen the new stuff on the fan club gallery on SCS? Check it out. Chriss, Pam, where are you?

Weekend Sketch Challenge

I'm so excited! I finished two of my Crop a Dile camp projects and I love them! I love the CAD more every time I use it. I'd love to show you, but I can't till after the 29th. But trust me, they're cute! I also edged closer to a Christmas card but I'm not quite there yet.

So instead, here is the Weekend Sketch Challenge Entry. The flash washed out the stamping on the taffeta ribbon, but it really came out pretty well. Just a little bit of ink spread out. So the second photo highlights just the ribbon.

Cute sketch challenge Beate!!

I used a blender pen with Sahara sand to add a little shadow to the blue flowers. Harder to see in the photo..

The chipboard is painted with Twinkling H2O's.

God's Country

Oh, I laughed so hard this morning about the "water" question! God Bless America!! Yes, we have water. We actually are nestled right in the center of the Highland Lakes system, which gives us Lake Travis, Lake Austin, and Town Lake, all part of the mighty Colorado River. Our lakes make us who we are here God's Country. We run past them, boat on them, drive over them on our beloved pennybacker bridge (Photo courtesy of Highlandlakes.com), we watch America's largest freetail bat colony wake up, separate into millions of tiny bats at sundown, and spread out like smoke over them and over downtown, and our beautiful skyline. (If you have a bat prejudice, just come visit - they are wonderful, benevolent little creatures that lend a little magic to downtown) We have hills too, as we are perched on the edge of the escarpment that begins the drier and more rugged Texas Hill country, and beneath us, the Edward's Aquifer, which provides not only water for most of central Texas, but comes up to visit us through our lovely, if chilly, Barton Springs, and the emerald/blue depths of Hamilton Pool... So yeah, a little water. We are, after all, the River City! Keepin' it weird on the banks of the Colorado since, well, Texas was Texas! =)


Okay - here's another Stampington inspiration, combined with a little Chriss technique. Chriss layers background stamps for a wonderful texture on her cards, and I've been meaning to try that. This is just a scrap, not a card, but has some cool features if I can perfect it. I started with Cool Caribbean, and stamped the sanded background once in Cool Caribbean, once in Craft Yellow. Then I stamped one silhouette in Old Olive, and on top of that, another in Basic Black, and then I highlighted it with a white gel pen. If I can perfect the colors, etc. I think this has some potential, what do you think?


I MUST go work on camp projects. I will post later today and confess either my sins of omission or comission!! =)

Life in Austin

So this weekend begins our traditional ACL fest - arguably the world's best live music festival. Like a season, it changes our city. My beautiful, bright shining city on a hill becomes a tourist destination for a colorful group. We kicked off 2K7 with a fire on the grounds of the park.. believe it or not, a turkey leg stand combusted. Luckily, we live in a place where that's really the big news of the day. =) No stamping tonight, but furiously stamping tomorrow so stay tuned!!

I think that I shall never see...

A sight as lovely as a tree, stamped on DSP with rhinestones next to it!

I snagged an idea from Stampington Inspirations to do this half & half design. Theirs was a little more somber. I went for stripey, blue, glittery - you know, tree stuff.

See if you like it. I used post it notes to mask and sponge the "ground" and omitted the ground part of the stamp a la Zindorf (I'm not worthy!)

I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the two images, and used the vellum to hide a little, um, mistake!

I used the entire card as a tool which helped me do absolutely nothing I should have been doing tonight! =)

My Inner Cowgirl and Fire & Rescue

This is a happy place, my blue blog, so all I will say about today is that every year on this day I go to a few firehouses with brownies & Starbucks gift cards (I need to start buying these from your store Jenn!!) and say thanks. Today I had two baskets of goodies, because my office did one also. I just have to say that every firefighter I've ever met has been sweet and kind and humble and, of course, brave and selfless. Just because you don't need them most of, if not all of, your life, don't forget they're sitting there waiting for the moment when someone does... need them. Say thanks. They're great people.

My firehouse is, without a doubt, America's most beautiful firehouse. I will take a picture of it, and if you have any urge to dispute me, it will vanish when you see this lovely Texas white limestone building with a gently arched glass panel roof, set back off the street a bit among the wildflowers. I walk past it every time I stomp and sometimes my fire people are taking these short, 20 yard walks in a circle around the firehouse, radios in hand, long pants on in the 100 degree heat. It's my favorite part of my walk, and it's at the highest altitude also, so it's all downhill from there. ;) God Bless America.

Manly men deserve manly cards, so I went back to this set that Jenn says channels my inner (horrors! ;) ) cowgirl. I think she's right.

Finally tonight, an unsolved mystery. Why, oh why, no matter how clean my stamp room is before I start anything, no matter how few tools and stamps etc. I need to make a card, no matter if it's one card or 20, WHY DO I END UP WITH TWO SQUARE INCHES TO WORK IN? WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS PHENOMENON? I even put every ink pad back in my caddy when I'm done, and I just want you to know that I pushed the tide of supplies BACK to complete my project before I took this picture!! (I can't show you the project because it's for my Crop-a-dile camp on the 29th, but I will) It's driving me crazy! I've been doing this for years and no matter how organized I get this never changes. Will someone please come over and make my stamp room look like Nichole Heady's, and get me some of those little bluebirds Cinderella had that will fly around and tell me I'm pretty and put things away? Thanks a bunch! Comments and suggestions (and bluebirds) welcome!!

Check out my wonderful fuzzy animal creator's link on the right side of my blog. This woman will AMAZE you. And she's as sweet as a pumpkin spice latte on top of it all!
Goodnight ladies... Have a good one.

Weekend Sketch Challenge Entry

Well, I can't really sign off for the weekend without something BLUE, can I? I took a little liberty with the shape of the accent, for which I hope I will be forgiven... =)

I colored the little birdie with three different colors of Twinkling H20's (why did I never get these before? They're beautiful!) I stamped Well Worn Words in white craft ink on the inside flap of the card, and stamped it in Brilliant Blue on US White for the panel. The card base is the new Brilliant Blue textured CS, with the layered panel in Taken with Teal to match the birdie watercolor.

The bird needs a name. I am gonna go with Lenny. Lenny thanks you for stopping by! Insert birdie wink here! ;>

Happy Fall Y'all!

Okay - I can finally reveal my camp projects. We had fun yesterday, and I think my girls enjoyed the fall projects. This first one is a SCS challenge for a criss-cross card. This one is really fun. A note on fall before we start. Starbucks busted out with the Pumpkin Spice Latte in August. Hmm. Then I went to Hobby Lobby (shh... sometimes I go. Don't tell anyone) and they have skipped right over Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it's all Christmas all the time there! What the heck? How does this all happen earlier and earlier this year? I feel like I should be buying up Easter baskets and Fourth of July fireworks - surely I'm late preparing for those two!!!

I walked 12.5 miles today. I promise these two things are related - wait for it. Last fall (actual fall, not August) I did the Susan Komen 3-Day walk - 60 miles! It was 20 miles a day for 3 days. It was a great experience and I raised more than $2400 for breast cancer research. In training for that event, I accustomed myself to extremely long walks (stomps, as I call them) and it's something I really love. Solitude, my Ipod - a few hours where I don't think about work or have to clean anything. it's nice. Anyway, this morning, I almost died. IT'S LIKE 8 BILLION DEGREES HERE!! Actually, the real problem is the humidity. I think that I am growing gills. You can barely take a breath without feeling like you're drowning. So, my core temperature was about 130 when I got home from this monster stomp! I think I have had every beverage in our house! All that to say it's really hard to get jazzed about a pumpkin spice latte, a lovely cable knit sweater, or, God forbid - TINSEL - when a person is sweating like a pregnant mouse in a wool sock! You know what I'm saying??? =)

This lovely number is a complete CASE - the paper piecing just makes me smile every time I see it. Whatever the dementia I have about modifying pumpkins until they are completely unnatural and unrecognizable as products of nature is totally indulged in this card. What (besides a blue pumpkin) is sweeter than a green spotty pumpkin?

This card is lifted from my lovely and talented downline, Chriss, whose layering and cutting just blow my mind. I wasn't that wild about this hostess set until I saw what she did with it. She always adds a 3D touch that I can't come up with on my own, and this cutout out the top layer really adds elegance to what starts out as a more casual image I think. Bravo Chriss - and thanks for the idea!!! (You guys need to visit her gallery from my blog links - it's amazing!)

Finally - I made this little treat bag based on our make & take from convention. What's cool about this is the DSP is sturdy enough to make a treat container. Plus it's automatically pretty on the inside. I just love the patterns they used for the Halloween papers also. I let my girls pick which one they wanted to use - all of them look great with this layout. I used Only Orange craft ink on the On Board Blossoms accent for the front. The hole you punch in the front is 1 3/8, then the bat is punched with the 1 1/4 and stuck on through the front. Adhere black cardstock from the inside of the bag with dimensionals to give a 3D shadowbox look.

I'm hoping to post some more this afternoon. I'd like to do a Beate challenge and some other fun stuff, so come back now, you hear?

PS - thanks for stopping by! =)