Merry Christmas!

Triangle Tag

This week's challenge was to make a triangle tag. Here's my attempt:


All the images are Stampington. The egg is cut free-hand, and chalked. The scanner doesn't pick up the shading, so like I always say, the tag looks much nicer in real life!

Snow Fairy Tag

It's time for another tag for the Weekend Tagger's challenge. The image is from Stampendous, stamped with a metallic ink:


I added silver leaf around both the dark panel and the tag, and used the Diamond Dust around the dark panel and on the punched snow flake, too. I found some sparkly fiber in my stash.

My first prototype is lilac:

I used the Diamond Dust on the body of the fairy.

Thanks for the challenge, ladies!

Another tree tag?

Yes! This is for the Weekend Taggers -- although I'm cheating a bit on the design. Here's my take:

There is supposed to be horizontal text toward the bottom of the tag, but I skipped that, because the background paper is text.

The image is Impression Obsession, I think. I used the same ink around the outside of the framed image to make it stand out a bit more -- the background paper is surprisingly busy! The tree is spangled with a Stardust gelly roll pen, but it doesn't show up on the scan. Nor does the diamond dust show on the punched snowflake -- oh, in real life this tag SPARKLES! I would like to put diamond dust on everything.

I found it by mistake at Hobby Lobby -- there was none in the paper crafting section. I was browsing the Christmas aisles, and found some fake plastic snow. Someone had abandonned the container of Diamond Dust in favor of the fake snow. It's made to "sugar" fake fruit and flowers, apparently, and is usually located in the floral section.

O Christmas Tree -- Red & Green Challenge

This week's challenge is to make a red & green tag. It seems I only think Christmas when I think red & green, so I made another Christmas tree tag:


The image is from Tin Can Mail (Inkadinkado), stamped in moss green ink (Club Scrap). I used a red marker to color in the holly berry, and then got carried away and filled in the notes at the bottom, too. I dotted glue randomly on the tree, then shook on some Judikins Prisma Glitter. It's a pity the picture doesn't pick up the glitter; it's quite pretty. Finished with a satin bow.

Tree Tag

The Weekend Tagger challenge this week was to use a Christmas tree on a tag. Here, I used a Club Scrap collage stamp. I dabbed on Distress Inks -- tea dye, peeled paint and broken china -- and stamped on hot press watercolor paper. To finish, I gilded the edges with gold leaf pen, and then added three crystals on the left side in the big snowflake, the star, and on the bottom of the tag.

A simple gold bow finishes the tag.

Thanks for the challenge, ladies. I've had this stamp for a couple years, and this is the first time I've used it.

Autumnal Tag

This week's challenge at Tag You're It! was to make a tag about autumn. This was my third attempt:



The stamps are all Hero Arts. I colored the image with pencils. As always, I appreciate the challenge!

On Leadership

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
- Jerry Garcia

The Lady in the Ruff

This week's challenge by the Weekend Taggers was to use a sketch posted on Friday as the design take-off. Here's my interpretation of the
sketch:



I'm stuck in a brown mode, I guess. I love this background paper, and used it earlier this weekend to make a card. The image is unmounted rubber; I'm not sure the manufacturer. I would love to know if her face is famous. I feel sure this is from a portrait somewhere. Anyway, the tag is embellished with self-stick pearls, and the sentiment is "From one chick to another. . ."

Something to Think About

If you invested $1,000.00 dollars last year, this year you would have:

United Airlines: nothing
Delta Airlines: $64
AIG: $26


But, if you invested $1,000.00 in BEER and took the cans for recycling you would have $284.00.

Dream

Here's this week's challenge tag at Tag You're It. The challenge was to use the word "dream" on the tag. Here's mine:



Pretty simple. Stamped the image on an actual manila tag with Versafine Vintage Sepia; image is lightly colored with chalk. Because the image is square, I wanted to soften the edges, so I masked the ends of the tag with post-it notes torn into an arch. Gilded the edges slightly with a gold leaf pen. The stamp is made by Magenta.

Do the math.

Inside, "You're old. Happy Birthday"

This card was completed for the latest challenge at You Know You Rock. The challenge was to use a background stamp as the focal image on a card. So here's my interpretation.



I scanned this, instead of photographing. The scan distorts the colors just a tad bit; the yellow layer is more goldenrod in real life, not quite so bright yellow. The background stamp is Club Scrap, the sentiment is River City Rubber Works. The background is direct to paper Vivid inks on glossy card stock. I've got the perfect birthday coming up for this card!

"The Producers"

Mom and I attended the Billings Studio Theater's presentation of "The Producers." Even though we'd seen the touring edition last winter @ the Alberta Bair, we wanted to see this with Pat Schindle as Max Biyalistock, and Vint Lavender as Roger DeBris.

Usually, the dancing and singing of local productions pale in comparison with the touring companies. We definitely liked the BST production BETTER than the touring company. We were not sure why, exactly. The theater is smaller, and the experience is more intimate than at ABT.

The dancing was good, but fewer dancers at BST, the stage is MUCH smaller. The singing was pretty good. It was just funnier to us, maybe because we've seen these actors in sooooo much. Kelly Martin was his rubber-faced hilarious self as Leo Bloom. He can walk across stage and get laughs. His son played Carmen Ghia, Roger's assistant. The nut doesn't fall far from the tree! He was very entertaining, too.

They just had so much energy and enthusiasm -- it's easier to feel inside BST, and I think that the locals just have more when they're perfoming in front of friends and relatives. A very enjoyable theater experience!

Peachy Ballerina

This week's challenge at "Tag You're It" is monochromatic. I dug through my paper stash and found some lightly checked Lasting Memories, and, miracle of miracles, Vivid Tea Rose ink, which matches the color of this paper. (It's a miracle it's not dried up!) The stamp is from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers. I cut the oval and the scallop with Nestabilities dies. I also blinged-up (it is TOO a word!)the ballerina's tutu with a clear Copic Spica glitter pen. Trust me on this -- these pens are too subtle to photograph, but if you turn the tag JUST SO, the spangles appear. She is ready to go on stage:



I finished with some tulle I had, in keeping with the tutu idea. It was white, so I laboriously colored it with Copic markers to turn it peachy. It reads a little peachier than the carstock on the photo, but in real life it is a perfect match. TRUST ME.

Elephant Splendor

I made a set of ATC's for a swap, with the theme of elephants. I used an old elephant stamp I had, and added some sparkle with Copic sparkle pens. I wanted the background to look like an old Indian cotton bedspread, like the kind I had at college first year. I used an unmounted background stamp I bought specifically for ATCs, and stamped it with Versamark. I dabbed that image with chalks. I like how the background turned out:



I signed up for a number of ATC swaps for this fall.

Evening in Northeastern Montana

Spent this past weekend up north, visiting. Took these photos at the farm. The grain bins in the evening light:



Looking to the east:


The old hay rake. I take a picture of this old rake everytime I go up to the farm:

Sew . . . on a Tag

This week's "Tag You're It" challenge was to use sewing on a tag. I abhor sewing on cardstock, so my tag actually features faux stitching! I used a push pin and a ruler to make holes around the edge of the cardstock, and then connected the holes with a gel pen. This makes believeable stitching, especially in real life. My photography makes it look like a solid line in spots:



The image (Inkadinkado) is stamped on the green background, and again on the printed paper. The dress on the printed paper is cut out and glued over the top of the image stamped on the green. I cut out the corners freehand -- I'm awaiting delivery of a Stampin'Up punch like this. Anyway, I like the effect, even if the cutting is less than perfect.

A Lame Hello in Metal

The "You Know You Rock" blog challenge this month was to use metal on a project. I hemmed and hawed, and dug through my boxes of embellishments. It was pretty lean pickings, aside from snaps, eyelets, paper clips and brads. I found these metal type-writer key letters which have little pokey things on the back to grab to paper. I used my Flourishes "Poppy" set to make this card:



It qualifies for the challenge, but barely! Again, my stellar photography makes it impossible to see that the keys spell out "hello"!

Atonement

I finally got around to seeing this movie -- it's been in my Netflix queue for a while. It was an interesting, if somewhat confusing, examination of a lie, its consequences, and the lifetime of the liar to make amends.

Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister, Cecilia, and the housekeeper's son, Robbie, through the window, and misinterprets their actions. Robbie's been educated at Oxford as a result of the benificence of the girl's father, and plans on attending medical school. He's walking the border between two social classes, and gradually letting his attraction to Cecilia overcome his better judgment. Briony sees him and Cecilia playfully tugging on a vase of flowers. That interaction, and an intercepted letter from Robbie to Cecilia, form the basis of Briony's later lie that ruins both Robbie and Cecilia's life.

The story is told primarily through Briony's eyes, although there is some jumping back and forth to tell the story from another's viewpoint. This is where it is difficult sometimes to track where in the story you are.

It was an interesting movie, and I'm glad I finally saw it.

Traitor

I saw "Traitor" this past weekend. In it, Don Cheadle plays Samir Horn, a Sudanese American who, as a young boy, saw his father murdered in a car bomb. He and his mother moved to Chicago, where he spent his formative years in the projects. Now, he is apparently a terrorist, involved in a plot to bring terror to the US.

After he and others are arrested in Yemen for a terrorist plot, he comes to the attention of a couple of FBI agents, played by Guy Pearce and Neil McDonnough. (I love Neil's blue eyes!) A game of cat and mouse ensues, and ultimately, Samir's true purpose is revealed.

This was a good movie, but very violent. It was rated R for the violence and language. It was most disturbing to sit behind a woman and her (presumably) three kids -- an older boy, maybe 16, a girl, 12-ish, and a boy about 8. I can't imagine what she was thinking. Aside from the violence, the topic of terrorism -- and the constant beat of it in our daily lives -- must surely be the cause of nightmares for those young kids. That's what REALLY disturbed me.

Labor Day labors

I made a lot of cards today, but only one photograph is worth even looking at. All the flash photos are sooo yellow. Here, the only really yellow thing is Woodstock:



Colored with Copics, for an upcoming birthday.

Cold and rainy today -- quite a relief from the dry heat. We picked up over an inch of rain between yesterday and tonight -- there was steady rain all night. It's supposed to be drying up a bit for tomorrow and Wednesday. I've got some yard work to do for mom on Wednesday afternoon, so I hope the forecast holds up.

The Kingdom

I finally got around to watching this last night -- I've had it from Netflix most of the summer.

The movie is a fictional account of a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia. The victims of the attack are western oil workers and their families, relaxing in their highly-secured compound at a Sunday softball game. A special agent for the FBI is on site, and is killed after the first wave of attacks by a huge car bomb that destroys an apartment building(a la the Kobar Towers blast in the early 1990's).

An elite team of FBI agents -- Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper -- finagle their way into the country to investigate the deaths of the Americans. They join forces with a reluctant Saudi police chief, who grows to appreciate the American's dedication and expertise.

As the movie ends, and loose ends are tied up, we are reminded that the terror will continue so long as revenge figures into motivation for violence. The movie was very engaging, and I found myself several times with muscles clenched, ready for the next bomb. Yeah, it's very violent.

Wine Country Watercolor

I've been watercoloring images lately, following a summer of Copics. For this card, I used the traditional Adirondack ink pads, the colors which are slightly greyed. This is probably my favorite pallette.

Image is by Stampendous; sentiment is Hero Arts.

I'd enjoy a class of wine right now, if it weren't only 1:30 p.m. ;O

Autumnal Tag

Despite the fact that it was 103F here today, my tag for the weekly "Tag, You're It" challenge is all about autumn. I also had to cheat -- the challenge was to use punches, but I used my die cutter instead. I got a chance to use my leaf dies to make this tag:



I got to use my favorite fall sentiment, the Emily Bronte quote: "Every leaf speaks bliss to me, falling from the silent tree." I am not a good enough photographer to make that show clearly. But I hope you will note that I've created a foam core white board "studio" for my shoots! Ha Ha.

Poppy Prototype

I wanted to use my Flourishes poppy stamps. Each flower, bud and leaf is an individual stamp, allowing you to build your own bouquet. This can be a challenge.
The card started life as a 5 x 5 square, and I cut it down after stamping and masking to about 3.5 x 5. The size of the card is about 5 x 7.

Tropic Thunder

Crude. Obscene. Profane. Offensive. And very, very funny.

That is all.

P.S. I am so glad Robert Downey Jr. found his way back into acting. He is tremendous in his role as an over-invested method actor. He's also got beautiful blue eyes.

P.S.S. This is the first movie I've paid to see Tom Cruise in a very long time. He is very good as Les Grossman(perfect name), an over-the-top Hollywood producer in search of big box office $$.

Christmas Tag

I made this tag for the challenge on the "Tag, You're It" blog. I found this blog on a mention from another blogger.

This week's challenge was to make a tag for Christmas. I used one of my favorite angel stamps to make this tag:



The stamp is from Stampington. I watercolored her with Adirondack ink, and a touch of Twinkling H20s. All the papers are Club Scrap. I ran the cream piece through a Cuttlebug embossing folder, and then sprayed it with gold Radiant Rain. You can't really see the glitz on the photo.

In my first iteration, I used a Distress ink pad in Antique Linen on the embossed piece. In real life, there is a little too much contrast, and the background fights with the angel in the foreground. This angel has more Twinking H2O paint, her wings are an attempt at a copper patina:



This was a fun challenge. You can find the challenge site at http://weekendtaggers.blogspot.com/

Good Read

I finished "When Montana and I Were Young" by Margaret "Peggy" Bell last night. I hadn't intended to read the entire book in one sitting. I intended to watch the Olympics; a water polo match was on, so I thought I'd read until that was over. Wrong. I couldn't put this book down!

This is a memoir of the author's first 18 years, from her birth in Great Falls, MT in 1888 until 1906. She suffered terrible abuse from a step-father, and the step-father's brother, but she doesn't dwell on it. Peggy is no victim. She details her life, including her memories of meeting Charles M. Russell, Montana's cowboy artist, and her near-entry into the novitiate of the Sisters of Providence (I think) in Washington. She offers fascinating and vivid descriptions of the prairie and livestock she loved, and the daily rigors of life without running water, electricity, and central heating.

Chocolate Chips

Got this dollar stamp of the little rodent -- hamster? gerbil? prairie dog? -- who loves chocolate chip cookies. I popped him up from the card with some foam tape. Made the giant cookie with my Nestablilities die, and hand-cut the chips.

Inside, the sentiment says "Friends are the chocolate chips in the cookies of life."

"When I'm old . . .

I don't want them to say of me, 'She's so charming,' I want them to say, 'Be careful, I think she's armed.'" —G. Stoddart

Travel ATCs

I made these a while ago for a swap. I ran across them again, so decided to post a couple. As I recall, this was actually an alphabit swap, and I had to use the letters C,E,S,X and A. Here are C and E:



I color-copied some maps from an old grade-school geometry book for the background, then used the silhouette stamps from ????. The letters are QuiKutz.

Iron Man

I finally saw "Iron Man" on Sunday, in an attempt to spend some time in air conditioning. Har. The theater was warm, but the movie was surprisingly entertaining.

The movie tells the beginning of the Marvel Comics superhero "Iron Man." The man is Tony Stark, played here by Robert Downey, Jr., a billionaire playboy who runs Stark Industries. Stark produces the latest in technical armaments for war. Tony's inheirited the company from his father, a developer of the atomic bomb, and is mentored by Obediah Stane, played by Jeff Bridges.

While on a look-see in the Middle East, presumably Iraq, Tony's humvee caravan is attacked, and Tony is kidnapped by what we suppose to be terrorists. Tony is severely injured in the attack with a shrapnel bomb -- produced by Stark Industries. He is saved by a doctor, also a captive, who inserts an electo-magnet into Tony's chest cavity to prevent the fragments from piercing his heart.

The terrorists want Tony to build them the newest Stark missle, dubbed the "Jericho." Tony and the doctor spend many days dimantling old equipment, welding, etc. and produce not a bomb, but Iron Man's exoskeleton.

As you might guess, Tony escapes the clutches of the evil doers, and returns to LA a changed man. He wants Stark Industries to stop making weapons, a move not endorsed by an increasingly menacing Stane or the stockmarket.

Mamma Mia!

I've been trying to post all week, and haven't been able to get in. I can't leave comments on websites, either.

I saw "Mamma Mia!" on Wednesday afternoon, with a theater full of other women. Most reviewers panned this movie, but at least Roger Ebert was honest about it: he admitted the movie wasn't made for him, but for women and girls. And it is a woman's movie. I enjoyed the movie, and so did my audience-mates.

The plot is paper-thin. Donna, an aging hippie, runs a hotel on a Greek Island. She's raised her daughter, Sophie, as a single mother, and is in the midst of preparations for Sophie's wedding. Unbeknownst to Donna, Sophie invites three men who might be her father. You can tell almost from the first instance who Sophie's dad is. But, much singing and dancing will have to occur before the happy ending, and a couple of mysteries will be revealed.

The music is very catchy, even if you weren't a particular ABBA fan in the day. I bought a pricy Diet Coke at the snack bar as I entered the theater, and the 16 or 17-year old girl who waited on me let me know she LOVED the movie, and she'd sung along with it when she saw it at the drive-in. She bought the soundtrack, and knew all the lyrics by heart. She was very cute.

Y.ou K.now Y.ou R.ock Challenge

Well, here goes. My stamping friend, Julie Koerber, has a new challenge blog. I am determined to participate, since closure of our local stamp store means no more fun classes. I hesitate only because I've seen the challenge entries already posted, and there is SERIOUS talent in these challenges.

The challenge was to create a card using an "album" cover as the jumping-off point. Being old, I chose an old disc, the Brian Setzer Orchestra's "Dirty Boogie":


After several tries, I came up with this:


I sprayed Radiant Rain (Irish Mist, Sky Blue) on 140-lb hot press watercolor paper, and wiped with a papertowel. I have not perfected the blob-less application of these beautiful glittery sprays, so wiping after applying eliminates those glitches.

The stamps are all Impression Obsession. I went with the drink theme, although I used coffee in this iteration. On the album, the smoke from a cigarette is highlighted with white; I highlighted the steam from the coffee cups with a white gel pen. It's only slightly visible. I topped the card with a Martha Stewart border punch, to add some angularity, and balanced that with the stick-on pearls, which also adds a little more white.

Dog Days

July is traditionally the month during which the "dog days of summer" begin. According to Wikipedia,

[t]he Dog Days originally were the days when Sirius, the Dog Star, rose just before or at the same time as sunrise (heliacal rising), which is no longer true owing to precession of the equinoxes. The ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that that star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.

I am celebrating the dog days by making doggie cards. These will mostly go to a friend, who kindly requests a bundle of cards as a birthday gift. The first card features a dollar stamp set I got at Joanne's:

The same little chihuahua, using a Martha Stewart border punch as a mask:

Finally, a Hero Arts stamp set:

Hancock

Summer wouldn't be complete without a Will Smith movie, and Hancock is this year's offering.

Smith is an angry, hungover superhero with a bad attitude and a penchant for saving humanity with maximum destruction of property. As an example, in the opening sequence he helps the LAPD apprehend a careening Suburban filled with machine-gun toting bad guys. When Hancock arrives at full-speed, he breaks through the freeway signs, which land on a number of police cruisers and destroy them. He eventually lifts the Suburban, and, flying over downtown LA, crashes into several buildings with the vehicle before he impales it on the tower over the Capitol Records building.

Into this public relations nightmare steps Ray, played by Jason Bateman. He has a plan to revamp Hancock's public image. Ray is the movie's moral center, an ad-man with a heart for the world. He's been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a big pharmaceutical company to donate a tuberculosis drug, in exchange for use of an "all Heart" logo. Not surprisingly, big business is reluctant to bite.

A fun movie. Will Smith is always entertaining, and he sees to quite enjoy the havoc he creates as Hancock.

No more Zoo

Click on the photo to make it marginally bigger.

A layout I did earlier this year; I'm posting it today so I can get in the habit of posting everyday, or nearly so!

All papers are from Club Scrap.

WALL*E

Wednesday was my half day, so I saw "Wall*E" the new Disney-Pixar animated movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Wall*E lives on Earth, quite alone except for his cockroach pal. He goes to work as a trash compactor; he is cleaning up an abandonned and despoiled Manhattan, by all appearances. All human life has fled the planet, ruined by the megaconglomerate "BNL" or "Big and Large."

His routine is set aside one day by the arrival of EVE, a drone sent by the orbiting humans to check to see if life has returned to the planet. Wall*E falls in "love" with EVE, and presents her with a green plant he's rescued from an abandonned refrigerator, and has growing in an old shoe. EVE's sensors respond to the plant, and she is drawn back to the orbiting ship, Wall*E tagging along.

The humans have all become very round, nearly boneless creatures whose only work consists of sitting in motorized chairs and drinking all their food in big slurpies, their every need attended to by numerous robots. The Captain is likewise round and attended to by the menacing "Auto-Pilot," whose presence nearly prevents the Captain from responding to the positive indicator of a rejuvenated Earth.

A good movie, many out-right belly laughs.

Back from the Netherlands

Earlier this month I was in Rotterdam for a Zonta International convention. 2,000 women from 67 countries participating in a 4-day meeting to elect new international officers and board members, and vote on a series of by-law changes -- which turned out to be surprisingly contentious.

While the meetings were interesting, my travel companion and I were most interested in seeing something of the country. Big cities like Rotterdam are mostly the same. Rotterdam's appeal comes in its very modern architecture; it was flattened by bombs in WWII and had to rebuild most of the center city. The Erasmus Bridge, aka "The White Swan" is a particularly striking example.



We took the water bus up the river for an hour to Dordrect, the oldest official city in Holland, chartered in 1220. We wandered the streets of the old city, took many photos, and ate lunch in a cafe along a canal.



We climbed the clock tower of the Grote Kerk, up 247 steps to the top crow's nest for a stunning view of the city and the surrounding country. We could see Rotterdam in the distance.






After our short time in Dordrecht, we traveled by waterbus to Kinderdijk, to see the windmills, as pictured above. A system of 19 windmills drains the Kinderdijk polder; the mills were built in the mid-1700's, and most continue to serve as houses.

We toured the inside of a mill; very tight quarters indeed. As we exited, we saw a family dressed in what appeared to be regional costume, complete with wooden shoes, appropriately called klompen by the Dutch. Of course I bought a pair!



The windmills of Kinderdijk are one of the best known Dutch tourist sites. They were placed on the list of UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997.