Cheerful doggie card!

I found this stamp at a local stamp store that was going out of business. I just love his simplicity and his happiness that shines through. AND I'm VERY proud of my bow on the right hand side (considering I can't tie a bow to save my life!)



The paw prints on the brown are a wheel from SU. The oval under the dog is from Amuse (just used it so my doggie wasn't floating in space)...so I "grounded" him. LOL! The greeting is another single stamp and I'm too lazy to get up and find out who makes it.

Today I was finally able to pick up my last day's pay from my previous job. I start my new job on Monday.

I have more stuff to share over the next couple days...so stay tuned!

Jane

I now offer a "subscription" service!

Ok..I've been hounded to add a Feedblitz newsletter link to my blog so people can be notified when I've done updates. So...after dragging my feet I've finally also joined not only the blogging world...but the blogging subscription world! ;-) If you'd like notification of when I update my blog you can sign up on the right where it says "feedblitz".

If you have any problems let me know. I'm not 100% sure I set it up correctly.

Jane

I'm Bananas Over You

This is the surprise pop-up slider card I made with the image from yesterday. For complete details/instructions go HERE to view a tutorial by Beate.

My yellow background is stamped tone on tone with bananas from SU's Monkey Business set (hard to see in the picture). The monkey is from Stampendous's Changito monkey line. And the saying is created with Karen Foster Snap Stamps.

Here is the card CLOSED:



Then you pull the slider out (from the top where the ribbon is) and the slider pops up.

Here is the card OPEN:



And then I wanted to show you exactly what a Karen Foster Snap Stamp is (in case you haven't got these yet). It's rumored that they aren't being carried any more...so if you see them...grab them! I'm hoping they aren't really discontinuing them but maybe remaking them "new and improved" or something. But I guess time will tell. In the meantime, I'm glad I have MY Karen Foster snap stamps! LOL!



Today I call and accept my new job offer. I'm excited and nervous. I don't like changes. But I'll be ok...and if I could do the last place...then this place should be a piece of cake. I'm sure there will be less politics, more help, and more friendly people. And it isn't a whole new world to me...I'm familiar with healthcare data.

Enjoy the rest of a short work week! I have another card but am saving it to post tomorrow. So come back and see me!

Jane

Note: My WW blog is up!

My new blog is http://www.janeswwjourney.blogspot.com. I've added a place to the right to list weight loss blogs. Right now mine is the only one listed there. I'm sure I will add more. But for now you can click on it to check it out. Nothing too exciting yet though.

Jane

Is it worth the money???

For the last several years I've been hearing about the prismacolor pencils (just regular ones...not watercolor). Everyone RAVES about these pencils. And if you use them with gamasol (or oderless mineral spirits or baby oil) then you can blend them so it looks more like watercolor. I already owned some colored pencils that I bought at Michael's in the scrapbooking section. I believe they are the ONLY packages of pencils in the scrapbooking section. And I've been using my pencils with oderless mineral spirits. They blend a bit but are hard to bend and I haven't been thrilled with my coloring. This week...the prismacolor pencils were 25% off at Michael's (including open stock pencils). So I bought 5 individual pencils to try out. They were $1.49 each...so I paid $1.25 each for them after the sale price. And here is my comparison to share with you.

First I stamped my main image twice and laid out my supplies. The regular pencils are on the left...the prismas are on the right.



Next I laid down a layer of color around the edges of the images. I noticed that the prismas went on SO much easier (didn't feel like I was having to push hard to get the color I wanted).



Then I used a blending stump and the mineral spirits to pull color in towards the center of the image. The prisma blended really easily and I discovered, if anything, that I'd layed down TOO much color because it pulls so easily. I'll have to note that for the next time. Here are the two finished images. I think either works...but the prisma one is definately more vibrant and was so much easier to do. With the regular pencils I had to push on the stump really hard when blending.



And then I choose my favorite image and made a pop-up slider card with it! Check back tomorrow to view the card! (Yep, I'm a tease!)

You can buy the primacolor pencils in all sorts of combinations. You can buy them singly, in sets of 24, 48, and 100+. I do think I'll ask Santa for set of the 100+ ones. You can get them on ebay for around $50-60 (obviously they are more at Michael's...I'm not sure how the price compares with a 40% off coupon...will have to check that out!)

Today is a holiday...enjoy and go PLAY!

Jane

Happy Sunday!

Well, I could share a card with you...but I don't like how it turned out...so I don't HAVE to share it! Nah, nah!

Instead I thought I'd share a couple non-stamp related things. One is to tell you that I've decided it's time for me to do something about my weight (again). And to that end, I will probably start a weight loss blog here soon and will place a link to it from here. So if that interests you (if you like seeing me in pain and starving! LOL!) then you can visit that blog as well. I plan on doing Weight Watchers. It's worked for me in the past. I've followed the diet plan on my own in the past but didn't attend meetings. This time I'm going to attend the meetings and my neighbor is joining with me...so hopefully those will both be positive aspects.

Anyhow...when I got this email from my aunt today I laughed and laughed. Maybe it's just SO funny to me because I'm starting to think about the diet mentality...but hopefully you'll enjoy it too. Without further ado...here's some humor for your amusement!


PURINA DIET

Yesterday I was buying a large bag of Purina dog chow for Athena, the wonder dog , at Wal-Mart and was about to check out. A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. On impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again.

Although I probably shouldn't, because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story.)

Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me.

I told her no; I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter's ass and a car hit us both.

I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!

WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore!!!

Basic Masking Tutorial

The limited supply challenge for this week on Splitcoaststampers is to use a non-halloween animal stamp to make a halloween tent card. I figured it was a prime time to do a tutorial on simple masking.

I will be using a hippo stamp and adding a witches hat. The easiest way to do masking is to use post-it notes (at least that's the easiest way I've found. So here are the two stamps I'll be using and the post-it notes.



The first thing I'm going to do is make my mask. So I'm going to stamp the witches hat on the sticky portion of the post-it note. After stamping you are going to cut out the mask just inside (or on) the line.



Now...take the same image and stamp it onto your cardstock. Here I've stamped it onto white cardstock.



NOW, you are going to use your mask. Take the post-it image and place it directly on top of the stamped image on the cardstock.



Once your mask is in place you are ready to stamp the next image (in my case the hippo).





Now remove the mask and your image is finished!



I could have stamped a single hat on white cardstock and cut it out and then just glued it on top of the hippo's head. Sounds easier right? But if you are doing multiples (or if you don't want the cut/paste look) then masking is the way to go. If you're using clear stamps then masking becomes even easier.

Masking can be used in many ways and can be used for more indepth techniques. With masking you can place items inside other items (like placing items "inside" a basket), you can make things sit on top of other things (like a dog sitting on a chair) or you can build scenes with items in the front and then build backwards...masking as you go. It may seem daunting but hopefully the step by step pics makes it easier to understand! You can also do "reverse masking". For example you can make your mask, place it on the image and then sponge blue ink around it to make it look like blue sky. Or...I also use a variation of masking to do my coloring at times. I will stamp my image on glossy cardstock and then cut portions of it out (say all the flower parts I want to be red), then stamp the same image again and cut out different portions (say all the flower parts I want to be yellow)...repeat for each color you plan to use. Then you basically use it template. You lay it over the areas you want to color (so only those areas are exposed and sponge on ink), then use the next template. Sometime I'll show that technique. For now...here is the finished card I made with the basic masking!





Hope you enjoyed!

Jane