Victorine Challenge #80

I have made Two Cards for the current Victorine Originals Challenge which is Monochromatic Green located HERE.  So if you think GREEN is my favorite color, you are absolutely right. 

This card on the left is made with a really neat stamp as a base.  I stamped it in green and then stamped it again on different pieces of cardstock that were either plain or embossed.  The "dots' are the embossed ones.  The small pieces were then cut out and popped up on the original shape around the edges.  I left the center flat, but added a big brad and a smaller brad on one side.  I think it looks cool and modern.

The card on the right is a piece of Bo Bunny designer cardstock cut to A2 size and then trimmed on the right so the back of the card would show the stamped sentiment.  I stamped three flowers on a different shade of green cardstock, cut them out and mounted them on the background.  Some of the dotted green worked well for flower centers so I punched some and glued them on.  The front is finished off with jewels.

Check out the challenge and make a card & enter.  There is always a drawing for stamps.

SketchChallenge479

This is my second card for the Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge 479 posted this morning.  You can find the SC479 HERE.  It's a good one.  Easy and fun. I made two totally different cards from the same challenge.  I used a Crumb Cake background and stamped it with a Victorine Originals hot air balloon.  I paper pieced the balloon with three different kinds of designer paper.  Scraps are always good for this and I have enough for three lifetimes.  Next I cut out and embossed the computer generated sentiment with my Spellbinders Petite Oval and popped it up on the background.  So nice and easy and I really like it.

Cataract Surgery #1

This is me on Tuesday.  I am at Lakeland Hospital waiting for the team to get me ready for my first cataract surgery.  Bob - my Best Caregiver EVER - kept asking me for a better smile, but I couldn't quite muster one.  He sat with me the entire time except for the actually surgery which only takes a few minutes.  I guess they wouldn't let him in.  :) 
I had a wonderful crew of very nice people waiting on me hand and foot, right from the first person who sent me to the bathroom with clean towels and asked me to wash my face. (I think it was clean until one of THEM put a black mark above my right eye)  hmmm  One of those necessary things, I guess.

These are my vitals and from here they look pretty good to me.  Not sure what that squiggly line on the bottom is, but they let me in the operating room, so I guess it was OK.  Bob said they gave me oxygen because my level was low.  I remember them putting the mask on and the doc (or somebody) saying what it was, but that's about all I remember -- until a lot later when I finally woke up.  I was back in the above room where I started, and apparently the doctor had popped out my lens and replaced it with a brand new one (whose vitals I now have in my computer in case of emergency)  It's amazing what doctors can do and only because God in His mercy let them find it out.  He is the one who made all these things work so well in the first place and now He is letting us in on some of His secrets.  So I slept the rest of that day and all night and was still tired the next day.  Today is Day 3 and I feel really good accept for a little bit of itching in my right eye which goes away when I put the drops in.

The "Team" gave me this nice little "cage" to put on my eye when I sleep.  I guess that's to make sure I don't break the rules which are Do Not Rub and I saw them everywhere.  So my sweet caregiver, Bob tapes it on every night and I wonder if he thought the tape was not sticky enough so last night he really taped it good.  I mean REALLY.  It was like trying to get out of a giant spider web this morning.  That stuff really sticks.  Halfway through the day I was still peeling glue off my face.  I am trying to take good care of myself so I will be ready for the next eye two weeks from now.  Wish me luck.

Victorine #79 Anniversary

This is my card for the current Victorine Originals Challenge located HERE.  This time it's to make an Anniversary Card.  Sometimes I find it hard to make a specific card without a specific sentiment, but I love this rose bouquet stamp and I think it's what every woman would love to see on the anniversary of their wedding day.  (No, not the stamp - the bouquet for real)

I started with a piece of ivory cardstock and stamped the music background.  The edges on the music image are sharp and clean, but for this background I inked the stamp and then ran a cloth around the  edge to soften it.

Next I stamped the bouquet image and colored everything but the red roses and buds.  These are paper pieced with red cardstock.  The blue forget- me-not on the left is cut with an exacto knife so the black strip of cardstock could be pushed behind it.

I used the same red cardstock on the lower right corner, glued vintage lace over it and stamped a band of cardstock with the sentiment.  Oh, I almost forgot.  The LOVE stamp on top is from a Christmas stamp that says, PEACE LOVE JOY.  The hearts separate the words and I just masked off the two end words. 

 This challenge starts Monday 3-3-14, and will run for two weeks and there is always a drawing for prizes if you enter your card, so check it out.