I'm back...

So sorry that I've been MIA! Whew, it's been a long week and I'm hoping that this week is better than the last. If you remember from one of my last posts, Noah was sick with the flu and pneumonia. Well, you guessed it, I got it the next day and boy did it knock me on my butt. I called my dr. and she gave me a prescription for the flu but it didn't seem to be helping. So yesterday I got an antibiotic and it finally seems to be kicking in. Whatever I had turned into this upper respiratory crud and it was NASTY! I sure wish I would've bounced back as quick as Noah. Oh well! I didn't stamp all week and I was going through withdrawals. Chris was on nursing duty taking care of myself, Noah, and Gracie (our cat). That's a whole different story. Wednesday morning she had this abcess on her side, like the size of a quarter. It was so gross. The vet seems to think that something bit her like a snake, a spider, or another cat. They took care of her and she's been on meds too. We take her back to the vet tomorrow for a check up so hopefully everything looks okay. It seems to be healing.

Mom and I went to Stamp Fest yesterday. For those of you that are not familiar with SF, it is a convention with tons of different stamp companies and vendors. Boy is it dangerous! However, I wasn't feeling very good so I probably didn't do as much damage as I could've. Anyway, we had fun, learned some new things, got some new ideas, and bought some new goodies. I got some cute stamps from Art Gone Wild, Inky Antics, and My Favorite Things. My most exciting purchase was some Gamsol spirits and blending stumps. These are used for coloring with regular colored pencils. In fact, that leads me to my card above. I used Prismacolor Colored pencils and blended with Gamsol and a stump. Isn't the color lovely? I love the look you get with this type of coloring. The colors are so vibrant and it really is a nice change from watercoloring. The stamp is not new. I've had it for awhile and it's from Art Gone Wild. This is one of their Rocker stamps, which I love. They are about the size of background stamps and you can cut out the center to make a frame to put a picture or in this case, make a shaker box. Cute, huh? I also used some adhesive rhinestone jewels for accents. They are from Amuse. I ordered them from Ellen Hutson's store online. I made this card for my MIL (she ordered a few cards from me) and she's giving this one to Chris' sister. She likes to put handmade cards in her scrapbooks so I thought this would be a cute addition to her book. Here's the recipe for the card:

Cardstock: real red, green galore, bashful blue, whisper white
Ink: prismacolor pencils
Accessories: window sheet, tag punches (both sizes), button, linen thread, adhesive rhinestones (Amuse), microbeads (for shaker)