Shawnee National Forest

Shawnee Forest Bigfoot

A few months ago one of my Facebook friends posted a pic of the Shawnee Forest Bigfoot.  I thought I have to plant a box there.  I got the box ready but never made it over to plant it.

Last week some of my kids were on Fall Break and we took advantage of the time off and nice weather to go over and play.  We hiked, climbed, and hid two letterboxes.

I hoped the leaves would have been more colorful but the weather was beautiful.  The kids really love climbing all over the rocks.  There were more people there than I thought there would be.  I guess a lot of kids were on break.

Kids at Garden of the Gods

It would be nice if it was closer to home.  I thought it was an hour away but it is an hour and a half.  And of course my kids can't sit that long without trying to kill each other.  We got almost there and I had to move the kids around.

I hope we can go camping over there sometime soon.  Maybe we can talk everyone into going there Mother's Day weekend :)

Steampunk LTC

Card supplies / my messy desk 

This is my card for Housepitality Hostess's "STEAMPUNK Top Hats & Mustaches."  It doesn't have any hats or mustaches.  Don't tell HH, maybe she won't notice ;)

I really enjoyed making my card.  I started off stamping a text stamp on card stock with tan ink.  Then I rubbed two different brown distress inks and black ink over the text.  I also sprayed the background with Tattered Angels gold spray.

STEAMPUNK: Ladybug

Then I stamped the light and gear stamps on.  I wanted to emboss these but some of the detail was lost when I tried it so I just stamped them.  It was fun to play with these cling stamps :)

I stamped my ladybug on a dark red and roughed the edge with the grey/red circle thing in the first pic.  Then I put the screw like brads on the red paper.  The ladybug was attached to the background which was glued to the same dark red as the ladybug.

I thought about stamping a mustache on the back but didn't.  I like my cards.  But I have a feeling that the others will be cooler.

LTC Tea Party

These are my cards for Wise Wanderer's "LTC Tea Party" swap.  I really enjoyed making them.  My card is called, "Teapot House."

I used this background technique before and decided to do it again.  I had some of it leftover from the first time and used it on a few cards.

For these cards, I used Watercolor paper.  I sprayed the paper with water, then Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, and you wrinkle up some plastic wrap and press it onto the paper.  I love the wrinkle effect and the gold that is left on the paper when they dry.

When they are dry you remove the plastic wrap and cut the cards to size.  I wanted to add a doily to my card but didn't want to hide the background that I loved.  I found this Tim Holtz stencil and spread Texture Paste on it and let it dry.  I liked it but I wanted to add some color.

Once the Texture Paste was dry I daubed some gold ink on the doily area.  I liked it but I probably should have pulled some of the paste out of the jar, added some gold paint, and then smeared it through the stencil.  I also rubbed some of the gold ink around the edge of the card.

LTC Tea Party: Teapot House

Then I stamped, cut out my stamp image, and glued it on with a glue stick.  I discussed with Daddy's Favorite Princess if I should color parts of the teapot.  She said that it looked best plain.  So I left it at that.  I should have carved my stamp a little smaller but I think they look great.