Longing for a Sense of Satisfaction and my own Summer Swirl!!!!

I think this Magnolia stamp of Tilda in a Summer Swirl is sooooo beautiful...for right now, it is my favourite stamp. (If you have a favourite stamp make sure you let Ila know....she has birthday blog candy available on her site.) It makes me long for that feeling of being enveloped in a warm summer breeze. Well, I will feel that wonderful sensation soon enough!!! Not long now before we leave for Florida and I get to go to the happiest place on earth, Disney World. For me, Disney World, is my bliss.

I made these cards over the course of the week, doing a little bit here and there. I am very happy with how they turned out. I think my colouring and shading technique with the Copics is coming along. I have really tried to put Claudia's fantastic tips and instructions from here Copic tutorial into practice and incorporate Ila's great colouring tips from her tutorial too. I know she works in a different medium but I found her shading instructions very useful!! I also, found really great Copic info here and here. Again, more great instructions on using your Copic markers. The best tip is how to use your colourless blender marker as an eraser, for those times that the ink "migrates" beyond the lines of the image. Maybe, the expert Copic marker users out there already knew about this great tip, but it was new info for me and very helpful!

When I was assembling these cards last night, I had a bit of a cardmaking emergency, smile! Don't worry, I didn't call 911, instead I just made a mad-
dash to my good friends, Charlene and Jackie's, store, The Scrapbook Academy, which is like 3 mins from my house and picked up some adhesive, phew!!! While I was there, I saw that the shipment of MFT stamps arrived. I wonder who told them about these fantastic stamps...uuummm...gee....Well, that would be ME, of course!!! So, I bought some adhesive and the Sassy Sayings Sentiment set, YAY!!!!


So, for these cards I stamped the Tilda in a Summer Swirls stamp on Wausau bright white cardstock using Archival Brilliance Graphite Black ink and coloured her in with my Copics. The base is Bazzill brown cardstock and the pp is from BG 6X6 Sugared paper pad. I found the perfect little embellishment to go with this stamp. These cute Hydrangea flowers, they are Martha Stewart punches (two different punches) that I got at Michael's. I thought they were such a perfect match to the little flowers floating around Tilda. I added Stickles to her wings and some flowers and Sakura stardust pen. The ribbon is from American Craft and the photo corner is a QK die. The sentiment "follow your bliss" is from the MFT Sassy sayings set. I stamped it on a tag made with a QK die and the sentiment "hugs to you" is from one of those Studio G sets that I got a Micheal's for $1.50....love it!!!

Thanks for having a peek at my cards. I want to thank everyone for leaving such inspirational comments on my blog. Hugs to you all! It is so nice to read them and to get that feedback and encouragement! Recently, I was reading an article by Stacey Julian in the May/June issue of Simple Scrapbooks. She was talking about how scrapbooking (insert stamping/cardmaking) can give us a real sense of satisfaction in our lives. Her words really struck a cord with me, it was such a powerful statement that I would like to share it with you, she said, "I am convinced that scrapbooking can bring this same sense of satisfaction into our lives all year round if we choose to concentrate on the heart of what we do. Really. If we focus on commemorating the people we love on our pages, if we remember that the look of our layouts is secondary to the feel of our layouts, and if we interact with fellow scrapbookers in ways that emphasize cooperation over competition and sharing over showcasing--then I think we can carry feelings of peace and well-being with us all year long. (I know I am trying to.)" Me too, Stacey, me too!

Thanks for stopping by...I may not post again until I return from Mickey land! Later,