NORMAL?

Well, I think I am recovered at last and back to as near normal as I will ever get. LOL! I hope I don't ever have that crud again. What is normal anyway? The older I become, the more I see and hear that there is no such thing as "normal". We all are so wonderfully and beautifully created by the Father, that He alone knows every hair on our head and everything about us. He made us to be unique and special and loved us enough to send His Son to die so we might be forgiven and saved. We are willful, stubborn human beings who forget we did not make ourselves. May He forgive us all for breaking the first commandment of not having any other Gods before Him.Our sins are evident by how we think, how we treat others and how we use our time. We all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of the Lord.

I wanted to make four cards today. HA! HA! HA! I have the stamps sitting out ready to use. I need to find the card stock and pick my challenges and colors and the rest. AND it is almost 1am. Best get busy. No I am not mad, just delusional sometimes. I often think I am going to accomplish a lot of tasks because I feel the weight and pressure of them sitting there to be done. And I usually do my usual...nothing! My excuse...I am retired, I am old and slow, and I am a bit lazy some days. Or as some card makers say, "I lost my Mo-Jo"! On the days I get some tasks done, I feel good and usually worn out. The mind is willing to be more active, but the flesh is weak!

I guess I have accomplished a few cards this past week, taking two classes a week apart. Shabby Chic class had four darker cards using a few new techniques. They used Hero Arts stamps, some paint daubers, some paper flowers colored to match and while I believe they are good looking cards, they just are not my faves. I do like the one with the ferns the best. I much prefer the brightness of the second class called "Colorful Creations". Both classes are at Archivers, a mainly scrap booking store that has items for card making too. They run specials like "buy 5 sheets of card stock, get 5 free" with the coupon. I try to take advantage of this because they have really nice card stock. With this class, we did a lot of Glimmer Mist spraying and we had to let everything dry in between. The card stock has a sheen to it, the panels were spreayed with one or two Glimmer Mist products. We sprayed the paper flowers with it also and all that had to dry. We did two 2 cards of each. One technique we stamped with Versa Mark, embossed with clear emboss powder, heat set, and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The embossing area did not absorb the Glimmer Mist and we patted it dry and trimmed the excess away from the panels. Two of the stamps done this way were the Hero Arts Butterfly Fields nad Wildflower Bouquet. These are cling stamps and what is different is that they are a flat piece of rubber with the design etched out, a silhouette stamp. They are very unique and I can't wait to try them in my own card ideas. The other two stamps are clear stamps and the saying was stamped with Versa mark, embossed with clear and heat set. We then sprayed them with Glimmer Mist, patted it dry with paper toweling, and the saying shows white through the "mist". We hadded a stamped watercolor paper panel which when the stamp was inked with Tim Holtz distress ink and sprayed with iridescent Glimmer Mist, gives a very watercolor look to the image. I won't go into any more description, but you can figure out which is which. I have posted all 8 cards from these two classes. The last four are from Shabby Chic. the first four bright colored cards are from Colorful Creations.

The best thing about classes, is I don't have to think...just follow directions! LOL!