hometown pride

I'm not sure if you know or not but Todd and I really like Thomas Kinkade's paintings. Todd loves the lighthouses and my favorites are Forest Chapel and Sunrise. We even invested in a Gallery Proof, with Mr. Kinkade's signature on the back, of Victorian Light. HERE is what it looks like. Anyway, all that to tell you that when Cornish Heritage Farms said they were coming out with Thomas Kinkade stamps I was thrilled! They are individual little pieces of art. While they are a bit difficult to color with all the detail I still love them anyway. I just recently purchased the newest stamp called Hometown Pride. I decided to try a sepia look with it the first time prior to coloring it as I had seen seen in a couple of the sneak peeks. All of it is brown except for the red stripes in the flag. I just thought that was stunning. I used Palette Burnt Umber for my brown ink and then my red COPIC on the flag and that was it. I have found that if you ink up the stamp then lay your card stock on it and roll it with a roller it inks better for me. I used CHF's new Clear Cards thick transparency crafting sheets for the base. The image is on one side and the red layer is on the other. Make sense? That way no one sees the adhesive I used. Oh, yeah..the thick transparency sheets are not very forgiving with taking off the card stock and placing it again so you have to be really ready to put that card stock down! I wasn't sure if adding embellishments would make this card look any better or not and honestly I didn't know what I would use if I added any so I've left it like this. If you have any ideas though let me know. I'll not be changing this specific card but for future purposes I would like to know what you think. So, this will be off to my brother for his birthday next week. I sure hope he likes it!

Just a reminder that the due date for the image swap is rapidly approaching and, in fact, are due on Tuesday. If you don't have them in the mail you should do it today or tomorrow for sure. HERE is a link to that thread. If you need my address just e-mail me and please don't forget to include an envelope so that I can return your swaps to you. If you aren't going to be able to get your images out just let me know.

It is a cloudy, rainy day here...blah! But, it goes well with my plan to do a movie marathon with the kids. We have several "series" of movies like Star Wars, The Love Bug, Back to the Future and I thought it would be fun to take a day and watch one of those series. We'll see what they think! It is now 8 a.m. and I need to get to my exercising soon so I'm signing off for today. Have a super Friday and I'll "see" you tomorrow!