Hang in there.....

Today, I've created a card for my cousin's one year old son, Grady. He's been suffering from a sinus infection for several weeks (or so they thought), that ended up affecting one of his eyes, causing it to swell and turn bloody. After some testing, and more tests to be run this week, the doctors are still unclear as to what his problem really is. He's got a tumor behind his eye that will be biopsied this week, and he'll also have a bone marrow scan. I just feel horrible for the little guy. He's such a cutie, and has such a good attitude all the time. Please, find it in your heart to say a prayer for little Grady, we'd really appreciate it.
In the meantime, here is a card I'm sending him:
This cute little monkey fits Grady's personality, all adorable like him. This card uses the sketch from the Stamping 411 site. I turned it on it's side, and opted for buttons instead of a ribbon since my card was for a boy. The background patterned paper is from the Sweet Pea Paper pack. There are so many awesome papers in this pack of paper, and it truly is a steal!

I hand wrote the sentiment. Wish I had a stamp that said that..... The leaves/branches are from the Two Step Bird punch. I used a two way glue pen to glue them down. The branch that the monkey hangs from, I didn't glue the center down, so that I could hang the monkey. The body of the monkey is popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by, and please pray for Grady!

I should have napped....

Do you ever feel like you should have just sucked it up an taken a nap? I love a good nap in the afternoon when the boys take their naps, and today, I should have listened to my body and laid down. You see, I got some much awaited new stamps today. I was stalking the door waiting for the UPS man to show up. And he came thru, and, well I was SO excited to get to play with them. One that I was waiting for is the new dot, dot, dot stamp. This is a single stamp, and is quite a bit bigger than what it shows in the Occasions Mini. I knew it wasnt' going to go all the way across a card without using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig. I broke that out (another reason I like those clear mount stamps!!!), and then I struggled. I typically like to use vellum cardstock instead of the imaging sheet b/c I can then keep that vellum with the stamp, and not have to re-do the imaging sheet. So, I stamped it onto vellum, and that was all fine and dandy. But once I went to line up my images side by side on the card front, I just COULD NOT get it to line up! That just means I needed to figure it out, and decided to document my progress, so you can be in the know... first, I marked the corner of the vellum that was going into the corner of the SAMJ.

Then I marked my wood block also. This tells me which corner of the block goes into the corner of my SAMJ.

Then, because of the row placement of the polka dots, I had to turn my vellum image to fit on the card the best. The way the polka dots line up if you don't turn the stamp just right, well, it won't line up...period. You'll end up with 2 rows of dots that are exactly the same instead of off center....hope you can see what I mean....and trust me....I know from experience!~!!

So, where the arrows on your vellum imaging sheet are, is where the arrows need to go on your block.

Then, once your ink is good and dry ( I used Close to Cocoa Craft Ink here, so heat set it), then place your imaging sheet over the already stamped image and line up (see yellow arrow below):

Make sure you note where your direction arrows are on the vellum, and keep your stamp going the same way. You'll end up with a perfectly aligned polka dot border:

And while these directions are a bit lengthy, it's not that bad once you get it going. My hard part was I moved my vellum after I stamped it and before I put direction arrows on it. Trying to figure out which way was up was a bit of a challenge for me.....

Well, all of this does lead up to a super cute card!

The base is Melon Mambo, with that Close to Cocoa polka dot border (which really adds to this card I must say!) I stamped the cute little fox (from Fox & Friends) in Choc. Chip, then cut him (or her) out and popped up off the card. The hearts are all punched with the Heart to Heart punch and patterned paper from the Welcome Neighbor Sale-A-Bration paper pack. The sentiment is from the new hostess set in the mini - Picture This - I just left of the "friend" portion. The ribbon is Choc. Chip satin, and yes, you do see that adorable Pinking Hearts border punch!!!! Cute - eh?

So, tell me what you think - does the little tutorial help? What do you think of my card? Inquiring minds want to know!