And in honor of my blogging birthday.....

I have had such a fun week! My dear friend Susan Mostek came to play one day. Oh! Did we have fun! She showed me how to make her fabulous "pull cards" and if you want to learn the mechanics of these, you can take one of her upcoming classes at Stamping Details in Poway, CA. Or watch for classes at Your Crop Shop.com.

Susan is such an inspiration to me. Not only is her art beyond amazing....she is a giggler. And once she starts to giggle (or sometimes even just the thought that she might start to giggle) sends me into a fit of laughter. Oh! It is just sooooo good to laugh!!! And when you can spend a day laughing and giggling with someone who laughs and giggles right back - well - what can I say? Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!

Susan is also a very patient teacher - which is quite good when it comes to me! After showing me how to make the card, I decided to add a few elements to mine. I used a new cuttlebug embossing folder to emboss the dove. Next I combined parts of Spellbinders snowflake die covered in Diamond dust with snowflakes from Creative Impressions. They really do glitter and shimmer in real life!



When you pull on the ribbon to the right, both the right and left inside cards pull out. How fun is this?



Yep, I've moved away from seashells and jewelry and back to airbrushing white cardstock that I ran through another cuttlebug embossing folder. Then used the copic marker to color a few of the snowflakes. Added glitter to a few and then added my sentiments which were printed on cardstock.



And added a few rhinestones. The snowflake brad is from Creative Impressions and I used the airbrush to get matching colors and then added glitter on top of that. All closed up, this card measures about 5 1/2" x 3 1/2" and when you open it, it goes to almost 14" long!



After Susan went home, I decided to try and come up with the measurements to do this as an ATC sized card so I could put it in my ATC rounder with all my other Creative Technique Cards. Oh! How fun!!! I simply used leftover scraps of paper for this one. The angel is done in white shrink plastic that I colored with watercolor pencils and 14K gold krylon pen. Lots of gold metallic on this piece with turquoise rhinestones.



So, this is just 3.5" x 2.5" and when you pull it out, the length is 8.5". But I wanted to show here that you can pull it out just a little, not all the way, and get yet a different look:



Don't you just love this paper? Gold embossed designs, such a good variety of cuts from it!



Let your imagination take flight.....



May everything in life be just right!!!



What a perfect sentiment to start my second year of blogging with! And truly, my wish for each of you in the year to come!!!