Homerun Birthday!

My family is wrapping up a wonderful weekend of laughter and fun as we celebrate my dad's birthday! It started with a very fancy and delicious dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours with the best seafood ever! Yesterday, we enjoyed a rare victory by our beloved but embattled Cleveland Indians and lots of yummy ballpark food and fun. Afterward, it was time to blow out the candles and open cards & prezzies. And that's what I'd like to share with you today - my card for Dad.

I just love this simple baseball player stamp from Amuse. I tried a new-to-me technique with the Copics and love how it turned out! I used circle nesties to highlight the image to prevent it getting lost against the strong pattern paper and to keep with the baseball theme, and added a banner using part of an old SU sentiment. I sponged the edges with Night of Navy ink and think the glue dots and some gently rolling of the paper gives the impression of a banner flitting in the wind. Coordinating brown ribbon and my last 2 antique gold brads (pout & add to shopping list) provide an anchor and tie the banner to the image. Inside, I wished my dad a "birthday that's a real homerun" and just had to add a little baseball embellie that I tried to place so it looked like it was on it's way over the outfield fence. :)

I feel so blessed to have shared such a special life and a special weekend with my dad. I strive to cherish every moment with him and the rest of my family, and I wish you the same opportunity to truly savor every moment with those you love.

Have a joyous Sunday!

TFL & Hugs,

Happy Birthday, Dad!

ETA: Here's the card!

My dad is 61 years young today! We're celebrating with a very fancy dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, and of course, my mom's homemade chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting - yum-yum!!!
I had a fun time making his card last night (yes, I'm always stamping at the last minute), and will share it with you later tonight or over the weekend.
Have a great weekend!!!!

Feathers from Emily

As some of you know, my dad was recently diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately, it is a very slow progressing form of leukemia, and he is under the care of one of the foremost experts in the country at Ohio State, which is only 2 hours away. His prognosis is extremely good, but in the beginning, I'm sure you can understand that I was scared and a little freaked out (although I hid it very well). Since reading my first Emily Dickinson poem as a college freshman, I have loved her. Her distinctive use of punctuation, her word selection, her great ability to immediately set a mood and draw a scene, have always drawn me to her. As corny as it sounds, I think Emily and I would have been great friends if we had lived in the same times. Sadly, I haven't read her lately, and so it surprised me that her words came so instantly to me during my saddest and most frightened times after first learning of my father's condition. This stanza is now my mantra whenever I get scared or worried about my dad:

"Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all."




So, that's the inspiration behind this card. The main image is from Birds Galore by Inkadinkado, first stamped with clear embossing ink and Powder Keg's Black Sparkle EP, then repeatedly heated and layered with regular detail black EP, to build up the image. I like that it isn't a perfect image and that it has depth (more visible in person). The poetry is printed onto CTMH self-adhesive vellum, and heat set (learned that from trial and error), and then adhered to a scrap of cardstock matching the card base. The pattern paper is from My Mind's Eye Magnolia collection (a huge 12x12 stack), which I picked up on special during National Scrapbooking Day from Archivers. Photo corners are punched from black cardstock using the SU! punch (these are the larger size ones), and the brads are SU! Hodgepodge Hardware in Pewter. "Hope" is stamped using a clear alphabet from Impression Obsession. I was really happy with the fuzzy effect. I think hope is like that - similar to faith - sometimes stronger than others, but always there, even if you can't see it clearly or grasp it firmly.