Happy 4th of July!

Well, actually happy 3rd of July but for once I'm early! I made this card totally out of scraps and scraps I didn't even trim to boot! Just grabbed them out of my stash and used them as is. I wanted to force myself to not over think each element of the card. I'm not saying it's the best layout, but it was fun to doing it this way for a change. The "Celebrate" sentiment came from All About U. The candles are from the hostess set Older & Wiser and the stars are from Tagger's Dozen. All these sets are retired or about to be! Yikes! I hate when that happens! Anyway, I hope you find time to enjoy your 4th. My family will be cooking out at my brother's place and then watching fireworks from his deck at dusk. Bonus, my husband will be home! His plans changed yesterday! Yeah! He was supposed to be in Omaha. I'm very happy about it, he's been working pretty hard lately.

Loads of Love Birthday

I don't have a lot going on this week, so I may be posting quite a few things. I chose Loads of Love today because I needed an image to water color. I've done a little watercoloring in the past but I always was frustrated with the results. I had read on Julie's site, Paper Pleasing Ideas that water color paper does not show the brush strokes from markers. It's true!!! I am thrilled with the results!!! I didn't completely fill in my image, I tried my hand at shading, then I went back with my blender pens and pulled the ink into areas I had not colored. I know when I first started stamping I hated the idea of coloring an image. I wanted things to be quick and easy! Now, I really enjoy coloring. Think of how much fun you had coloring when you were young and enjoy the process!!! It really doesn't take that much time and what a difference it makes in your card. The sentiment comes from Birthday Whimsy and the candles in the back of the truck are from Tagger's Dozen.