A Rare Bird ... And if You Scroll Down, a More Well-defined Bird

Here's my take on this week's A Sketch for You to Try from the i {heart} to stamp blog. The only thing that you can't see in the photo is the dimension. The focal point image and the bird's wing and tail are mounted to the card using foam tape.

Materials & Tools: Colonial and Cocoa cardstock; Emporium paper packet; Buttercup, Barn Red, Cocoa, and Honey ink pads; Honey marker; Bird Basics and Impression Obsession Anytime Messages stamp sets; Acrylic Disks from Michael's; Black My Legacy Writer; 3M foam mounting tape.

I fell asleep before 8 p.m. last night, long before Marv and the boys came upstairs from playing George of the Jungle on Wii. I was up and making my first pot of coffee at 4:15 this morning. What I did with the four-plus hours before the rest of the household surfaced was plan my "new" den.

I don't know how detailed I've been in the past with regard to the room I spend nearly all my non-working waking hours. It's dimensions are 9-1/2 by 17. Currently, it contains a large futon, a television armoire, two desks, two desk chairs, a file cabinet, and four bookcases. The way it is set up now, with two tall bookcases serving as a room divider, it's not as bad it sounds. Nevertheless, it's tight, especially Kathi's Corner.

My plan includes getting rid of everything that is in here with the exception the bookcase that holds my books. I found the perfect double-desk set up on IKEA's website, a Papasan chair and ottoman on Pier 1's website, shelving, standards, and brackets on Lowe's website, and a flat-panel TV on Sharp's website, which I can buy under the employee discount program (the business I work for is a distributor for Sharp). The best part of my entire plan is the fact that it doesn't add up to $1,000. Now, I just need to make a trip to Grand Forks to go to Lowe's and Pier 1 and arrange for a trucker friend to make a trip to IKEA on my behalf when he makes a run that goes through the Twin Cities. I'm getting long here, but I'm so darned excited. While I like small-space living, I'm not crazy about tight-space living, which is what my little den has become.

That's enough jabber for now. Nice mom that I am, I have Cameron and the boys' laundry to do this afternoon. I need to put my house back in order, too. Sweet as they are, Bjorn and Mathias are messy little characters. I've got a little "copy-cat" project going, too, that I'll show you later. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the afternoon!

Late afternoon edit: I hate making crappy cards, and this one didn't do it for me. Looking at it occasionally throughout the day, I realized a little Bamboo ink around the edges image might have helped. Too late. Taking a sponge dauber to the finished card would have done nothing more than create a mess that would have ended up in the trash. Instead I used a My Legacy Writer to go around the edges. Better. The Buttercup bird on the Colonial White cardstock was still lookin' a little sick. My Honey ink pad still out on my desk, I grabbed by blending pen and gave her a little more color. Much better! Later ...