Big Guy Grills

A beautiful day is shaping up here in Ontario. This time of the year I'm torn between puttering in the garden, walking/hiking/biking, or creating art. So, normally I try to do it all leaving the art therapy for after supper. Yeah, I'm one of those who try to fit as much into one day as I can. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, so live for the day! I've always had this outlook but even more so after having and surviving brain surgery that I pretty much had to talk the neurosurgeon into doing. It was so risky he thought I might want to just live with the pain instead of taking a chance of having a major stroke during surgery and being left a human vegetable. God guided his hands for sure that day and I enjoy every day on this earth in return.

One of the best things I enjoy is making cards. This week's challenge over at the Stampin' Bella blog was to make a masculine card. These are always a challenge but I picked up this Bella stamp and it fits the bill nicely.

I think this stamp is actually called The Big Guy Grills, by Mo Manning. Love her stamps and Bella just released some new ones this week.

I made a green card base and then added the striped background. The image was coloured with Prismacolor pencils (I always want to type Prismacolour because that's how Canadians spell it) and gamsol. The blue sky and most of the grass is chalk. I prefer the chalk for sky - much softer look. When I laid the coloured image on the piece of green cardstock I decided it needed a dark layer in between. The only dark piece I had left over was not quite big enough to work so I just cut a square in half and added each one to opposite corners, then added it to the medium green piece. I think it worked out OK. There was still one little piece of green so I cut a strip, notched the end, added a masculine looking brad and the tiny sentiment (peel and stick) and assembled the whole thing. I pretty much always finish each piece and assemble them without gluing anything down until I'm confident that the entire piece will work the way I imagined it. I suppose it's because I seldom use sketches unless the challenge calls for it.

OK, I'm ready for the weekend now!