A Sweet Hello and a small update...

Hey all, thanks for stopping by to see me and my creations again. As you can see, I was not only busy making cards over the last few months, I've also been super busy with my blog posts. I had been seriously neglecting my blog because most of the time, I just didn't have time to update after making stuff, or I just didn't feel like.

I've been on and off my psych meds, mostly off, for the past year since Moving back to Vegas from Kentucky. It was a pretty stressful move, we actually left Kentucky and took us, our furbabies and all our stuff on a very long (but beautiful) trip further up the East coast through the Adirondacks and up to Vermont. Unforeseen circumstances arose and we had to leave Vermont to come to Vegas. Needless to say, neither hubby nor I were very happy about that, Vegas was the last place we ever thought we'd move back to, for any reason! Vermont was absolutely gorgeous, the weather was AMAZING and our close friend was there.
But, we are here... ever since we got here, it's been nothing but a fight with the system and the doctors. The mental health system here really sucks. I've been fighting with them for a whole year, yes, a year this month, to get in for med treatment and counseling. Being bipolar is hard, but even more difficult when I live to live with the stress and voices and such and deal with all the anxiety and not get any help for it, especially when I WANT and NEED the help.

Crafting really is my ONLY outlet for my stress and frustration. it takes me to a place where I can be free to express myself, whereas I can't do that in my everyday life, because well, let's just say I'd probably get locked up a lot more than I do. :-/

Anyhow, after a year of fighting with mental health, and after them involuntarily putting me in the hospital the first time I got in with them, I finally got in with them again, and am now on new psych meds.
Not on what I was on before, but on 3 new meds, so hopefully this combo will start helping soon. It's been a week since I started on them. and I can't wait for them to start working.

Anyhow, here is a CARD update. I had a really fun time making these, so here is a sneak peek, click below to see the full cards. I made 3 of the same layout, just different colors...

So, the previous pic was the inside of the cards, so cute, huh?

here is the Front of the cards...

I used 2 different stamp sets, a border punch and 2 different nestibilities sets.

 For the far background Image, I used the extra large Cherry Blossom background stamp from the Fiskars "Asian Inspired" 8x8 set. I stamped it in Versamark and then used clear embossing powder over it.
I did the same thing for the middle strip, but using the Bamboo Cluster stamp from the same set, and again, heat embossing in clear.

The bird image is from the Inkadinkado "Nostalgia" set. The above bird was heat embossed in stampendous! "Red Dragon" glittered embossing powder, and the bird below was stamped in CTMH "Cranberry" embossing powder.

 I did this below bird in Silver embossing powder, and again, like the above 2 cards, I heat embossed the background and the middle strip in clear embossing powder.
I used the SU! Eyelet border punch, I thought it looked really pretty with this layout.
The circle was a nestibilities as was the scalloped circle.

 a 2nd look at the inside, I used the flower cluster from the same Fiskars set and the "hello sweet friend" from the SU! "Six Sided Sampler" set.

I think this set of cards came out REALLY beautiful. I am totally into all the asian look and colors that mesh well together. I really like the Geisha culture and what the women represent. I've studied the Geisha life and culture by reading many books and watching documentaries.
The women are so beautiful, and I hope that my cards matched their beauty and grace!

Thanks for stopping by to look, be sure to come back again soon.

Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie