Catching up.....

What a week!!  Lots going on.  And looking forward to the coming week.

First I'd like to share the card I've created for the current Papertrey Playhouse challenge.  Thankfully Lou was able to jump in on short notice when I wasn't able to post.  I was out of town - more on that later.

PTI had a whole series of stamps they came out with last year - Year of Flowers - that culminated with the Dec images.  Poinsettia's have always been a favorite of mine and when I saw the images, and especially when I saw the DT projects, I HAD to have the set.  I'm finally getting a chance to play with it thanks to Lou's challenge.  I went back to the original projects that I'd loved to create this card.  Dawn's card was a favorite with the music background and Nikki's simple design and beautiful coloring wouldn't leave my mind.  Here's my version.

This coloring was especially fun.  I looked up images of poinsettia's to use and found a great shot of a beautiful mixed color plant here.  It was hard to pick just one!  But I used the first image for my inspiration.  Lots of colorless blender, a few reds, Music Impression Plate and some fussy cutting and it was practically done.

Mel really liked it.  Asked if it was our Christmas card for this year.  Only if I manage to color 2 or more a week for the next few months!  I just can't be ok with coloring one and copying it.  I just don't think they look the same.  *sigh*

The other stuff that's been going on:
- A fast trip to Vegas to hang with Sara Mayes - one of the coolest, most interesting people I've been lucky to know.  She was there for RollerCon.
- I'm looking into joining roller derby.  Just being around it so briefly was nearly electrifying!  I'm going to expect everyone to come out to my matches once I start!
- I'm so glad that I met Officer Perea on Thursday rather than Wednesday this past week.  As I mentioned before, when you don't think about something it doesn't happen but when you do, you're doomed to have it occur.
- Additional proof: Wed on my way to Vegas was done top down and generally at speeds over 90 with a top of 120.  (That was when I was passing only.  I swear!!)  I made it in record time - only 4 hours.  Thursday's return trip had the top up (I decided that more sun on my sunburn from the day prior was a bad idea) and the cruise set just under 85.  I was driving much more sedately than my stupidity of Wednesday.  Lost in thought and not paying attention, outside of Kingman he was hiding in some bushes.  Sure enough he pulled out and shortly thereafter hit the lights behind me.  *sigh*  Somehow, miraculously, he just gave me a warning.  If Mel hadn't been mentioning getting a ticket every single time I talked to him on Thurs I'm sure it would have happened.
- Besides the close call with Officer Perea, the colors in the sky as I was approaching Wickenberg were just AMAZING!!  I wish I'd had my camera so I could have tried to capture them.  And I saw two of them most interesting & unusual rainbows in my life.  One was almost like there was a hole torn in the clouds and the rainbow was just peeking thru.