RAK's and an Award

A wonderfully talented and special lady........Lee........has awarded me a VERY cool and awesome award!!! It is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogging world. Here are the rules:
1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

So in keeping with the rules, I am awarding this to my pals

1. Laura(she just got named to the Verve Visual design team, woohoo!!)

2. Carolina(she is so super sweet and talented!!)

3. Chat(she is AMAZINGLY talented and sweet to boot)

4. Linsey(one of the most supportive and sweet people I know)

5. Lee(cause you rock, what can I say!!)

6. Silke(I love her style and her fabulous use of color)

7. Lesa(she is my pal, and fellow guest designer for good reason, she ROCKS!!)

Well, now that we have established that I can't count(since when does 5=7??), onto my RAKS!! The first one comes from my pal Lesa. It is from the Bella swap hosted on the Paper Pretties forum. Isn't she cute!! I think I need to send this one to Lee!! Lesa is also one of the new guest designers with me at Paper Pretties and I am so excited to see what she comes up with!! I know it will be fun though!!! She is also the one of the reasons I got talked into going to Texas for a shoebox swap!! I am going to go see my brother while I am there too, but I am also excited to get to meet some of my stamping idols!! Truth be told, she is the reason why I went to the Paper Pretties release party, so without her, I wouldn't be guest designer!!

The second one comes from Christie Ortman, who hand picked me to be a guest designer and completely rocks my world!! Her coloring on this is UNBELIEVABLE!! The colors are so bright and vibrant, you should see it in person!! When I recieved Christie's email about being one of her guest designers, I was overjoyed. I had just talked to my mom that day about trying out for guest designer spots, so when I got her email, it felt so good!! It made me think about one(or many) of the Oprah shows where they talk about sending positive energy out into the world to get what you want. Maybe they are onto something!!

Last, is from Charmaine thanking me for sending her a card and for her MIL. Isn't it fabulous!! She is so incredibly talented and such a gifted stamper. I go to her blog daily for inspiration!! She has such a fun style, and is so talented it isn't any wonder so many people want her on their design teams!!

Well, that is all for now, thanks for looking and have a great day!!

Time for a Sketch

The first time I saw this little( and I do mean little, it is so tiny)bench on one of Beate's cards, I knew I had to have it. I tried to be strong and not order it, then Jodi(kharmagirl) and Carolina(craftycaro) posted the cutest cards with the bicycle from this set. I was hooked!! I immediately went to buy it, and as soon as I received it got it all mounted up and ready to use. That was weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to use it. Do any of you have that problem? Do you get to the point where you have so many options, it is hard to narrow down what you want to use. I think I tried 4 different versions of this sketch, before this card popped in my head( and thank goodness it did when it did, because I was about to give up and go to bed)!! I stamped the bench(tiny tiny) on a piece of Whisper White and colored it in with my SU markers and ink pads. I used my aquapainter to blend it, and then outlined the main image with a prismacolor cool grey marker. The paper is Afternoon Tea by SU and it is paired with Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke, and Groovy Guava. I sponged all the edges with Chocolate Chip to soften it up. Me being me, I put silver brads all over it!! I used some of my beloved Chocolate Chip satin ribbon, since someone so generously pointed out to me that they have it in one of the SU ribbon original packs(it's sad that someone had to tell me that, I am a demo ya know). Well, that is it for now!! Thanks for looking and have a great day and remember, if you want to send Leanna an RAK, just email me or check out the Need a Lift forum on SCS!!

stamps-All Holidays and Time for You

paper- Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke, Groovy Guava, Whisper White and Afternoon Tea DSP

ink-Black Stazon and Chocolate Chip

tools-stylized silver hardware, aquapainter, SU markers, prismacolor marker, chocolate chip satin ribbon