The Outlawz Friday Coloring 'Anything Goes/Christmas Twist' Challenge

Good day to you all. Hope you have had a nice, relaxing week. Somebody needed to. We certainly didn't at our house. Pfffffffft!

Let me 'splain. Our darling dog, Donovan, who has never cost us one thin dime in vet bills--true, it has been thousands of dollars, but not simply a dime--needed to get his annual dental work done. So we took him in last Friday to get his teeth cleaned. He also had a small, hard growth on the top of his head. At first I thought it was just his brains leaking out, but then I decided we probably needed to find out what the lump was. So, for a mere $400+ additional, we had it removed and biopsied. The really, really good news is that the growth was benign. 

However, the really, really bad news is that he has had to wear a plastic collar for the past week. And will need it until Monday. Now I don't know about your pets, but mine is none too crazy about his collar. Ahem. You know that's putting it mildly, right? Yeah, he simply will. not. move. while wearing it. Just sits in one spot. Which is a problem for going outside to go potty, or even eating his food, for that matter. So we removed it for potty breaks and meals. And, if looks could kill, I would have been deader than a doornail the first time I put that collar back on him. So, rather than have him shooting invisible arrows at me, and acting like a ticked-off statue, I have let him go collarless during the day. I still make him wear the collar at night on our bed, because he doesn't need to move much while he is sleeping, and I don't have to worry about him hurting his incision.

BUT. The time that he is collar-free has been a pain in the patoot for Gary and me. Because we pretty much have to have Donovan next to one of us at all times. Otherwise, he tries to kick at his head or rub it on the floor or furniture. I am sure it itches. A lot. Too bad. Mostly for us. And here is the kicker. I want to you feel especially sorry for me now. Because this was Arizona Restaurant Week. Yup. We had plans to visit at least four different places that we had never been to. And taste some mighty fine food as we always do during these weeks. Donovan made that impossible. We couldn't very well leave him home with his collar on. We are not that heartless. (Well, at least Gary isn't.) And he couldn't be left alone without the collar on. So we have not had one single meal at a participating restaurant for Restaurant Week. Big, heavy sigh...

We are going to manage one restaurant visit on Sunday night after the Cardinals game. In which they'd best beat the 49ers. Merrilyn is taking Don for the day and night, so that we can have some fun time without worrying about him. Then we'll pick him up on Monday to take him to get his sutures out. So we should have a very fine day on Sunday. (Unless, of course, the Cardinals lose. Bite my tongue!)

That reminds me. I am sorry dear Shelly that our Cardinals trounced your Bears. Sorry for you. Gleeful for me. Which makes me not a very nice friend. I apologize. Sorta. (KWIM?)

Gary got notified yesterday that our new iPhones will be at our Verizon store after 4:30 p.m. today. Not sure how we will get them with our DOG being in a collar and all, but we will figure it out. Perhaps we will take him along, and one of us will stay in the car with him while the other one goes in and gets their phone, and then vice versa. Gosh, pets can surely complicate your lives, can't they? Kind of like husbands. Snicker...

Before I go, I should probably get to my card details. Ya think?

We are sponsored once again this month by Norma J. Burnell Fairy Tangles Art. She has such a wonderful selection of beautiful images. I actually used mine this week. She is called The Gift. Isn't she pretty? Norma is giving a prize of three digis to our lucky winner. So get your entries in for a chance at them! 

I printed the image on X-Press It BC and colored it with my Copics:

Skin: E000, E01, E11

Shirt: G000, BG32, BG34

Other colors used: YG91, YG93, YG95, YG97, E70, E71, E74, E79, R02, R05, R08, Y38

My DP is from the Basic Grey Aspen Frost collection. It was paired with Stamping' Up CS. I made the die cuts using Cheery Lynn Pine Branches. And that's it for this edition. Another Christmas card done--YAY!!!

Do check out the fab creations by my talented teammates: Carla, Kathi, and Vanessa. Then please play along with us--remember, it's anything goes, and you can use any medium you'd like for your hand-colored image on your project.

Have a wonderful weekend! Go Cards! 

The Outlawz Friday Coloring 'Color/Photo Inspiration' Challenge

Good Friday, All! I am truly excited to be able to post this today, as I have created it on my new iMac! I must say that this did not go smoothly. Not. at. all. But, between Gary and I, half of a brain managed to figure out how to work with the Apple bits and bobs to add photos and images. Whew! And I am slowly managing the new keyboard. I was used to typing on an ergonomic one, so this one was a little tricky for me at first. But I am now back to my usual number of typos, so I think I will stick with the new one. At least the keys still show the letters and numbers, which were worn off of my old keyboard.

Hopefully, this quarter of a brain will remember how to do this next week as well, so that it will come together more easily. I am not asking for much, am I? Don't answer that. Please.

Hey, the really good news is that we did get the new computer. In all its glory. Wow. I told Merrilyn that I couldn't believe how powerful this baby is. It does just about everything but cook dinner. And, if it could do that, I wouldn't need Gary's other quarter of a brain. (We used to have whole brains, but that was before the age of 50. And, after the age of 60, the half-brains turned into quarter-brains. I don't want to know what happens after age 70. If you are over 70, please don't enlighten me. Let me live with my fantasies.)

It will be even more wonderful around here when we get our new iPhones. We both ordered the iPhone 6S Plus last Saturday from Verizon. Heaven only knows how long it will take for us to get them, but I will be one happy grandmama when we do. We will be able to send so much data back and forth to each other and our computers that our heads will be spinning. Thank goodness they, (our heads), are mostly empty now. It won't hurt much.

Gary got a boring black case for his silver phone. But I got a really artsy one for mine. Looks like a background for a card--like alcohol ink splotches. (I don't do boring very well; snicker.)

Oh, hey, the other exciting news is that the Arizona Cardinals won their home opener! And yours truly was there screaming like a banshee throughout the game. I couldn't really hear myself scream, though, as I had a new radio with earphones, instead of my earplugs. Kinda fun hearing all the play-by-play as I was there watching the action. So happy with the final result! This week the team travels to Chicago to take on "da Bears". I only hope that the home team stumbles badly. Sorry, Chicago fans, but I want my Cardinals to win this one, too! We need to stay at the top of our division, and a win is the only way to do that right now.

I won't bore you further with my sports talk. I will jump right into my details for this week.

Firstly, we are sponsored again this month by Norma J. Burnell's Fairy Tangles Art. She is giving the winner a choice of 3 digis from her shop. You will really enjoy browsing all her beautiful images, so be sure to get your entries in this month. Remember, you need to hand-color your image, but you may use the medium/media of your choice. I will be using an image from her shop next week.

This week, however, I have chosen another Sweet Pea Stamps image. This one is Snowy by Conie Fong, which I have printed on X-Press It BC and colored with my Copics, using our Color/Photo Inspiration for the week:

Skin: E000, E01, E11

Twigs/Hair: E53, E35, E37, E57

Boots/Coat/Headband: B32, B34, B37, B39

Nose/Hat: R20, R21, R22

Wings/Snowman: C00, C0, C1

Trim: B41, B32

Scarf: R20, R21, R22, B41, B32

I have not added anything to the front of this card, but have a Christmas message inside. I am trying to cram as many Christmas cards as I can into these last few months before the holiday. As always, I am woefully short, but hope to get more done in the next couple of months. (Don't I say that every year? And is it ever any different?) Sigh...

I hope you manage to get to our challenge to see the fab inspiration by my talented teammates: Carla, Kathi, and Vanessa. Karen has left us as she is dealing with health concerns at the moment and needs to cut back on her DT assignments. We are really sorry to see her go--she is a sweet spirit and very creative!

Do play along with us if you are able this week. We would love to see your creations.

Have a wonderful weekend! Go Cards!

The Outlawz Friday Coloring 'Hats' Challenge

We are celebrating Make a Hat Day, which is on September 15th. It matters not what kind of hat you use for your project, as long as there is one on there. Be sure to hand-color your image--and you may use any medium you wish. And we are being sponsored again this month by Norma J. Burnell's Fairy Tangles Art. She has such wonderful, intricate images that are really fun to color. I will be using one at the end of the month. And the prize this month is the choice of three of her images.

Before I get to my card for the week I have a request to make. Will any of you who use Mac computers please let me know how easy it is to use Blogger on Safari?  

Background: Gary was pulling his hair out, (figuratively speaking, as he is bald, don't ya know), with his "tunes". He is a music freak fanatic, having over 700 songs on his iPhone. So imagine his despair, chagrin, whatev, when he needed to update iTunes to download new music, and our computers were too old to do the update. Horrors! (I have no music on my phone, so I fail to understand his agony, heartless beast that I am.) Well, we couldn't have that, could we? Negatory. (Old military term, from our days at Ft. Benning.)

So he decided to do some research on getting a new personal computer. (I use our desktop, which I much prefer, as I can actually see the screen and can set up my keyboard wherever I want.) Okey dokey. Gary, on a fact-finding mission, means that he spends hours upon hours researching. And he pretty much decided to get a Dell PC. And then he didn't. 

I made the mistake of suggesting that, since he had an iPhone, it would make sense to pair it with a Mac computer. So off he went on more fact-finding. Sigh...

Anyway, long story a bit shorter, he did buy one. And told me we needed to get the iMac for our desktop. I said nay, nay, Grasshopper. (Maybe it was neigh, neigh. More than likely I snorted.) I told him I had no need for a new computer, although ours is about 6 years old, and Windows Vista isn't exactly high tech anymore. 

I have some fun message that keeps popping up that says a Windows app no longer works. No s**t, Sherlock. I can't use Windows as my browser anymore, so there is that. I also have another message that asks me to install something, but I don't know what that something is. Neither does Gary, so he told me to ignore it. Which is hard for me to do. So I keep deleting that message, too. Then there is another annoying message that keeps asking me to back-up my computer. And I delete that, too. I have been doing this for months now, so I just put up with it, even though it gets annoying. (Apparently, I have the patience of a saint.) (Snicker...snort.)

So, anyhoo, Gary got me to go to the Apple store with him to look at the iMac. Holy moly, Rocky. I fell in love. Deeply. As in, I would trade Gary for an iMac. Well, OK, maybe not quite, but close. The screen on the iMac is 27". Twenty-seven. 2.7. For a person who is visually challenged, I was amazed. I could easily see what was on the screen. And what a screen! Oh, my...

So guess what? Yes, we did. We ordered the iMac for our desk-top. It will be in next Wednesday. Unless I cancel the order. Which I could still do, if I hear that Blogger and Safari are incompatible. Gary showed me that it is possible to access my blog on his MacBook, but I don't know how easy it would be to actually publish my blog. And then there are the issues with printing images for coloring. I currently use Photoshop, but don't really want to buy it for the iMac unless absolutely necessary. Is it?

And then, boy howdy, this also introduces a new wrinkle into the equation. Gary's phone and computer now sync completely, and he is happy as a clam. Gosh, that makes me hungry right now. Manhattan Clam Chowder would taste really good, with some sourdough bread... where was I? Oh, yeah, a new wrinkle. One that won't go away by ironing it. Not that I do much, if any, ironing anymore. I mean, who cares if my jeans are slightly rumpled? Do you? Well, tough...

The new wrinkle is that I have a Samsung phone. Yeah, one that won't pair with an iMac. For anything. So, of course, I am thinking I should update to an iPhone again. How fun it would be to have enough memory so that I don't have to delete my photos or empty the cache in order to update my apps. Which is a bit of a pain in the a**, pardon the expression. And I wouldn't have to keep telling my phone to check back later because I am out of cloud memory, whatever the heck that means. And I won't have to worry about the wifi security issues, which are inherent in my Samsung devices. 

The one thing I really love about my Samsung phone is the camera. It takes such beautiful photos, much nicer than Gary's iPhone 5S. But, the new iPhone 6S supposedly has a great camera in it, among other fun features. So, I may switch to an Apple phone if we actually get the iMac. I would naturally get the Plus, with the 5.5" screen, as it would be easier for me to see the screen. My sister, Merrilyn, texted me a new moniker: Miss Apple/Mac. I told her that was Miss Crab Apple to her...

So, please let me know if you have a Mac and how easy it is to use for Blogger, won't you? I would really appreciate it. Now, for my card of the week:

I chose Sweet Pea Stamps Sally and Snowball by Conie Fong, and printed it on X-Press It BC. I love this sweet image, don't you? I colored it with my Copics:

Skin: E000, E01, E11

Hair/Cat: E51, E55, E57, E59

Coat/Hat: Y21, Y23, Y26

Skirt: E08, E09, E18

Trim: W00, W1, W3

Stockings/Mittens: W00, W1, W3, Y21, Y23, Y26

Boots: E08, E09, E18, Y21, Y23, Y26

My DP is from the Bo Bunny Silver & Gold collection, and I paired it with Stampin' Up CS. I used a few die cuts, which I made with Papertrey In the Meadow and Cheery Lynn Winter Neighborhood Border dies. That's about it.

I could apologize for the length of this post. But I won't. Because you didn't have to read it all, you know. Teehee...

Please stop by The Outlawz to see the fab inspiration by my talented teammates: Carla, Kathi, Vannessa, and Karen. Then play along with us, won't you?

Oh, and have a wonderful weekend!

The Outlawz Friday Coloring 'Books/Reading' Challenge and Connie's Birthday Card

Happy Friday to you! We are ready for a new challenge today; it is to honor National Read a Book Day on Sunday. Read a book. Music to my ears. I read much. I read often. Too often for my own good, probably. Mostly fiction, but I have read many good non-fiction books, too. And that brings me to a tribute to one of my favorite non-fiction authors--Wayne Dyer. He passed away last Saturday night on Maui. RIP, Dr. Dyer.

I am so lucky to have a lovely book collection. But I find myself reading ebooks more often than physical books. It is just so much easier, I think. However, I was having trouble with charging up the battery on my tablet, which I used for reading my ebooks. So I bought a Kindle for reading and am tickled that I did. The screen is non-glare, so I can read easily outside. And it is so light-weight that I can hold it in one hand. I love it. You will find me carting my Kindle along with me everywhere I go now. Never know when you can steal time to read a paragraph or two...

Boy, have we ever had the weather around the Valley. Our area was hit hard a couple of weeks ago. This week it was my sister's neck of the woods. They lost power for 24 hours, and in this heat, that is no small thing. Plus there were trees down all over her neighborhood. She lives not far from the Phoenix Zoo, which actually had to close down to clean up all the fallen trees. Fortunately, none of the zoo animals were harmed in the storm. But what crazy weather...

OK, on to our challenge info. We are sponsored this month by Norma J. Burnell of Fairy Tangles Art. Norma draws intricate, beautiful images, which I am sure our winner will love. The prize is the winner's choice of three digi images. (I will be using one of her images later this month.)

This week, however, I am using Sweet Pea Stamps Lucy Loo Bookaholic by The East Wind. I love this image--so quirky. I wanted to make a birthday card for our friend, Connie, who is celebrating later this month. She does not have long hair; she does not have black hair; she does not have a cat; and I don't know how much reading she is doing these days. So why did I pick this image for her? Your guess is as good as mine. And I don't have one. So there.

I printed the image on X-Press It BC and colored it with my Copics:

Skin: E000, E01, E11

Hair: W6, W8, W10

Nest/Cat: E21, E25, E27, E29

Feathers/Book: G21, G24, G28

Heart/Bird: Y32, Y23, Y26

I added some die-cut feathers using Spellbinders Feathers on the Wind dies, a die-cut corner using a Whimsy corner die, some lace, Distress ink, and Frantage. My DP is from the Bo Bunny Weekend Market collection and was paired with Stampin' Up CS. Presto! Fini!

Please check out the fab inspiration by my talented teammates: Carla, Kathi, Vannessa, and Karen. Then hand-color your book-inspired image with your choice of medium for your project. And play along with us! 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Go Sun Devils! (wink!)