Happy Birthday To Me!

Hola, mis amigos!  Today is a special day for me.  44 years ago today, at exactly 4:19am I entered this world...kicking and screaming, and certainly unaware that my future was going to be filled to the brim with absurd amounts of paper, inks, and rubber stamps.  And the lovely woman responsible for my reality?  My wonderful mother.  Oh, dad played a part too, but mom did all the heavy lifting...literally.

Mom and I are tight.  We can crack each other up in a nanosecond, sharing a good, hearty guffaw until it escalates into fits of laughter with tears streaming down our faces.  Best of all, we share a crazy insane passion for paper crafting.  I started to draft the story of how we got into this obsessive hobby as part of this post, but as I progressed deeper into the our personal journey through stamping nirvana, the details started sounding all too familiar.  I did a bit of scouring through my older blog posts and sure enough, there's the story in black and white.  No need to tell it again.  If you're interested in knowing our humble beginnings, click here.  It's fairly entertaining ;D

The real reason for this post today is to share a fabulous art piece that mom created especially for me :)  The woman is super artsy, ridiculously crafty, and just plain talented.  The pictures do not even come close to capturing the awesomeness of mom's project, but let's see if I can assist in filling that gap with a bit descriptive prose.  The base begins with a small, but mighty painted canvas that serves as the stage for her artfully crafted vignette.  A layer of distressed grunge paper adorns the canvas and provides the first layer of vintage charm.  Corrugated cardboard is transformed from something normally discarded into a textural element, with a bit of strategic tearing and whitewashing, to highlight the raised ridges that take on the appearance of a picket fence.  Grunge paper/board images are brought to life with glorious inks and stamped designs to provide the nature inspired "cherry on the cake" so to speak.  A gift from the heart that I will cherish always.  I love you, mom :)

I probably will not post tomorrow...gonna take a little break to do some celebrating ;D  I will, however, see you on Sunday with a new challenge from Kenny K.  There are a few new images to introduce and, of course, they are fabulous!  See you then and be sure to stay crafty!