4 Years of Meticulosity - #1

It's so hard for me to believe that I have been blogging for 4 years now. May 19, 2014 was my very first blog post and the rest is history. I have learned alot, met many creative people ( some who are now good friends ) and have been a part of several design teams. I have always been a lover of paper and my love of card-making has also been a part of my love of snail mail. I am in several swap groups for Happy Mail   -  a Coffee Lovers card swap, the Love Notes postcard project and the Global Postcard heART Swap. April was National Letter Writing Month and I was in a fabulous group hosted by Lindsay Ostrom. She assigned  me a penpal for the month and  I also sent mail to approximately 50 others in the group !! 

I want to thank everyone for your support of my creative side. Your visits to my blog and comments have really been a wonderful part of these past 4 years. So I want to share my anniversary celebration with all of you and have a fun giveaway !!  Because so much of my creativity is tied into my love of Happy Mail, I will have 2 giveaways. One will be papercraft focused and the other will be Happy Mail / stationary focused. All you have to do is comment on any of my Anniversary posts this week and you will be entered into the drawing for a prize. The prizes will be a variety of my favorite things from some of my favorite companies. No one has donated anything - these are all coming from my heart !!

A few quick cards made for this post combine my love of cardmaking with my love of snail mail. And these snail digi stamps from Vera Lane Studio are just the perfect images to use !!

• I printed the cute snails from the Snails Pace set from Vera Lane Studio on my favorite Neenah Stardust White cardstock.
• I also printed the images on a floral paper and a heart paper and cut out the shells to paper-piece on the snails.
• Some of my favorite markers were used to color the snails and shells - Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens, Sharpies, Ranger  Distress and Stampin' Up markers.
• The snails were then adhered to some of my favorite card bases using Tombow adhesives - both an adhesive runner and my favorite MONO Aqua Liquid Glue.

Some of my favorite images to stamp are coffee and cats. And a favorite technique of mine is paper-piecing.  I am a paper, stamp, ink & washi junkie !!  And I LOVE  to color and watercolor !! I have enjoyed learning techniques from many of my online friends and hope I have inspired you to get creative too !!

Waffle Flower Flora Cats, Vera Lane Studio Girls on the Block

Hampton Art  Quiet the Worries

I hope that you will take a minute and leave a comment for a chance to win one of my prizes in celebration of my 4 years as a blogger. Tell me about a favorite company or technique of yours. Or let me know if I've inspired you. I couldn't have done this without all of you and your support. Please  sign up to follow me as I start my 5th year of Meticulosity !! 

Thank you so much for visiting Meticulosity

Meticulosity - extreme attention to detail

The Starbucks cup that gave my blog its name !!!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

Coffee & Cards with Deb & Celeste 10/23

Hard to believe it's Week 4 of my collaboration with Celeste !! And I'm glad that October has 5 Sundays so we can do it again next week !! The theme for this week is CREEPY, SPOOKY.. Thanks to my friend Terri for suggesting "creepy" -- great minds think alike and I already had a concept in mind.. I have had this stamp for awhile... Another clearance buy at Tuesday Morning and I was just waiting for the right time to ink it up !!

I think I am a pretty normal person... I've worked at the same hospital for 30 years, I'm a bookworm, I love to hang out at Starbucks, I'm rubber-stamp obsessed.  See, fairly normal. I guess.. However, I do have a sarcastic sense of humor, love Sugar Skull / Dia de los Muertos designs, love scary movies ( usually watch them in the daylight - LOL ) and I am a HUGE, did I say HUGE Walking Dead  fan !! When I saw this Roadhouse stamp, I immediately thought it looked like it could have been part of the show.. Who wouldn't want to stop here if you were running for your life from a herd of Walkers ?? But just when you think you are safe -------- there you have all of those nasty blood splatters !! I am really looking forward to the Season 7 premiere tonight !!

• The card base is by DCWV, an older collection called Immortal Love. I stamped the Roadhouse image by Hampton Art on watercolor paper, then used my bright red Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor ( #35 Carmine Red ) to make splatters on the Roadhouse image.
• To make the splatters, I wet a brush with water & the Carmine Red watercolor, held the brush over the image and tapped it. You can hold it closer to the paper or farther away or use multiple   brushes to get different sized drops..
• I wet my index finger, dipped it into the Red and made a fingerprint on the image in the lower left had corner. I then used one of my all-time favorite tools - my Pink DYMO Caption Maker - to create the #THEWALKINGDEADAMC label for the lower right side of the card. 
• I adhered a scrap piece of Red paper to the card base at an angle with Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue, then applied the completed Roadhouse image on top of that, using foam tabs for some dimension. Creepy enough for you ?? It's amazing how much fun I had practicing making blood splatters !! I know that this card might not be everyone's favorite but it was so much fun to make and celebrates my quirky side !!

Today's post is brought to you by a wonderful cup of Chestnut Praline coffee in my new Walking Dead mug, Make yourself a cup of your favorite coffee or tea or cocoa and head on over to Celeste's blog Crafting Junky to see what kind of  spooky mischief she has been up to this week.  We will be back next Sunday to share our posts with you again !! We hope that you will join us and also sign up to follow our blogs if you haven't already.

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

Top 5 List

Have you ever sat down to make a card and what you end up with is not anything like your original thought ?? Well, that is this card !! I had die cuts in mind and an image I had already colored but instead, I pulled out some journaling cards bought at Tuesday Morning yesterday for $1.99.. I don't presently journal or do Project Life but still seem to have an addiction to journal cards.. They are perfect for quick cards and also for making sets of cards with a particular theme. When I saw the Top 5 List card, I immediately began thinking of  MY Top 5 coffee list. Then I  pulled out a small alphabet set and the rest is history !! I had such fun stamping all of those words and was pretty darn proud of myself at how they turned out !!

Supplies :   Card base is one of 100's that I have but can't remember which company -- I chose one with pretty Fall-like flowers on it; letters for Coffee words are from a Mini wooden stamp set by Hampton Art; Wooden coffee cup is by Prima Marketing Inc.; Top 5 List & Heart journal cards are from the Indian Summer line by We R Memory Keepers .

The stamp for the back of this card is one of my new favorites !! 

Also by I Brake For Stamps.

I hope that you like my second card entry for the Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. Thank you for visiting Meticulosity. Please leave a comment for a chance to win some coffee goodies from me. And remember that to be eligible for any of the Flash Prizes from the Blog Hop sponsors, you have to link a Fall-themed project by the deadline of 5 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, Sept. 29-- which is National Coffee Day !! Be sure to check out all the the amazing linked projects ( now numbering 273 ) HERE. You can also be eligible for a prize if you are one of the Superstars who comment on each and every entry. I have never been one of them but I do read each and every blog post. 

And So It Continues....

If you would have ever asked me if I was going to start a blog, my answer would have been that I was planning on it ... Well, I planned on it for YEARS.. I looked through blog magazines, craft magazines, online, and from links on Facebook. The impetus for me actually starting one finally was the opportunity to try out for the Mountain Plains Crafters Design Team. Started by 3 women -- Pam, Terri & Sheryl -- it was going to be a place to share ideas, be creative, try new products and have fun... My blog grew from there-- a place for me to show my projects, try new techniques and make many new friends..

It has been exactly 1 year since my first post, aptly titled "And So It Begins"... I want to celebrate my first year by giving away some of my favorite products,. Unity Stamp Company, We R memory keepers & anything Tim Holtz are just a few of my GO-TO companies for supplies.. Adornit has given me hours of fun with their  Art Play Paintables by Lindsay Ostrom. You can see from my blog posts how many amazing sponsors I have been privileged to work with.To win, all you have to do is comment on this blog post.. I will randomly choose 3 winners.

My friends from Mountain Plains Crafters will be helping me celebrate, several by posting something here.. They are all amazing... They have gotten me out of my comfort zone, made me a better person and challenged me.. I am blessed to be in such fantastic company...

I've also invited some friends that I have met along the way to post on my Facebook timeline for my blogoversary. Not everyone has a blog, BUT I have met some terrific crafters on Facebook and wanted to give them the opportunity to show their creations... I will share any blog links that I get from friend's posts..

My card celebrates my 1st year of blogging... The sentiments are from Unity Stamp Company and were perfect. I was INSPIRED by so many people and their wonderful creativity, IMAGINED that one day I would have a blog with which to share my own creativity and CREATED Meticulosity which has led me on an amazing journey. I want to keep building on those 3 words during my second year ( and weren't those cute buildings just what I needed to express that !! ).. During my second year, I want to use more mixed-media techniques, try out a new look for my blog background, work on my journal and STAY out of my comfort zone.  I hope you will continue on this journey with me..  I couldn't have made it through this first year without all of your support..

Supplies: Unity Stamp sentiments, Tim Holtz On the Edge border die & Journaling ticket, We R memory keepers wood stickers, Michaels Recollections paper, Hampton Art  #1 stamp

TERRI

PAULA

JENNIFER



MARILYNN

Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic.....

On  the Mountain Plains Crafters blog this weekend, we were inspired to create projects with an End of Summer / Back to School theme. I thought about my all-time favorite teacher and created this card below. I am always reminded of Miss Igo at the start of each school year. The ABC's, the ruler, the stacks of books and the apple for a favorite teacher all bring back wonderful memories of my time in her class. The words on the tissue tape -- Journey, Artful, Imagination -- were by chance at the end of the tape when I tore it off. Perfect words as I reflected back to first grade and created a card to remind me of my adventures in Reading, Writing & 'Rithmetic.... Tell me about your favorite End of Summer / Back to School memory in the comment section . And be sure to check out all of the Design Team Members' cards in the MPC blog .

Supplies: Darice embossing folder, Graphic 45 ABC Primer stamps, 2 Berry Creative twine, Tim Holtz tissue tape, ruler washi tape, Core'dinations Whitewash cardstock . Cardstock was embossed then sanded to reveal the color underneath.