Happy Trails on Texas Tuesday

First, let me wish all of you a belated Happy Valentine's Day.  I've been concentrating on Valentine's cards lately because I am donating them to a fraternal organization that I belong to for a fund-raising project.  It was a bit difficult to switch gears and think of Texas Tuesday, but here's my post for this week.

I wanted to come up with a card that would be suitable for a male  or female coworker who is retiring or leaving work.  I also wanted something simple and quick to make.  I had some Texas map paper in my stash, so I used that for a mat on a craft cardstock base.  I should have thought a bit more before I cut the mat because I wanted Austin in the picture, but alas all I got was that big old San Antonio.  Actually, with our lack of freeways, Austin looks pretty puny on the map compared to San Antonio anyway so maybe this is a good thing after all.  I used the same craft cardstock to stamp the horse and rider and then stamped "Happy Trails" beneath that. I trimmed it down, then I rounded the four corners and stuck it in the middle.  I intended to give it some bling to the horse and rider and the sentiment with my black Spica pen, but I couldn't find it.  That can always be added later if I ever find that darned pen. So there you have it - a quick and simple card with a Texas theme.  Hope you like it.  Thanks for visiting my blog.  

Valentine's Texas Tuesday

Greetings this Texas Tuesday! I know we're all anticipating the "deep freeze" that's coming our way. I'm certainly not looking forward to it. As far as I'm concerned, if it's gonna snow I hope it's enough to shut down the county! I hate driving in icy weather and I'd just as soon not use my lovely vacation leave for ice days! Anyway, if it happens, I'd rather be at home doing something crafty. I'll get off my soapbox now. On to the purpose of this post.

I know we were supposed to do Valentine-themed cards this time, but I just couldn't resist this departure from that theme. My DH recently had knee surgery after a mishap on the Sunday after Christmas. Our PCP referred us to the same orthopedic surgeon who repaired DH's ankle about 15 years ago.  This man is a super doctor and a super person.  He's devoted countless hours caring for some of our local high school athletes, and he's an avid UT fan. And to top that off, he always wears cowboy boots.  Not just boots - no, they are georgeous ostrich leather boots.  Even in the OR!  I can't say whether they have those blue booties to fit over the cowboy boots or not because I didn't get to observe the surgery, but he sure had the boots on prior to that.  The DH goes back this Friday for a follow up appointment and I thought it might be nice to do a thank you card for the doc.  So that's my project this week. 

I found some really cool tan-ish lizard looking paper at Joann's last week.  It's almost the same color as the doctor's boots.  I used the same Ellison boot die to cut this one that I used for a previous post.  I mounted it on a burnt orange cards base.  The "thanks" is also a die by Sizzix.  The picture makes it look like I snuck in some Aggie maroon paper for the "thanks" but it's really a dark brown.  It was a bit plain looking, so I cut a shadow piece out of white cardstock to mount behind it and used my trusty Signo white gel pen to do faux stitching to make it pop a bit more.  Hope you enjoy seeing it.  Stay warm and if it ices, stay safe!