Sketchy Ballerina

**Sorry for the blank post in your reader if you read it that way...I hit enter which publishes it when I meant to hit Save as Draft!**

It has been a busy last few weeks between my son taking his First Communion (yes he is only 5, but apparently the ELCA Lutheran Church is different than the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church I grew up in...more on this on another day), a trip to the West side of Michigan (seriously I dare to say the sunsets on Lake Michigan can rival anywhere in the world...I will show pictures soon to prove it to you!!) and a trip this weekend back to the West side of Michigan for some playing on the sand dunes and hitting Michigan's Adventure Amusement Park (my son is uber excited for this!). Then when we get back, my baby boy will start Kindergarten...EEK! So not sure I am ready for that big day! So I have lots to share with you on another date, but since I am suppose to be packing right now to leave, I better stick to what is at hand and to let you know what is coming up!

So first, Paper Makeup Stamps is sponsoring the Sketch Challenge this week at 2 Sketches 4 You and I just had to play along! The sketch, Kazan's Sketch 60, was a little intimidating at first...I have a hard time with random rectangles places...but I think I made it work (probably because I made the random rectangle extend further on each side). I chose the Marissa Fairy (which by the way is reduced in price by 35% right now!!) because she was a nice long image that would work with the sketch and pulled out my Basic Grey Green at Heart Paper Pad (Love It!) for my color scheme. I paper pieced the skirt and star on my fairy and colored the leotard, shoes, and cheeks with a Melon Mambo marker (nothing fancy here!). Then I cut a rectangle around her allowing the bit of skirt and hand to fall outside of the rectangle. Then I trimmed both ends of my green strip (aka the random rectangle I extended...hehe) with the Upper Crest Border Punch by Friskars. I trimmed the bottom of my main panel with the same punch, embossed the greeting (this was the free one that came with purchase last month), and added some purple pearl accents.

So try your hand at the sketch and link it up to the 2 Sketches 4 You Blog post and you could be selected to be Card of the Week and win some fantastic goodies from Paper Makeup Stamps! Good Luck!!

There has been some Design Team changes with Paper Makeup Stamps! Shaela Odd was promoted to the Senior Design Team and Simonne Clay (last month's Guest Designer) was added as a Makeup Artist! So please stop by their blogs and congratulate them both! I also wanted to take a moment to let you know that the Sneak Peeks for the awesome September Release with Paper Makeup Stamps starts on September 4...it really is a great one!! My peek ins't until September 6, but check out the PMS Blog for all of them (and the chance to win some free Rubbah!). That's it for me...off to go pack! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Marissa Fairy, Have Fun Sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps); Paper - Elegant Eggplant, Melon Mambo (SU!), Green at Heart Paper Pad (Basic Grey), Basic White (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Basic Black, Whisper White Craft, Melon Mambo Marker (SU!); Accessories - Clear Star Gelly Roll pen (Sakura), White Embossing Powder (SU!), Purple Self-Adhesive Pearls (Oriental Trading), Upper Crest Border Punch (Friskars), dimensionals, heat gun