Dare To Get Dirty - Sketchy Thank You

It'll be a year next week that I had my back surgery.  Though I can't say that this past 12 months haven't been a challenge and I have some residual numbness in my foot, I do not have any pain.  Now and then there'll be a twinge down my leg but nothing like I was experiencing last summer.  I've lost weight and get more exercise than I've had in a very long time.  I feel good.  And I am grateful to a lot of people for helping me get to this point.

During one of my office visits I mentioned to my doctor that I wasn't looking for "Normal". "Normal is as elusive as a unicorn.  It doesn't exist."

Working on one of the challenges this week, I decided to illustrate the second part of my quote - "I'm Happy to Be a Zebra in a Party Hat!"

At the time of my visit my doctor said he liked that thought and would have to remember it - so I decided to make a card out of it

which will have that second line on the inside along with a note of how I'm doing and saying a simple thank you.  

(Because really, once your body goes through a trauma it never is the same, and we can't just dwell on what we can't do, but focus on how we can do things differently.)

Dare to Get Dirty - A Plethora of Challenges - Take 1

I love to visit Splitcoaststampers for ideas and to learn new techniques.  They are such a wonderful community of cardmakers, but also show their creativity in many other ways.  I belong to the Fan Club which, for a small yearly fee, allows me certain privileges.  One of them is to participate in the Dare To Get Dirty Challenges that they post in August.  

I partially participated last year, and wanted to give it a go again this year. Notice, I did not say I'd be doing all of them.  I realized after I initially wasn't able to start taking part until two days after it started that I wouldn't be able to accomplish that feat.  Still, I plan to make a dent in what I do do. (Yes, Rachel, if you're reading this, I said do do!)

There's one caveat to posting these cards - I can tell you who the challenge hostess was, but I cannot tell you what the challenge was.  That information is only privileged to Fan Club Members. (Cardmakers out there, if you don't belong, you're missing out on some wondrous card sharing.)

This was done for Lydia's challenge - DTGD15UnderstandblueA - (I know this may be gibberish to you, but anyone visiting here from Splitcoaststampers will know what those codes mean.

Those are Mike's seahorses fussy cut, and SU's Sea Street, By the Tide, and Cheesecloth.  The starfish are Memory Box dies and I've embellished with a few green and Bermuda Bay sequins.  

And this one is Dina's challenge - DTGD15DiniA

Stamps are Faith in Nature and Sheltering Tree.  I used the Pretty Print EF and my oval dies.  I know it's odd to see a black ribbon, but I wanted a neutral to coordinate with all the colors and liked this the best.  The base is Pear Pizzazz, with a layer of Strawberry Slush.  The pear is watercolored with Barely Banana, Strawberry Slush, and Pear Pizzazz inks.

Here's a close-up of Jan's - DTGD15JanTink 

The quilt squares are from an old SU set called Quilt Quips and the sentiment comes from Holiday Home.  The Celtic Square Die was a gift from Sabrina.  I also used the Handpicked framelets and my X-Cut Quilting EF.  The images were colored with SU markers.

And the whole card

So let me run off and try to get a couple more done!  Thanks for looking.