Last Day!!

Today is the last day to order from the 2011/2012 Idea Book and Catalogue.  Items on the Retiring Lists will disappear forever as of Midnight tonight, so get your order in before it's too late!
Speaking of retiring, there are several colleagues of mine at school who are calling it quits.  Moving on to bigger and better things after a long teaching career.  I have been showcasing the cards I was asked to make for each retiree this week and today I have one that I designed for the outdoorsman in the group.  Have a look...

Retirement card for a colleague featuring the Lovely as A Tree set and sentiment from Word Play.

I wish I could take full credit for this design; however I totally CASE'd this from Michelle Zindorf, Goddess of the Brayer.  I knew that I wanted to do a lake-side scene and so I scoured Michelle's old tutorials and found this beauty.  The original card used a long-retired set called Le Jardin Botanique, but, since I sold that set ages ago, I decided to try it with Lovely as a Tree instead.  I have to say, I think it works.  The other challenge was that Michelle designed her card before the colour renovation using colours that are no longer part of the SU line-up.  I had to improvise using current colours, but I think it still works.  I get a bit nostalgic when I look at this card...memories of summers on the lake...I can almost hear the call of the loons.  I sure hope my colleague likes it and that it inspires many happy retired days by (and on) the lake.