View From The Top

My goal this morning was to get up early (check), head out to the nearest overpass (check), and see if I could get a decent photo of some bikes coming to DC for the 22nd annual Rolling Thunder event (eh? check).

At first I was shocked at that strange sight: pavement. One does not see pavement in these parts. Nay, we only see masses of vehicles packed in like sardines, so this was a real treat! :-)

I think I got up too early (or maybe I should have been out on Friday night), because all I saw were small clumps of bikes. Most of the riders were flying the traditional POW-MIA flags along with the Stars & Stripes on the backs of their bikes.

Individually, these clumps of bikes are not earth-shattering news, but when you think that these pics were all taken within about 30 minutes, this is a lotta bikes, at least around here, and on a Sunday morning.

Okay, my chosen vantage point sucked because of those pesky wires, so please ignore them and pretend like these are passable photos.

Did you know that when a truck traverses an overpass, it has the effect of a 6.5 earthquake? Especially if you have rested the lens of your camera between the chain links to steady it so your photos were not a total blur. I'm just sayin' ...

Every once in a while I caught a longer line of bikes like this one.

Check out the guy at the bottom of this photo. at first I thought he was on a cell phone, but then I realized he could not hear squat if he had been! I think he was just pointing. Or maybe he was giving me a thumbs-up!

Did you know these guys wave at people on overpasses? So I started waving and they waved back! I am so easily entertained!

This guy looks like he is giving directions, but then I realized he is more likely waving at kids in the back seat of that car.

So if you thought you'd be seeing dramatic photos here today, sorry to disappoint. I'd send you to the Rolling Thunder site for some real pics, but their server is getting slammed today, so depending on when you read this, you may have to go back later. Hey, maybe next year I'll go into DC. Maybe by then I'll have figured out the movie setting on my camera.

Enough about bikes. I have been working on my waning mojo, forcing myself to stamp, and what better way to get started than to CASE other people's stuff?! I find when I do that, I decide I need to change it, and that is the beginning of the ole mojo peeking out. Let's begin, shall we?

I got my Manhattan Flower die in my last Demo order, so I decided to CASE some stuff that used it, hoping that maybe one of them would be workshop-worthy. First I found this cool video showing how to brayer the back (debossed) side to get this effect. Too easy! And since I have two brayers, this one has promise.

This is a total CASE of this card. This used DSP, and it is sanded to get the white to show through the raised lines. It will not work with our card stock since SU's card stock does not have a white core. But if you have white-core card stock, this would totally work for you!

Here is another CASE, as I have seen the embossed vellum all over the place in galleries. I used a Barely Banana base from The Heap, and I used So Saffron for the DSP layer. The ribbon hides the seam, and if I'd used non-sheer ribbon, it would have hidden it even better. :-)

Still CASEing here. This one is based on this card. I wanted to bust open my Bella Bleu papers, so I did! This first version uses Vanilla and Not Quite Navy, but I think the NQN is too dark - I wanted a softer look.

So I pulled out some Bordering Blue, and I like it a lot better. This one is definitely in the running for June!

I have some more ideas for later this long weekend (man, do I love that third day!!!), so I hope to kick-start the old mojo. It's not like I need cards or anything ... speaking of which, I may have a different set-up next weekend at the market. Space is in short supply as we have even more new crafters joining us, so I am going to try a tent set-up for some elbow room. I'll try and take some pics of my new digs. :-)

One advantage of getting started early in the day is being able to check off a few items from your To Do list, and it's not even noon yet! Woo-hoo!

Enjoy your long weekend (if you get one), and thank a Vet!