Copics (and a Blogger) Going a Little Crazy

Normally minimalist in my tendencies, I got a tad carried away with coloring these beautiful old PSX images, using a ridiculous number of Copics here, but the results...well, they are satisfying.

There are two shell stamps on this card: a two-inch-wide border stamp and a trio of shells. My preferred color scheme for beachy cards is pale blues and greens and browns. This card got much more colorful.

In fact, several shells went through color changes. If the purplish shell below looks odd, it's because it started in warm grays and went pinkish and turned out (finally) purple.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

Still, it's enormously satisfying to finish a card like this. It has me longing for gentle waves and sea birds and salty air.

Did I ever tell the story of my Lamaze class? Pretty sure I have, but what the hay, let's tell it again.

Our teacher told us to practice our "hee, hee, hee" breathing while imagining our happy place.The happy place I settled on was a gentle, white-sand North Carolina beach as the sun rose. To complete the scene, a bagpiper in full Highland dress, standing on a boardwalk, played to the rising sun.

I'd experienced this incredible scene years before and ne'er forgot what peace it brought me. All through the Lamaze practice sessions, I envisioned this scene and felt immediately peaceful and relaxed.

What they don't tell you in Lamaze is that contractions really involve your whole uterus, which at nine months gestation is roughly the size of a giant beach ball. As many of you already know, the whole giant thing contracts to push that baby out.

Seriously. The whole. dang. thing!

That's a b-i-g pain. Much bigger than my feeble imagination, aided by weeks of feeble little Braxton Hicks contractions, could handle. In actual labor, I couldn't picture my piper on the beach with gentle waves. Oh, no. I pictured the Pacific coast, south of Stinson, where jagged rocks shoot up and waves crash violently against them.

Highland piper, where were you when I needed you?

In the midst of violent waves crashing into my abdomen, I met the very nice epidural man, for whom I would gladly have named my firstborn son had we not already decided he would be Nicholas. Nick for short. Yeah, Nick. Nick's a real name. Nick's your buddy. Nick's the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn't mind if you puke in his car, Nick!

Name that movie.

Anyway, this story may or may not have become embellished over the years since that terrible realization that Lamaze is inadequate to the task of childbirth (at least for wimpy me), and that my OB had been correct. The best pain management during childbirth is "hee, hee, epidural."

All hail the Epidural Man! 

By the way, the sea shells and sand dollars on my card would have been pulverized into mulch on that rocky Pacific shore. 

Perhaps I should stop now.  

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: PSX (shells), Papertrey Sign Language (sentiment) 

ink: Memento black
paper: Gina K deluxe white, StampinUp black
accessories: copious Copic markers, craft foam, glue
And I did tell the epidural story seven years ago. Gosh, it can't have been that long!