I guess by now you’ve heard about the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked the eastern United States on August 23, 2011.  The epicenter was about 60 miles east of where I live.  When it happened, I was sitting at my desk, coloring the image on today’s card.  I heard the dishes rattling in the china hutch and thought, “That’s odd.  The kids are back in school; they’re not making the stuff in the hutch rattle.”  Then I noticed the house felt rumbly.  I remembered the December 2003 earthquake and figured that we were having another quake.  I was startled by it more than scared.  The shaking wasn’t jolting, but the duration of it surprised me – probably about 25 seconds (which doesn’t sound very long until you actually time it).  Once the shaking stopped, I went online and checked out the U.S. Geological Survey website and confirmed that yes indeed, it was an earthquake.  So then the rest of the afternoon was spent making sure everyone I cared about was OK.  I finally got back to finishing the card that evening.

I was making the card for my brother-in-law’s birthday (and if the card is late, I’m sorry – earthquakes are pretty distracting), and decided to take up this week’s Technique Lovers Challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  The challenge was to CASE (Copy And Selectively Edit) the oldest card in the Splitcoast gallery you’d saved as a “favorite”.  My oldest card was one created by Beate Johns in 2004.  I used the same tree image and layout, but I made several changes – I used different colors, I cut the image panel and its mat with Nestabilities (LOL – Nesties weren’t even around in 2004, I don’t think!), I changed the sentiment, and instead of twine, I swiped the edge of my ink pad on the cardstock to create the two stripes behind the image panel.

Tuesday night before my son went to bed, we were talking about the earthquake.  The card was on my desk and I told him I was working on it when the earthquake started.  He quipped, “Oh, is that why the tree is crooked?”  That made me laugh so I knew I had to put that into the story behind this card – even if it is a bit of fiction.

Supplies:
Stamps: Lovely As A Tree, Birthday Whimsy (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Early Espresso, Certainly Celery, Naturals Ivory (SU)
Ink: Early Espresso (SU); Vintage Sepia (VersaFine)
Other: watercolor crayons (SU); Labels Twelve Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders)