Twenty-One years...

Do you know where you were or what you were doing 21 years ago today?
I do...
and those two words had a whole lot to do with it!!

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary, and thanks to mother nature, I got to spend it with the love of my life, my best friend, my wife! We got a little over 4 inches of snow topped with a layer of sleet/freezing rain and temps that barely reached the mid-20s today!

What do you do for your better half after 21 years? You get a little creative!
My wife is absolutely in love with cheesy horror movies and zombie flics!
Many years ago, I taught myself how to do counted cross-stitch. It's a great way to relax, and can be a lot of fun to be creative.

So with a little internet research, I located the perfect pattern. After collecting the proper materials and selecting the right colors, we begin:

Yeah, this would take a bit longer than I had anticipated!!
but, with a little perseverance, we finish.

Now to find the right frame. I know I want to try and match the colors in the piece, I was hoping for something in the red family... ie: the blood-red family...

Well, no such luck, but the two shades of green will set off the zombie theme quite nicely. But the O.C.D. portion of my brain is now kicking the insides of my skull quite profusely, screaming that there is something missing... something just not quite right...

you can do better...

come on...

think man...

think

Ok, off to the internet I go. first off to find the right color.

for those that can't quite see the label, that's color X-27, Clear Red... then the right tool/technique...

Yes, believe it or not, a simple tooth brush later and we now have:

Oh HELL yeah!! that is perfect!! Turned out as good or better than I had hoped! and after flicking the paint to create the splatter, two of the fingers on one hand were mostly red, so I had a stroke of insanity, paint the third finger and make sure the first two were good and wet to create the bloody finger prints!! Too cool!



now I have a small quandary... I've done so good so far, let's find the right shade of green for wrapping... Yeah, bright green wrap at Hobby Lobby was $10 a roll!! Let's see what the local Dollar store has... then with a little youtube research, mainly on how to create fancy bows... and what the hell, let's get a little more creative with the paint again...

damned fine job, and not bad at all for a fancy looking gift that I'm sure she will like.

and yes,
She loved it!! I am just thrilled with the way this project turned out!!
Thanks for reading!
Have a GReat night!
Dawgbones

2015 Topps...

...or when will I get my Phirst Phillie of the new Topps?

For Valentine's Day, Mrs. Dawgbones bought me one of the new blaster boxes of 2015 Topps Series 1. I really like the new design and it's going to be real hard not to try and chase at least the base set.

I actually won a blaster from Play at the Plate earlier last month but it hasn't arrived yet. I generally buy loose packs and rack packs as the blasters tend to be pricier for the gimmick cards in them. But I also happen to like the First Home Run Medallion cards that can be found in this year's retail blasters.

I also mainly buy from my local Target stores as my local Wally Worlds don't really stock much in the way of baseball cards anymore!

I won't bore you with scans of every pack from the blaster, but will just show the cards that I found most interesting. So, when will the first Phillie player show up, and whom will it be?

not to be overly normal, I selected my "first" pack out of the middle of the stack of ten 10 card packs that come in each blaster.

There you go!! Not my first Phil but my first and second!! Marlon Byrd and Ryan Howard, not too bad!

Out of the 10 packs of cards, I actually pulled 7 out of the 12 Phillies in Series 1. I'll take those odds any day! I did pull two "duplicates" if you want to call them that...

I got the rainbow foily version of Craig Gentry's card, and it would have been the most interesting card from that pack had it also NOT contained the base version of the same card!!

and I also pulled the base and gold versions of Joakim Soria's card, but from two different packs.

I really like the First Pitch insert cards and will probably chase these over the season. I spied the Jack White card on a few posts and really like the concept behind it. Though the funniest one would be the one that I actually pulled from this blaster. Read about Fiddy Cent's exploits over at The Raz Card Blog, complete with video short of the wayward toss!!

Which brings us to the medallion card, and my reason for trying the blaster to begin with. obviously, I did not get the Utley version that I was hoping for! But I really like this design, it's a very heavy card, the coin weighs it down quite a bit. But it's a nice shiny team logo medallion to celebrate the chosen subject's first home run. Paul's example is available for trade as the only one(s) I am trying to secure from Series 1 are the two Phillies, especially Chase's.

And that brings us to the final card from the blaster, and I almost overloooked it as it blends so well with the rest of the design this year. The biggest difference is the numbering on the back. This is one of the "Snow Camo" parallels. These fall 1 in every 267 packs and is one of the first rare parallels that I've pulled from a pack of cards. Of course Mr. Wilson is not one of the better (ie more demanded) players and is not worth much of a premium but is still a neat card.

and that about covers my first blaster of 2015.
I'll be back with the winning one when it arrives.
Thanks for reading,
Have a GReat day!
Dawgbones