Ancient Art Birthday Card - An Ode To Retired Stamp Sets

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Be Present

I am working hard, in this very moment, to keep myself present.  As I have shared with you, I find it so easy to lose myself in thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future and not experience the present moment fully.  This happens often for me and really gets highlighted whenever I am on an airplane...which is quite often these days.  I travel quite a bit for work and find myself on planes a lot.  Over time I have developed a pretty interesting fear of flying.  Interesting because I didn't used to have it.  My sense is that the fear is more related to the thought of not making it back home more than anything else.  So, as I sit on the plane, my mind starts to travel into thoughts of the future - particularly into thoughts of fear.  Will I make it?  Will the plane fly successfully?  Do the pilots know what they heck they are doing?  Where is my life vest if I need it?  What will it feel like if we fall out of the sky?  My heart starts to pound, I clench my fists, I am anything but relaxed and I am so in my fearful thoughts of the future that I fail to realize that in that very moment I am very safe, very alive, and the plane is flying perfectly.  I am continuing to remind myself to be present.  How about you?
Today's card is another ode to a retired stamp set (kind of ironic that in a post about being present I am paying homage to something from the past ;)  This stamp set was called Ancient Art.  I used my markers to color and stamp the images.  Do I get points for using one current set, Curly Cute, to stamp the word "birthday?!" A bit of stitching on the background adds some texture.  I hope you like it!