spring

Hi friends.  Even though the weather is still chilly, I think spring is here.  The last couple of days, we've had a lot of wind and rain.  The grass has turned green & I think I heard DH say something about needing to mow soon.  A few days ago, I went to the garden center & bought some seeds.  My plans are to get them started indoors, so when it's warm enough, I can just transplant them in the ground.  I bought mostly flowers, but also some zucchini.  I'll get some tomato plants & maybe some peppers later.  I found this idea on Pinterest to use toilet paper rolls to make little planters for starting seeds.  When you're ready to put them outside, you put the whole thing in the ground - no disturbing the plants, (or in my case, dumping the dirt all over and making a mess).  So I've been getting mine ready.  I have quite a few ready to add dirt.  I just need to get busy and start. 

Today, on SCS, the mixability challenge was to use woolly dots.  Since wool and I don't get along, I used a cotton ball instead.  Here's the card that I made. 

This brings back memories of spring in northern Wisconsin.  We would always go find some pussywillows to put in a vase without water, so they would dry and last longer. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today. 

fishing and carrots

Hi friends.  I went fishing this week.  The last time I fished was when I was a little girl -- with my dad, standing on a dock, fishing with cane poles.  We caught pan fish, I think mostly bluegills.  I'm not a big fan of fish... so what was I doing fishing?  Mark (DH) & some good friends, Craig & Nancy, were going out to lunch at the Rushing Waters restaurant in Palmyra.  I wasn't going to go, because they serve mostly fish, but at the last minute I decided to go along.  The restaurant has trout ponds, so you can catch your own rainbow trout & they prepare it how you want.  I wasn't planning on fishing, since I wasn't going to eat any fish.  The lady at the desk gave us an extra fishing rod, just in case...  It was cold - maybe around 40 -- and WINDY!  Very windy!  I was kinda in charge of putting the worms on the hooks, since Nancy wasn't about to touch them.  No one was catching anything, so I decided to go ahead and use the extra pole.  The first bite stole my worm.  Then later, I caught a nice one, but when I gave the pole a bit of a jerk to make sure he wasn't going to get away, my line broke!  I walked back up to the restaurant to get a new pole & she gave me 2.  By the time I got back down to the water, Mark had caught one.  Then I caught a nice one and Mark caught another.  Craig was helping Nancy, because she was having trouble casting & he caught one.  We decided that was enough, and since we were all freezing, we went back in to have lunch.  I ordered a salad and some delicious lamb chili, and everyone else ate fresh trout.  We should have taken some pictures, but I think everyone was so cold, we didn't even think to do that.  But it was fun. 

Now something else I've been working on this week are some carrots for Easter.  I saw these fun paper carrots here. 

I have the die, so I thought I would give it a try.  I used some thin orange card stock.  The die cuts 3 pieces, & I need at least 10 carrots, so that meant running lot of card stock through my cuttlebug.  I decided the easiest way to score them all was to make a template from card stock, which worked quite well, except it was getting ragged along the edge, so I made another one from cereal box chipboard.  After scoring them all & punching holes for the string, I took them to my sewing machine and sewed assembly line style.  I would much rather be sewing on fabric.  Paper tends to slide around, so it's hard to keep a straight line. 

I have some green hemp twine to use for tying the tops closed. 

I also wanted to add a little tag.  I have this cute little bunny stamp (PSX), which I stamped a bunch & then punched out tags.  Then I practiced my watercoloring. 

I found that if I scribble my watercolor pencils on some paper and then pick up the color with my brush, I get more of a painted look without the pencil lines.  I practiced a lot. 

And this is what the finished carrot looks like. 

Isn't that little bunny cute?  Then I had to go to the store to get candy to put inside. 

And for those who are wondering, I've made some progress on my crochet flower. 

But I still have a little ways to go.  It's not turning out quite as I would have liked, but I think it will be OK. 

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today. 

seriously?

Hi friends.  I looked out the window yesterday and noticed that one of my lilacs is blooming.  Since yesterday was a rainy, gloomy day, I waited until today to get a picture. 

 

I have a long row of lilacs, several different varieties.  I love when they are all in bloom and smell so wonderful.  All but this one.  This is a late blooming lilac that usually blooms a few weeks after all the others are done in the spring.  It's never had a lot of blooms, and I only saw two other tiny ones besides this one.  But seriously?  August?  I guess late doesn't have a time table.  

Thanks for stopping by.

still in love...

...after 34 years

Happy anniversary, Mark.

freedom

Good morning, my friends.  I can't believe it's been a whole week since I've posted.  I guess I'm still getting used to having family members home all day now that DH is working from home and DD is job searching.  Having them around cuts into my crafting time.  I have to clear space on the kitchen table twice a day instead of only once - lol. 

Since it's the last day of the month, all challenges for June at OWSE are due today.  One of the challenges was anything to do with flying.  I decided to double up and use my card for the inspiration challenge on SCS as well, using this crocheted bird as my inspiration. 

I spent Thursday playing at my sister's house.  I didn't take much along, but one of the stamps I had was a new background stamp from Hero Arts - newspaper background.  I love this stamp and know I'll get a lot of mileage from it.  I stamped it in vintage photo distress ink on ivory card stock and then added a flourish (Inkadinkado) in brushed corduroy.  I gave it an old distressed look by sponging vintage photo on the edges and over parts of the remainder, but left some areas uninked. 

I inked the flower (Penny Black) with peeled paint, faded jeans & vintage photo distress inks and stamped it on ivory card stock.  I used labels collection framelits (available from Stampin' Up) to cut the flower and a larger piece of black.  I used just a partial of the black die cut.  I sponged vintage photo around the flower and attached it with dimensional tape. 

The bird (Stampers Anonymous) was inked with faded jeans and carefully cut out.  This is also attached with dimensional tape. 

The final piece of black was punched with my dotted ribbon scallop border punch from SU.  


Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have some wonderful plans for the weekend.  I'm going to have the house to myself, as the family is going for an overnight at a campground with some of their friends, and I elected to stay home in my cool air conditioned house and get crafty. 

beets

Hello again, my friends.  I just had to stop in with a quick post.  I'm home alone this evening, since the rest of the family plays wallyball on Fridays after work.  I was hungry for a little snack and remembered that I had a can of beets in the cupboard.  Now, so you understand this, I'm the ONLY one in my family who enjoys beets.  My husband hates them, and apparently, the kids got his taste buds and not mine. 

So anyway, I pull out this can of beets.

And here's what I found written on the top.  I thought it was pretty funny and got a good laugh.

 But they were so yummy.  Thanks for stopping by.

shimmery

Hi, friends. I almost didn't stamp today. I spent something like 3-1/2 hours shopping with my son this afternoon. He was buying clothes, but we had a coupon that worked only with the store credit card and he doesn't have one, so that meant I had to go along. Now, for some of you, an afternoon shopping is probably heaven, but I do not like shopping, so I was pretty tired by the time we finished. And I didn't buy anything for myself.

But, anyway, after dinner, when the men headed off to volleyball, I decided to stamp a card for today's Hope challenge on SCS, which was to use twine.

I happen to be one of those people who create as I go. I had absolutely no idea where this card was going. I wanted to use the hemp twine a little differently than normal, which would be just wrapping it around a layer a few times and tying a knot.

So to start, I pulled out a Cornish Heritage Farms background stamp (Pretty Pattern) and stamped it in pacific point on a piece of witch hazel pebble dp. Then I pulled a stamped, colored & cut out butterfly (Gina K) from a zipper bag filled with beginnings (bits & pieces that I've stamped or cut, but not used).

I needed a card base and found that not quite navy was a good match. Then I wanted a flower, so I pulled out Fabulous Flowers (SU) which hasn't seen ink in awhile. I stamped it on the same dp in pacific point four times and then cut out one full flower and parts to layer from the rest. I used dimensional tape between each of the layers. After I put the flower all together, I thought it was a little dull, so I grabbed some twinkling H2O's (mediterranean blue) and painted the petals. I coated the butterfly and the edges of the dp with the paint as well. I finally figured out how to use the twine. I cut some pieces and just laid them under the flower. Nothing special, but it does add some flow to the design.

I stamped the sentiment from the floral set in black stazon and then painted the larger letters. I ended up liking how it turned out.

Thanks for visiting.

Happy Valentines Day

And happy Saturday. It snowed again last night (a couple of inches), so everything is all white again.

Yesterday, when DH came home from work, he surprised me with these. Isn't he sweet. It has pussy willows in it. I love them. Every spring as children, we'd go hunt some up and bring them home. I will probably let these puff out a bit more and then take them out of the water and dry them. That way I can enjoy them for a long time, even if there are only three stems.

I made him a card using yesterdays' limited supplies challenge on SCS. I didn't want it to be frilly and feminine, so I thought I'd try to get the look of someone carving in a tree. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

I started the card last night, but needed to let it sit for awhile. I do that a lot. Spurts of creativity and then need to walk away and when I come back, I have new ideas. I rarely visualize a card in my head and just go with it. I almost always change what I was thinking would work and come up with different ideas along the way. That's just the way I create. Most of the time, the final creation is nothing like what I started out thinking I was going to make.



I started by stamping the bird heart in versamark on glossy white card stock. I couldn't use my heat gun since the house was asleep, so it didn't give me quite as sharp an image as I wanted, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway.

Then I stamped the woodgrain background (CHF) in chocolate chip over the heart. At that point, I was totally disappointed, because the heart wasn't showing up at all. So, I took a paper towel and rubbed over the ink to dry the versamark and then I brayed creamy caramel over the whole thing. Ta dah! The heart just popped out. I think if I could have heatset the versamark first, it would have been much more vivid. I wiped it again with the paper towel, but nothing much more came off.

I added some brads, scalloped square punches, the little bird and some leafy branches. With a bit of sponging and a sentiment, I was done. All in all a pretty simple card.

What's in it?
stamps: bird heart (Stampington & Co.), woodgrain backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms), always (SU)
ink: versamark, chocolate chip, creamy caramel, pacific point
paper: very vanilla, chocolate chip, tempting turquoise, glossy white
other: brayer, sponge dauber, brads, scalloped square punch, leaf punch (Martha Stewart), cuttlebug, bird nestabilities die (Spellbinders), foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are able to spend the day with someone you love.

Let it snow

This is what it looks like right now out my window - the white spots are huge snowflakes!















I went out to my class this morning. We had a very low attendance, since the roads were bad. We've had snow, rain, sleet mix, but mostly snow and just cold enough for the roads to be slushy.

I've also been tagged by Kristy:

The rules of the game:

• Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Things about me:

1. I have 2 sisters & 2 brothers.

2. I've been to Europe twice.

3. I celebrated my 30th birthday on my honeymoon.

4. I'm basically a very shy person.

5. With the exception of my college years in Michigan, I've lived in Wisconsin all my life.

6. I hate doing housework and my house normally looks like a disaster area.

7. I hate shopping!

That was hard, since I don't usually share things about me.

I am tagging:

Diane

Amber

Gena

Dawn

Kittie

Andria

Alex - (she has blog candy)

So there you have it. Thanks for stopping by.