Summertime Surprises

So I had a bit of a surprise yesterday afternoon when I was on the phone with a friend.  I heard a really loud CRASH! suddenly that sounded like breaking glass!  I searched through the house to see if any of the animals were into something because it sounded like something had been knocked off a shelf.  Of course, all four animals were sleeping in the bedroom and were woken up by the noise, and they all gave me a look that very clearly said, "why do you always blame US?!?"  I even looked outside down the street to see if someone dropped a box of dishes or glassware!  (No, I'm not crazy, we have a neighbor that is moving, so this really COULD have been it!)

It wasn't.

Feeling like an idiot, I gave up my search and went into the back yard with the dogs, and this is what I found:

Somehow the glass top to my outdoor table shattered!  It was in the screenhouse with nothing on it, it didn't tip over, the sun wasn't even on it so it couldn't have overheated, but somehow it exploded!  I told the hubs about it and what does he say?  "Well, geez.... I know you wanted a round table instead, but did you really have to BREAK the old one?!?"

Thanks, honey.  Thanks.

Cheers!

Sunbeams!

I haven't done a lot of stamping lately, so I hope you don't mind the photos!

I just had to capture this, seeing the "fingers" of sunshine around the clouds.  Sights like this always make me smile!

Cheers!

Uh oh, a new project...

So I was reading over at Write. Click. Scrapbook. today, and I came across this post.  I think this is a fantastic idea to get a hold on digitizing old photos!  The idea is an old-school Photo-a-Day project where you digitize and note an old photo every day for a month.  This way everyone in your family can enjoy the photos instead of the one person who has the picture stashed in a box! Here are the photos I need to digitize:

Yep, I have a loooong way to go, but nowhere near as far as others, I'm sure!  This is going to be a fun project!

Cheers!

Minnesota Rainstorms

Here is another of the many reasons I love living in the Northland:

We've had a lot of rain here recently, and this is the view I'm often treated to after the storms break.  I'm not sure why, but we have as many double rainbows as we do single ones.  This is the view from my front porch, can't ask for anything better than that!

Cheers!

My girls aren't spoiled....

Honest! 

Thought I'd share this since I know there are a lot of dog lovers out there!  We made some grilled corn on the cob this weekend, and Daisy was eyeballing the leftovers and looking pathetic, so I gave her a little taste!  She really gets into it, the reason she looks crosseyed is because she's staring at the cob.  She doesn't try to take the whole thing, she just uses her front teeth to pull the kernels off!  But she's not spoiled, really!

Cheers!

Bathing Beauties!

Here's the cards I did for a recent swap with some stamping friends.  I liked the first card I did for VSN so much that I decided to use up all the scraps of the background paper and make a whole batch of them!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

A Polary Bear Christmas Card

So I liked the design of the Polar Bear card I did over the weekend that I adapted it to be a Christmas Card! 

I'm a little behind on my Chistmas Card goals so far this year.  I had planned on doing eight per month until October, that way I would have enough finished for mailing and still have two months free for making gifts.  Instead, it's June and I've only made 10 Christmas Cards!  This brings the total up to 25, so I feel a little better about meeting my goal.  I have a goal to use up some of my pre-cut card bases and Christmas Cards seem to work perfectly!  I'll have a few that will be some unorthodox color schemes, but hey, I'm an unorthodox kind of gal!  :)

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Grad Party Invites

Here is a sample of some grad party invites I put together this weekend.  She needed a Polar Bear and the color purple.  This was a bit of a challenge for me!  How do you combine ANYTHING with a Polar Bear without making it Christmas-y? 

I actually think these came together pretty well!  I used a lot of my black scraps to ground the colors and make the color scheme be a little more grown up.  After all, I didn't want these to look like party invites for a 6 year old! ;)  The paper is from Kaisercraft, and the stamp is Imaginesce.  I used my Versafine and my Prismas and OMS to color the image.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Favorite VSN Cards

Here is the last batch of VSN cards I made, and I really think my favorites are in this group!

Challenge 13 was to use watercolors or watercolor pencils, and to incorporate lots of brown!  I for one love pink and brown together, even though I'm not a fan of pink.  This cherry blossom stamp is another that has never been inked.  I really should be ashamed of myself, shouldn't I?!?  If you look close, there is a little touch of cream Flowersoft in the middle of each blossom.

The 14th challenge was to be inspired by Singing In The Rain.  My thinking went like this:  Singing in the rain -> singers talking about rain -> this quote by Bob Dylan.  "Some people fell the rain, others just get wet!"  This stamp is from Rubber Romance, and I thought she worked well with the quote.  The other half of the quote is inside the card, as you can see I also carried over the patterned paper to inside the card.

Challenge 15 was to incorporate some sort of water onto your card, it could even be in the form of snowflakes or water in a fishbowl or flower vase, or even a bathtub!  Of course, actual "water scenes" were included as well.  I added a few tiny little seashells to this instead of brads, and used some twine to balance the card out.  I think this card took 15 minutes, including the inking and the sponging!

Challenge 16 was to use the baby wipe technique.  With this, you use either a baby wipe or moist paper towel and your reinkers to make an inkpad.  This was actually supposed to be teal and green with a little bit of brown, but it looks more like brown and green and absolutely NO teal!  Still, I had fun with this!  I made my inkpad and used it to stamp my dragonfly, then used the inkpad direct to paper to create the background.

Challenge 17 was something I've never tried before, coloring a background stamp with markers and then misting it with water.  To top it off, we were to stamp it on vellum!  I thought I would totally botch this one, and I'm surprised at how well it turned out!  I learned a lot from this technique, namely when it comes to water, more is not necessarily better!  This time I did need a smidge more water than i used, but I was still surprised at how clearly it stamped!

The final challenge was to dust off something old rom your stash!  Even though I had already used so many stamps I had never inked up, I still have A LOT more to go!  This stamp set has been in the back of my stamp basket for ages, and I've always intended to use it just to play with my flower soft.  I kept he card small and simple so the imae would really pop.  I did pull out my oldest bottle of stickles (which I'd also never used) to add some glam to the dragonfly, and the black mats are from scraps from the store before it closed.

I'm actually pretty surprised that I managed to finish all 18 challenges!  I think a lot of it had to do with a very generous upload deadline and a four day weekend!  I had so much fun with this, I might just try hostessing next time!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

VSN Cards - Batch Two

Here is a second batch of cards I made for VSN, I figured I'd better spread them out a little bit! ;)

Challenge number eight was to incorporate flowers onto your card, either with a stamp, embellishment, or patterned paper.  Easy, right?  I've had this image stamp on my shelf staring at me for at least six months.  I actually move it every time I go into one of my drawer units on my shelf, and I have never inked it!  I gave this just a little wash of color since the paper is so bold and bright, and I included a little flower charm to the twine to the left.

The ninth challenge was to make some sort of home made flower, either by punching, die cutting, fussy cutting, ribbon, tissue paper, whatever.  I actually bought a pretty trashed paperback book of French poetry just for this purpose... about six months ago!  I'm not real happy with how the card turned out.  I love the flowers, and I love the image, but the rest seems kinda empty.  The image is much prettier in real life, and there's a little bit of glitter pen at the edges of her parasol.

Challenge number ten was to make a Spring themed bookmark, or a card that includes a bookmark.  I've never tried this technique before, and this was the first time I inked up this stamp!  I know, I know, I need a 12-step program.  One of my favorite things about Spring is finally being able to comfortably take my book outside, so I realy enjoyed this challenge!  Here is the front of the card:

And here is the bookmark portion!  I used my piercing tool to "perforate" the score line so the bookmark would be easy to take off.  I also made sure my brads were pretty flat, so they didn't rub off on the pages of the book.

Challenge number eleven was a toughie for me.  We were to make a card to represent the transition from Winter to Spring, either by changing the color, texture, or image going across the card.  I had to let this idea marinate in the back of my mind while I ran errands that day.  I mentioned it to the hubs, and he's actually the one who suggested a bicycle!  I love that man!  I'm not particularly fond of this card, but I thought I did pretty well with the challenge!  There are three colors of flower soft for Winter, Summer, and Autumn, and I thought the sentiment went with the whole "through the seasons" motif.

The twelfth challenge was also a doozie for me.  We were to make a curtain as a feature on our card!  They let us know before hand that we should have a 6x6 piece of fabric handy for the challenges.  I was thinking we'd be making fabric flowers or something like that.  I had a funky piece of fabric and some coordinating paper all picked out, and SURPRISE!!  This was actually pretty fun to do!  I even sent the hubs on a scavenger hunt to find something for my curtain rod!  I managed to make my own window frame using my Nesties, and although it's hard to see there is a little touch of green on the tree branches through the window!

I'm amazed that I managed to get each of these cards done within the 45 minute time period!  I have a kichen timer here to make sure I stay within the timeline, and it only went off once all weekend!  I had forgotten to turn it off when I was done with my card, so it really scared the heck outta me when I was cleaning up!  I'll be back Friday with the rest of the cards I did.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!