Happy 60th Birthday

One of my blogging buddies, Dana, is celebrating her 60th Birthday today. Please visit her blog today to help her celebrate. You know those birthday's with the 0's are special ones!!!


I recently received two cards from her. This one with the gorgeous newsprint bird was filled with the goodies you see further down. Dana has a new toy called a Slice and she cut these out and sent them to me. I will be using them very soon! Thanks Dana.


I sent Dana a package for her birthday when I found out that she likes roosters! She had seen the rooster card that I made and the pictures of the roosters that we saw in Smithville and commented on them. And, she told me that she had never seen a rooster stamp.

Well, thanks to my friend Joan, I was able to send her a rooster stamp. Joan and I had been shopping together recently and I saw the rooster set but, remorsefully, did not buy it. She picked it up for me when she visited that store again. Thanks Joan!!!

A few days after I mailed the package I received this card from Dana with the rooster on it. Didn't she do a great job with the design? I love it.

Look at all the wonderful shapes and words she cut out for me. Sounds like a great machine to have around Dana!

Oh, and I have to tell you that she put the picture of my rooster picture on the back of her card! That was a real treat!

Now, in case you didn't see the link above, click here to visit Dana and wish her a Happy Birthday!

Friday CPR 7/31 - Time to Renew My License

If you'd like to read my Friday CPR post for 7/31 - Time to Renew My License, click here.

Thursday's Throw Aways - Week 20

Someone I know requested some bookmarks. Nothing specific, just bookmarks.

This being Thursday, I thought it would be a good idea to go through my scrap pile and see if there was anything that I could recycle into a bookmark. Boy, did I find a lot.

As you can see, I had a lot of scraps to use (this is only a fraction). So I cut some cardstock strips to start with. Then I picked out some of the discards, or mistakes that I had put aside.

After playing with them for a while to get the designs that I wanted, I carefully took the pieces and put them through my Xyron to make them into stickers. This works out especially well since a lot of the pieces are quite small and it would be difficult to use Snail on. You also want to make sure that the pieces, or images, are totally adhered to the backing.

So these range from some of the leftover butterflies that I punched out of the Vera Bradley catalog, to some motifs from leftover DSP, to extra images that I had put aside to use someday.

I tried to keep the layering to a minimum because you don't really want lumpy bookmarks now do you!

Now, I'm off to find my magnets as these green ones are supposed to be magnetized.

Hope she likes them. And, wouldn't it be nice if she left them in the books as she passed them on.

Teapot Tuesday 57

Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit. I'm lovin' this little froggie teapot. It's so darn cute!!! This is our inspiration for Teapot Tuesday 57. You can read all about it here on Cindy Motherway's glob.

We have rules this week about lily pads and the number of frogs and so on and so forth. Cindy had a special pond built in her yard for this teaparty, so I'm going to try to do it justice. For the second week in a row I've used the set Unfrogettable. See, I knew I should keep it around after it retired!!! It has a couple of really cute frogs in it (in addition to the snail that I used last week). I wanted to use the polite frog that would actually be seen sitting on the lily pad and not the one jumping around. Maybe because Tuesday is my tiredest (is that a word?) day and I need to rest. I used my SU pastels to color the little guy!


I pulled out some retired paper too! The pond that the lily pad is floating in is retired color Cool Carribean and I paired it up with the current Bermuda Bay, so I think we have one of those Bermuda triangle things going here!

The lily on the lily pad was an experiment I had tried after I saw one of the challenges posted a while ago on Splitcoast, to use fabric with a die cut. There is a way to do this. You have to iron the fabric onto freezer paper before you put it through the die machine so that you have some resistance and the fabric will actually cut. It's easy peasy. After I did that I re-ironed the flowers so that the freezer paper would stay on. That way I could fluff up the flower and give it some dimension rather than see it lay flat. Will the paper stay stuck to the fabric? Time will tell. But for now it's doing the job.

The center of the flower is a build a brad. Using regular punches with fabric this way is not as easy. I wound up having to trim the circle to fit on the top of the brad. You can see it a little clearer with this close up.


The "Carribean" pond was run through the cuttlebug with the bubble embossing folder. You see, I think all those other tea partiers are lurking around with straws blowing bubbles into the water and trying to knock each other off the lily pads!

Oh, and take a good look at my frog. He's actually popped up diagonally on the lily pad so he looks more like he's sitting on it rather than flat against it. I cut a strip of paper and chalked it, trimmed it, and added it behind the frog to hide all the pop dots!

Hop a long now, over to the Teapot Tuesday 57 gallery and catch all the other entries for this week's challenge. You won't be disappointed!

Combining Two Challenges Today

The Try a New Technique Challenge for today was to incorporate quilling into a card. I had this lion head that I did a while back. I liked the CAS Sketch so much that I decided to do another sketch card and use the lion head on it. (The lion head is done in Marigold Morning - a retired In Color from several years ago that I do still love.)

The sentiment comes from the new SU set Hard to Say. There are some good sayings in that set that are not your run-of-the-mill sentiments.

The DSP used was a piece from the Razzleberry Lemonade pack and the Dusty Durango design was achieved by cutting out some of the motif from an MS border punch.

I actually used watercolor paper as my card base. I wanted something with a little weight and my SU Whisper White is a little too wispy. See, here's where you can use your Michael's 40% off coupons - for watercolor pads. You'll find that they often are on sale with the art supplies for 40% off at times.

The ribbon was first added across and around the panel. Then I took a second piece and tied consecutive knots across the first piece. I frayed both ends as my last step.

Now............ I have a quilled lamb somewhere that I should use too.

Maybe tomorrow!

Open Wide

I was going to pick blackberries and forgot a bowl so I whistled for HWNSNBP and when I did the babies started cheeping away. So, just before we opened the box I tried whistling again and this is what happened.

Word Verification

While visiting a favorite blog I found it ironic that I was commenting on the color combination and this was the word used in the word verification.

Heads

Tails

Gazania

Slime Mold in the Woodchips

It has another name that I'd rather not mention. You can look it up on the internet.

Fox Tail

On my way home for lunch one day this past week I saw a fox laying in the grass by the side of the road. By the time I turned around and pulled up along side of him, he had seen enough of me and gave me this shot.

Dinner Plate Dahlia

This flower is from our garden and it is about 6" across.

Butterfly on Butterfly Bush

Arm Parentheses

That's HWNSNBP in between two of his best buds. We were at a graduation party.

CAS Challenge 7-27 - Sketch

I was working on another project this evening using up scraps and images that I had saved from the trash (photos later in the week). I happened to see the CAS challenge for this week before I signed off for the evening and thought that this would be a great way to use that flower that was among my scraps.

The card base is Dusty Durango, as is the polka-dotted ribbon. There's a layer of Soft Suede and the DSP is from the Razzleberry Lemonade pack. I stamped the sentiment using Teeny Tiny Wishes in Soft Suede. The flower is an embosslit that I ran through the Big Shot in Crushed Curry and added some Dusty Durango highlights with one of those finger-thingies which I cannot think of the name of right now.

This is a great sketch for any ocassion. You might see more of these in the future.

Flight of the Strawberry - or - Being in the Right Place at the Right Time This Morning

This is the title for the slide show below. For some reason I cannot get them to post together today! Sorry for the confusion.

Friday CPR 7/25 - What Comes of This Seed?

To view my Friday CPR post for 7/25 - What Comes of This Seed? click here.

Thursday's Throw Aways - Week 19 - Postcard Matchbox

I work in a school and part of my job is putting the daily mail in the staff mailboxes. Believe it or not, we do get a lot of junk mail, most of which goes into the recycling. Every once and a while something will come in that catches my eye. It might be a catalog with an interesting cover, or something like this postcard below.

This is an oversized postcard from a local college addressed to a retired teacher and would have been thrown into the recycling container, but what you can't see from the picture is that it is heavyweight and glossy and, well, I just thought it could be repurposed into something useful.

I carefully laid it out on my matchbox die so that when I ran it through the Big Shot, old Thomas Edison there would be on the front of the matchbox top.

We have a college graduation party to attend this weekend, so I think I will put some chocolate nuggets in there and, if I don't get around to it, I will fold up the gift check and include that too!

Here is another way to use that matchbox die. I made three boxes using the new In Colors and stacked them one on top of the other. Then I wrapped a pretty piece of DSP around them to hold them all together. I added the ribbon knots on the front of the "drawers" as pulls. This will be a nice addition to my desk at work or maybe another gift. What would you use if for?

Teapot Tuesday 56 - Tour De France Snails

Don't think your eyes are deceiving you, yes, it is a snail teapot! I think it's cute. Just look at that happy face! I'm reminded of that snail from Dr. Doolittle. Do you remember that one?

This snail teapot comes along with a story - of course. And to get the real scoop you have to visit Cindy Motherway's glob to read all about it. She got her inspiration from a suggestion that another stamper made about possibly attending a tea party during the Tour de France. Where does the snail fit in? Well, apparently while watching TV coverage of the race, someone noticed that there were some snails trying to cross the street during the race. You have to see the awesome card that Cindy made. She is such a paper genius!

So we're off to the Tour De France, snails and all.

I haven't watched any of the coverage this year, but I remembered from the past that there is a special significance to the color of the jersey's that the bikers wear. So I did some homework at school. (There's a name for that kind of sentence - someone tell me.)

The yellow jersey is worn by the race leader.
The green jersey represents the best sprinter.
The polka dot jersey (yes it really is polka dotted!) is worn by the best climber, or the racer who does best in the mountains.
The white jersey is worn by the highest-ranked rider in the competion age 25 or younger.
I added the blue jersey because if I had to choose team colors I would choose blue.

These snails wanted to get into the race so they jumped on a spare bike tire and are spinning their little hearts out. Can you tell by the color of their shells who's winning?

Now for the deets:
Stamps: Snails come from Unfroggetable (retired), Sentiment from All Year Cheer II (also retired).
Paper: Basic Black, Melon Mambo, Whisper White, Gable Green Summer Sun, Tempting Turquoise, Sahara Sand, Razzleberry Lemonade DSP
Ink: Basic Gray, Basic Black, Real Red
Accessories: Black brads, silver eyelet, silver embroidery floss, Scallop punch, 1 3/4 and 1 1/2 circle punches, googlie eyes, word window punch

Are you wondering how I made the tire? I punched a scallop circle and then put a notch in each scallop. Then I took a single strand of floss and started wrapping so that there would be a small open center where I could put the eyelet and then brad. I trimmed the scallops so that the black tire could be glued right onto the spokes without showing the white edges. And yes, with some assistance, the tire does spin.

I was thinking I would send this to our nephew for his birthday, then I realized that I used pink as the background. What do you think about that?

Check out the Teapot 56 gallery here.

Summer Rose to Cheer You

I've had this rose sitting on my table for some time now. It finally found a place on this simple background.

The CAS (Clean and Simple) challenge for today was to use the colors of summer: Turquoise, Orange and Yellow.

I'm sending this to my Godmother as I've heard she's not been feeling well lately.

The rose is from Fifth Avenue Floral and it was stamped on Shimmery White CS with VersaMark and embossed with white EP. I then used my aquapainter and ink from the lids of my inkpads to color it. It is shimmery in real life!

I hope this will cheer her up a bit!

Views From the Backyard

Who's Looking at Who

A Visit With St. Francis

Checking the Box

I See You

Caged Dahlias

Perilous Perch

Dad Standing Watch

Scalloped Die Box/Bag

Uggghhhh. I just can't seem to take a good picture lately. This is another one of my new dies. The scallop box/bag die. You can't really see that I stamped the leaves from God's Beauty in VersaMark on the box and then added the flowers and butterfly. The box is Tempting Turquoise, as are the flowers and butterfly highlights.

I like this box, but, after I finished it, it didn't hold what I wanted to put in it! I'm going to have to rethink this one!

Friday CPR 7/17 - New Door Lock

To view my Friday CPR post for 7/17 - New Door Lock, click here.

Yes, I know it's Saturday. The problem with posting ahead, at least for me, is that you have to go back to the post on the day that it posts to actually link it to another source (like this blog). Otherwise, you link the whole blog, which, in this case might not be so bad because it looks like I'm not getting many visitors to that blog (even my followers!!!!).

So, from now on, I think I'll just put in a generic link here on Fridays. The current post will be at the top anyway, and maybe, just maybe, some of you might be interested in reading on!

But, just in case you're new here, and you're wondering WTH I'm talking about - Friday CPR is my other blog in which I write about experiences I've had, or heard about in school. Some are funny, some are sad, some are just plain stupid. It's just my way of dealing with the absurdities of life in a school.

Hope you take a look and find something you enjoy!

Thursday's Throw Aways - Week 18 - Hang Tags

Thanks to the deer eating our flowering plants in the backyard, I happened to have these hang tags from some decorative fence posts that we bought to hang bird netting on. I loved the black and white drawing of a metal forge on them and decided to try to reuse them.

The color I chose for the card base is Basic Gray which plays well with the drawings themselves. I wanted something lighter to help highlight the drawings so I chose a layer of Taken With Teal and added a band of Bermuda Bay that I punched on both sides with a MS fence post punch. (Oh, I just realized that I had another theme going here with fences.)

The bow is Basic Gray taffeta and the brads are styled silver. The sentiment is stamped in Basic Gray and it's from the Pocket Silhouettes stamp set. (You can't see it too clearly in the picture - it says "thanks so much".)

I had another tag on the table that I had been saving from a sundress that I bought. Again, the design was what caught my eye. There was some text on it, but the ribbon covers it. The colors in the tag went well with the new In Color Melon Mambo so I used some DSP from the Razzleberry Lemonade pack and the polka dot ribbon in the same color. The striped ribbon was a scrap that I had on the table at the time.

The circles are from the Circle Circus set and stamped in Melon Mambo and punched out. A couple of them are popped up. And the sentiment was from the Pocket Silhouettes set too!

These two cards came together rather quickly. I think the tags deserved to be saved from the household recycling. What do you think?

Teapot Tuesday 55 - Meeting Martha Stewart

Tuesday's the day for Tea Parties on Cindy's glob. This week she featured a teapot with these crazy cats!!! The CAT-erer's as she put it. Since we had the sneak peak last week and I saw that it had cats on it, and I knew that I had but one cat stamp, you would have thought that I would have used the time between last Tuesday and today to stamp and color the cat. But no!!! I did what I do best - procrastinated - and left it for today.

This is Furleasha (named for our last cat). She is in charge of the shopping for the dinner tea today. I suggested that she might want to go to Costco, as we usually have a big turnout for these parties and at Costco you can get lots for less (as long as you have room for it!!!).

It was during this catversation that I remembered today was the day that Martha Stewart was going to be at our Costco signing her newest book about cupcakes. When I shared that with my co-worker, we asked our boss nicely if we could use some comp time and leave a little early today so that we could get to Costco and stand in line to buy a book and get it signed. (I didn't explain to him that Furleasha and I were also doing tea party shopping because I don't think he would have let me go - he probably would have called to have someone take me away!!!)

Yes, we were about the 85th people in line who waited for Martha to arrive. It wasn't so bad, really. While we stood in line we shot the breeze with the people in front of and behind us, and Costco had some of their workers walking up and down the line handing out cookies.

Martha was very nice. She signed the books and would speak to you if you talked to her. Just before it was my turn to approach her table, they brought her some snacks. She told me that she had only had a small salad for lunch today and needed sustenance. I told her that she looked lovely today.

Yes, that's all that I could come up with. Should I have said -

Martha, I am here with the ghost of my dead cat Furleasha and we are shopping for food for a dinner tea party today. Do you have any suggestions?

Then she might have suggested a recipe for Blue Tie Fish and we would have been golden!

I think she would appreciate how I used those ties to make fish and cupcakes to make a hat today! (Do you see the glitter gel pen I added to the fish to make them sparkle?)

So, I hope you like my card this week. It's a little Dr. Seussish, now that I look at it again. All those primary colors!!!!

Here's the details:

Stamps: Holiday Blitz (the tie and cupcake), Cat from Rubber Stampede, Studio G Clear Stamps

Paper: Real Red, Summer Sun, Ballet Blue, Basic Black, Watercolor

Ink: Basic Gray, Real Red, Ballet Blue and various markers to watercolor the cat

Accessories: aquapainter, glitter gel pen, circle punches, 1/4" black grosgrain ribbon

Now, please go take a look at the Teapot Gallery for this week. And thanks Kris for sharing your teapot with us this week.

Clean and Simple Art Challenge

I saw this challenge posted at Splitcoast today in the CAS (Clean and Simple) section. You were to go to the (www.art.com) website and choose an artwork to inspire you today.

The gallery for circles drew my attention. Click on these pieces that inspired me:

http://www.art.com/products/p11736671-sa-i1170681/rachael-stroud-abstract-iv.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=206580&dimvals=206580&ui=0ba719ae416e4540b12da273458da04e

http://www.art.com/products/p10339741-sa-i1170680/rachael-stroud-abstract-iii.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=206580&dimvals=206580&ui=0ba719ae416e4540b12da273458da04e

They both are done using the Circle Circus and Trendy Trees stamp sets. They are stamped on Confetti Cream CS and the images are colored with Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango, and Soft Suede markers.

This set lends itself very well to Clean and Simple stamping. I think I will make one more each of these and wrap them up for a gift. You never have enough Thank You cards!