Spring Notes

I made a few Spring notecards with a new to me (but old in availability) die.  I saw some cards on Pinterest using this die and immediately wanted to add it to my stash but it was first marketed in 2014 so I had to look around for it online and was lucky to find it on Ebay.  (There is a bigger version that I'm  contemplating purchasing also.) The stamped image is an older Unity stamp that I used a portion of for the center of the die cut.  I also dipped into some older colored cardstock in an effort to start using what has been collecting dust in my paper stash.  I only have a few sheets left of the Mint Macaron and Certainly Celery used on this first card.  Petal Pink and Cameo Coral were used on the others.  

The stamped image was colored with Copic Ciao markers.

I absolutely love the spring wildflowers that have taken over parts of our yard in recent years.  Some of it was planned and some was spontaneous.  It always makes me smile when I find them en masse or in in unexpected places.

Siberian Squills have spread this year like wild fire.  This is a portion of our "fake brook" and it makes me so happy to see the blue Squill water.

These are Marsh Marigolds and unfortunately they are very invasive and I will be trying to pull some of them out this year.

More Squills and a the white flower is called "Bloodroot" because the sap from the root is red.  These move around the yard as they seed themselves but there aren't many of them to be found.

Up closer to the Marsh Marigold and some Spring Beauty.

Spring Beauty in pale, pale pink.

Confederate Violets.

Yellow Violet.

More Confederates.

The primroses aren't wildflowers but they do come back each Spring.  HWNSNBP will buy them at Home Depot for the kitchen windowsill when they come out in late winter and we always try to transplant them to the garden when they are done blooming inside.  We have had some luck with them reviving in the outdoors which is not something you can count on when flowers are originally started in a greenhouse situation. 

I have forgotten the name of this pink flowering plant but I love that it has made a home in this bed.

The Chionodoxa's are scattered amongst the Squills.

  

I haven't seen a Puschkinia in this bed for years.  I even had to make sure that that was the name of it.  It might be confused with a Wood Hyacinth but it is much smaller.

This Anemone or Grecian Windflower was a surprise also where it decided to bloom.  There are a couple that have come up in the walkway and I'm glad that I decided to leave those clumps of leaves when I did some early weeding.

This flower is a mystery to me also.  I don't remember planting it and don't know it's name either but I was happy to find it in this bed.  I actually didn't even see it until I was weeding some the other evening.

The naturalized Daffodils are blooming on the hill and the Redbud trees are just about ready to pop.  I hope to have some pictures of them together soon.

We have daffodils planted in the garden to use for cutting purposes and HWNSNBP brought some in a couple of nights ago.  I say night because we often do yardwork at the end of the day when it is cooler and usually work until the sun goes down.  Anyway, he brought in a beautiful bundle of Daffodils in a large mason jar and put them on the kitchen counter.  Later on, when I was doing the dishes I looked over at them and there was the biggest spider I've every seen on one of the daffodils.  I don't do spiders.  I didn't even want to take a picture of it.  He got a tissue to catch it and I told him that he'd better not miss.  Thankfully he didn't, but I am so glad that we saw it sooner than later when it might have found another cozier place to hang out in.  Needless to say, I reminded him that he has to shake out and inspect those flowers before they come into the house!

And one more note in this long post.  We have been looking all over for a particular Lavendar variety called Dilly Dilly which we had success with in one of our borders last year.  The other two varieties that we had in that border didn't fair well and we wanted to replace them with the one that did.  Of course the nursery that we originally got them from didn't have them again this year (we've been back there three times checking) so it's been a bit of a wild goose chase until yesterday.  Even though it was raining off and on, HWNSNBP suggested that we take a ride to the Great Swamp Nursery.  On the way there I finally saw an eagle in the wild.  It was in a field with the carcass of what looked like a deer on the side of the backroad we were taking and HWNSNBP even turned around so I could try to take a picture of it, if only with my phone.  I usually take my camera with me when we go that way but because it was raining I had decided not to.  Well, by the time we turned around to get close again, it had flown off, or so we thought because turning back around to go in the original direction I saw it again a little bit of a distance away but at that point we were again past it and he wouldn't turn around again.  So no picture, but the other good news is that a last peek at the labels of the Lavendar plants amongst the many that they had at the GS before we gave up rewarded us with the last few Dilly Dilly plants that they had.  Success on a rainy day!

The100DayProject - Week 10

Some Easter and Spring-themed tags from the past week.

This was inspired by a photo I saw on FB by Han Cao of Washington, DC.

Avocado squirrels are a real thing - as seen on the internet.

Happy 5th Birthday

Hard to believe that he's 5 already.  He's a Lego lover and so the card that I did was based on one I found on Pinterest by Susan Joyce on her blog from 2013.  Her granddaughter was turning 6 but the 6 was easy enough to turn into a 5.  I loved doing this although it was a bit time consuming because all of those circles and squares were sponged on the edges to give them more of a 3D effect (as well as the circles being popped up with dimensionals).  And I cut apart those letters for the HAPPY BIRTHDAY from a die that has them one on top of each other.  Thank goodness for a good pair of crafting tweezers!

Remember back at Christmastime when I wrote about the puzzle tables that HWNSNBP made?  Well our grandson had taken over the puzzle table in their household for his Legos so his mother concocted a scheme with Papa to made a Lego table, or as Papa now calls it a Lego Parking Garage.  She told him that she wanted legs and shelves and there was a lot of going back and forth in texts and pictures to make sure that this was what she wanted.  

The top (which is totally removable by an adult making a secret compartment for direction books and pamplets) has the same drawers he featured in the puzzle table and there are two drawers beneath that slide out for storage as the little guy likes to keep his creations in one piece once they are put together.  There are also casters on the legs so it can be moved when the drawers need to be pulled out.  Pretty cool!  

And here he is in all his 5-year-old glory with his shark-themed shirt, cake, and cupcakes.  

Their neighbors had a blow-up bouncy house that they were more than glad to lend them for the day and it turned out to be a very pleasant one to be outside with the kids.  

Edited to add these send to us this morning

The 100DayProject - Week 9

 Ending March and into April we go.

I was hoping it was a chocolate cake inside for my birthday.  (He did get me a slice of Salted Caramel Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.)

White stitching is, I was going to say almost but it definitely IS impossible to portray on a white background.  I was going to label this pillow fight for April Fool's Day but didn't want to pass up the opportunity for...

.... a sloth.

Good Friday

And into Easter weekend and more Spring ahead.

Here are Days 40-60

After I posted my swatch cards last time, I was going through my supplies and realized that I did have a set of Arteza fineline markers.  I started swatching them too (it's a set of 72) but I didn't get far when I decided to do a tag using some of them.  Unfortunately I found that they really bleed on the tag paper as opposed to the index card paper so I'm hesitant to use them because the lines wouldn't be as fine as I would like.  Also, even though the set has 72 colors, there are quite a few that although they have different cap colors denoting separate colors, on paper they look the same as others.  They're also not numbered so I am going to have to try to number them somehow to be able to use the swatch card effectively.  I've done that before with a cheap set of gel pens by using a fine paint pen to add numbers to the pen casing.  So there's another project for a rainy day ahead.

Jingle Belles - Holiday Cards to "Die" For

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bed we go.  Wait - What?  What am I talking about?  Well, I'm showing off this new die that my blogging buddy Sabrina sent me for my birthday last week.  It couldn't have come at a better time as the Jingle Belle challenge for this fortnight is to use a die or dies, or even punches.  I have to admit that I've not seen this die before and was excited to use it.  It's a Joanna Sheen Signature Die called Bedtime Stocking.  I was able to find some samples on line to see how to put all the pieces together.  

You can use the headboard by itself, but I chose to layer two of them to give it the appearance of a full bed.  By running the die through my Sizzix Sidekick a few times with patterned paper I was able to fill the space in the footboard and also make two pillows for the bed.  

I used the same die for the second card but changed up the style of the room.   

Thank you again Sabrina for giving me the inspiration for these two cards, and congratulations on your 1,000th blog post.  Now I need to drop by the Jingle Belles to see how all the other participants have been inspired.  You can join me by clicking here.

Happy Easter

Happy Belated Easter.  This is the first time in a long time that I've decorated my little tree mainly because it had been tucked safely inside a cupboard that finally got a good cleaning out recently.  I found the little glass egg ornaments and more.  

My Easter cards this year were a little on the spur of the moment, but I wanted to use things that I had on hand.  I had ordered some stamps back in February from a new company I hadn't used before - Holly Berry House located in Colorado.  Well the order got delayed and the owner was so apologetic that she included some free "goodies" for me including these Easter stamps (the flowers on the outside and everything on the inside).  I needed to find a way to make this flap work and remembered my little bunny stamp and die which I think worked perfectly popped up so the flowers tucked behind him as a closure.

In searching for something (typical pre-creative necessity) I had a bunch of items on my craft table and instead of just packing them away again I decided to use some of them for some quick spring projects.

A stamped image and a little crocheted flower became this little gift tag insert.

A little paint on this wooden bird, a screw eye hanger, some ribbon, a sticker dot, and those crocheted flowers for wings became this little decoration.

A wooden slice and some felt flowers and birds along with patterned paper were used to make this.  When adding the screw eye the bark became unstable so I peeled the rest of it off and used some scrap corrugated paper around the outside.  Initially the background was left raw but I decided to paint it (very carefully now that the other items were glued on).  And I now know that the paint was too close in value to the leaves because they are barely visible so I will be updating this soon with a lighter background.  

In my craft room searches I keep coming up with items that have been saved - some for specific purposes, others just because they might have some potential.  And as mentioned above, I tend to just put them back aside to get to the project at hand, but I have made a little mental promise to myself to do something with those found bits and bobs because they're really not doing anything but taking up space by just storing them away again.  I think crafters like me that have that "I might need this someday" philosophy for gathering things keep postponing that someday not realizing that there is opportunity any given day to make something useful.  It might not be the greatest thing you've ever done, but it could be something that has a purpose, if only to make someone smile for a minute.  Collecting things in bags and boxes endlessly only takes up space. And taking up that space only weighs us down.  It's worth noting too that things can be reevaluated for their potential also during these round-ups.  Not everything saved needs to be kept.  I look at things and try to see the uniqueness in them.   Is it something that I can put my hands on again easily if I need it, or is this something a one off and not going to come my way again?   

So, moving forward, especially during the month of April when we celebrate Earth Day and are encouraged to be more aware of reducing, reusing, and recycling, I hope to do just that.  Stay tuned.