Miss You

Happy Independence Day for my American followers!  I hope my Canadian followers had a happy Canada Day last weekend! 

My card today is using the new For the Birds set from Stampin' Up!  I made a couple of these to go in my Operation Write Home box.  We are blessed to have the ladies at OWH work so hard to get our cards out to the troops. We know the cards are appreciated both abroad and at their final destination at home.

Yesterday, I was in an ill mood.  The day started with just one after another of minor annoyances.  Later in the morning I was to take my Mother for an ophthalmology appointment then had my own doctor's visit later in the afternoon.  (Note:  NEVER voluntarily go to the doctor on July 3!  The waiting rooms were full both places and I thought we would never get home.)  But before I knew how those visits would go I was already irritated at one thing or another plus I had little time to get anything done before the mid morning appointment.

I went upstairs to put some things away and there were these cards partially finished on my work table so I figured I could do a little on these before I left.  After 15 or 20 minutes, I felt so much better!  Card making or any creative pursuit counteracts the stress.  It still wasn't the perfect day but I did get something productive done and really enjoyed it.  One of the many blessings I have on this Independence Day.

When I made the larger cards, I also did this little bitty one to slip in my husband's shirt pocket the next time he travels without me.

BTW, my Mother got an excellent report from her doctor.  She is having these injections that weren't even available just a few years ago.  The treatments for her eye have really saved the vision in the affected eye.  It is almost perfect again!

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Our Time Together

In many of the popular scrapbooking videos, product is used liberally.  Well, I'm a bit frugal.  Take label stickers for example.  I want to use them to actually label something often the date as I did in the lower right corner of this two page spread.  Yet on videos, such as Shimelle's, label stickers are often part of the embellishment often in significant quantity.

I found a compromise for this layout.  I just started out doing a two page spread but realized I could take a tip from Glitter Girl and flip and reverse the layouts so they are a flipped mirror image.  All I had to add was something oval or circular to the upper left corner to balance that label with the date on it.   A grouping of labels would work but what a waste it seemed.

Then I found one that had been partially torn - the small yellow scallop and then the red one that is actually a holiday sticker I probably would never use.  So I picked those plus the orange one and hid the offending parts under the photo. This made good use of stickers that would have been tough to use.  And I think it really pulled this layout together.

So don't throw away those torn or odd stickers, just hide the under something and put their best side up.

For the rest of the layout, I used Pink Paislee canvas banner for the title by brushing with pastels and then stamping with a small dot stamp before adding the Basic Grey chipboard letters.

The banner was CASEd from this layout from Abstracts Mixed with Extracts blog.  I used a couple 6x6 paper pads from My Mind's Eye.  The little people from Studio Calico represent our family on vacation - Lenny, me, my stepdaughter, her husband and the two children.  I just love these wood accents plain, painted or whatever.  They are so versatile.  The brads are from Teresa Collins.

I picked these photos of ordinary stuff to start scrapping our family vacation rather than starting with the big events.  They are heavy on the journaling of just simple stuff about games we played and meals we shared. Just hanging out together is a special part of the trip.

Thanks for visiting today!

Is it hot enough yet?

Don't tell my stepdaughters I admitted it, but it is HOT upstairs!  My guestroom/craft room was their bedroom when they visited during the summers years ago.  As teenagers they had to complain about something and their bedroom was warmer than the rest of the house so it got plenty of air play.  I didn't pay it much attention since I'd spent a lot of time at my grandparents house with an attic bedroom and no air conditioning!  We didn't even have heat in those rooms in the winter and I don't care how many quilts Grandma smothered me with, it was cold!  My husband grew up without AC, too.  The girls had the run of the house as well so they were only in that room from about midnight until whatever time they got up each day.  Yes, I guess I was the wicked stepmother.  (When my oldest has come to visit with her family, Lenny and I have taken the upstairs room and given them our bedroom as it has more space.  The upstairs is comfortable at night - at least I think so :-)

Well, now I'm up there during the day it is a bit warm.  Yesterday, I brought some things downstairs to work so I could craft in the cool.  I'll have this layout up tomorrow.

Hope you are staying cool and safe in this heat wave.

LWR Quilts

Wrapping up the month with one last challenge - this week's Starting Points from Shimelle.  I flipped the sketch vertically and used the single rectangle to hold my title.

 Most of the journaling is hidden under the title.  A few years ago, making these quilts for Lutheran World Relief helped me work through a particularly challenging part of my life.  Creating something useful for someone else was wonderful medicine.  I've made quilts most other years since usually in the summer when business is slower. I wrote about the challenges and my feelings.  The photos are from last summer.

Most of the quilts were made with decorator fabric.  I had tons of stuff I'd bought for making samples for various events and extra fabrics from my own projects.  Most customer fabric is returned to the customer.  Sometimes there are odd size scraps that fit into the quilts.  For the page's embellishment, I used some scraps of decorator fabric to represent the fabrics.

I decided on buttons rather than misting to fill in the empty corner and bring the eye to through the layout.

Unfortunately, I am out of fabric to make quilts for now. It takes about 5 yards per quilt depending on the width of the fabric.   I'll be keeping my eye out for some good sales.  


Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Ingredients:  DSP:  grid paper from Peppermint Collection by Crate Paper; Prairee Hill by Pink Paislee
trim:  Twill tape and pom pom fringe by Stampin' Up!

Rainy's June Card Sketch

June is almost gone!  I can hardly believe it, can you?  With the month drawing to a close, I figured I'd better get busy on some challenges.  Here is my card for Rainy's sketch challenge.  See sketch here.  There are still a couple of days left to get one completed.

This card came together very quickly.  I made a couple of these for my Operation Write Home box.  The stamp is from Stampin' Up!'s new For the Birds.  I tried so hard to resist this set but I just couldn't. One of my stamp baskets is for 'Fun sets.'  It is kind of an all other category for things that aren't flowers, backgrounds, alphas, etc.   I should probably label it Bird Stamps as that is what seems to be in there.  I just love birds and the images in this set were so cute and cover just about everything you might want on a card.

For the ribbon, I combined two twines.  The red is Doodlebug and the blue is Enchanted Evening from Papertrey Ink.  Their twine comes on a pretty, old fashioned spool and is very fine. You could use it for hand sewing.

Thanks for visiting today!

It's like shoveling snow...

 ...during a blizzard.

One of us is cleaning and one is making more and more of a mess.

This may be my favorite layout so far this year.  Originally I was just going to share what we did on those confining January days.  I resorted to some extra cleaning partially due to boredom but mostly because I had some congestion and thought dust might be a factor.  It wasn't.  Anyway, I was glad I got in a little extra cleaning.

When I started looking at the photos, I couldn't help but notice the contrast of these photos taken on the same day.  I'm uncharacteristically cleaning.  Lenny was and continues to be especially busy this year in his business so his work area just keeps piling up with more and more projects.  I don't even try to clean his work area.  I wouldn't know what was trash and what was treasure!

For the layout, I used Jillibean Soup's Macho Nacho collection as the colors were perfect matches to the photos.  Some Stampin' Up! snowflake stamps and a snowflake punch helped with the embellishments.

There was one bland area in the layout above the photo of my husband so I cut some circles and layered them in a tone-on-tone look to fill the space.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  DSP: Jillibean Soup Macho Nacho collection
Stickers:  word - Authentique, letter - October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket
Thickers by American Crafts for titles

Quint-essential Flower Sampler

Got scraps?  Here is a card that uses lots of little pieces of pattern paper and also the new Quint-essential flower stamp from Stampin' Up!  You could sub a flower or another scallop design here quite easily.

The video also shows a new SU! firm foam ink pad and the Paper Piercing mat pack which has gobs of pretty designs to pierce. Warning though, it is a real enabler.  I just want to go out and buy all kinds of things that coordinate with that mat pack.  Will have to wait on those for now as I've already blown by budget in June so I'll have something to look forward to.

Watch at YouTube


The papers are from Basic Grey's PB&J 6x6 paper pad which has quickly become a favorite.  I love all these bright summer colors.

Thanks for watching!

Lacy and Lovely Sampler

Oh, the goodies in my box from Stampin' Up!  This was my first pick from the new catalog.  It was presented just above the Circle Circus set which has been on my wish list forever.  I love circular elements for cards and pages.  Lacy and Lovely set has those plus 3 beautiful greetings so it moved to the top of the list.

For this card, I cut three circles in Bashful Blue cardstock and filled them in with various images from the set  using colors found in this pretty stripe paper from Fancy Pants.  I took a cue from the SU! catalog and used markers to color the prettiest image - the design with small paisleys and faux stitching.

As I've had time this weekend, I've been editing pictures from our trip.  I hope to get those off to the printer soon.  Isn't it funny, we used to say 'developer' and now it is the 'printer.'  Technology changes everything.

I'm dying to start scrapping some of our events and funny moments.  Of course tomorrow I actually have to get back to work!  I'm kind of looking forward to some routine structure back into my days.  Do you ever feel that way after a vacation?

Tomorrow I'll have a card with another new Stampin' Up! stamp and a video.  Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Lacy and Lovely by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock:  Bashful Blue by SU!; Lemon Tart by PTI
Ink:  Warm Red and Chesnut Roan by Colorbox; Bashful Blue, Crushed Curry and Old Olive by SU!
DSP:  Fancy Pants, Bella Blvd, and October Afternoon