Fresh Out of the Box

Yes, it’s another baby card.  I don’t need another baby card right now, but I thought I might as well go ahead and color this image which I had stamped but didn’t use for my last baby card.  If I don’t use it pretty soon, someone at work surely will. 



This is a Crafter’s Companion set called Special Little Person.  I stamped on 90 lb hot press watercolor paper with Palette Noir ink and watercolored with Stampin’ Up! inks.  The grays I used for shading, however, are Tombow markers (seeing as how Stampin’ Up! no longer carries a plain old regular gray ink).  The designer papers are DCWV Nana’s Nursery Baby Boy, though this is a baby girl card.  I suppose it could be either/or, but the bow in the baby’s hair sealed the deal for me.  I hope you enjoy it!  Have a great week!

Does Somebody Want to Come Inside?

Not until you get toweled off.



Here’s LuLu mid-bark.  She does all the talking while Wally just smiles.



Is that a sandwich you’re making?



Aren’t you gonna bring it out here?



Okay, seriously… chips, too?



And, of course, we ate lunch on the deck with the doggies and shared a few bites.  After a full day of “helping” outside, they went for a good run and then slept heavily till dinnertime.  Life is good when you’re Wally and LuLu, but even better when you’re Wally and LuLu’s people.  Love!

Not My Usual Style of Baby Card

Hello!  I have a card to share today, and it’s not at all what I had planned, but I’m happy with how it worked out.  I had stamped out a new baby stamp, all ready to watercolor, when I realized the baby has a bow in its hair.  Not going to work for the baby boy card I need.  Well, you know I recently did all that cleaning and reorganizing in my stamp room at which time I once again came across these chipboard letters I’ve never used.  They came in such an appealing box… a testament to how packaging sells.  I wonder how many things I can spell with those letters? 



There’s a lot of designing, but no stamping on the card front.  Baby’s family are horsey people so I thought it would be fun to use horsey, boyish paper.  I used a Levi button, too.



The card measures 4 1/4” x 6”.  I have a lot of envelopes to fit this size card, but I never remember to use them.  It worked out great for this design.  I think I’ve included all the card’s ingredients in the recipe (below), so I’m going to hurry off to do some of the things I didn’t get done while I was having fun in my stamp room.  We’ll visit again soon.  Enjoy your day!



Stamps:  None  Paper:  Naturals Ivory, Sage Shadow, Cosmo Cricket Wanted designer paper  Ink:  Caramel for sponging border  Accessories:  Cosmo Cricket Wanted chipboard letters, buttons, brads, linen thread, ribbon, Spellbinders Classic Heart dies and Ironwork Accents border die

Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder

Two on Tuesday from Digital Two for Tuesday

The main images on both of these cards came from the Digital Two for Tuesday blog – vintage images from old magazines and books (copyright expired), cleaned up, scanned and generously shared by the blog author.

Both are colored with Copic markers.  The first has some complementary stamping – Climbing Leaves background from Cornish Heritage Farms, and Linen background from Stampin’ Up!   The bird in flight holding an envelope is an old Inque Boutique stamp, and the sentiment is Hero Arts.



The next card is bright, but he’s such a happy fellow I didn’t want to dampen his spirit with a dull background.  The papers are My Mind’s Eye Out of the Blue. 



I hope you enjoy.  Love to you, and have a wonderful day!

Wally Loves Company

Wally’s always a happy boy, but with more people around he’s happier still.
  


His friends, Magnum and Nando, came for a visit Saturday.



Magnum is a pretty cool dude in shades.



LuLu still thinks Wally’s the coolest, though.



The dogs will occasionally go off and play on their own, but mostly they prefer to stay close to their people.



Could it be because we dote on them so much?  Here Wally’s getting some love from Magnum’s mom.  She’s one of his favorite humans.



What a gorgeous weekend we had!  There’s lot’s going on here these last few weeks.  I’ve taken to looking at our ten day forecast since our weather’s been so unreliable, and we make hay while the sun shines, so to speak.  We also play while the sun shines, or simply relax with good friends in the garden.  It was that kind of weekend.  I hope yours was good, too!

Greetings from the Garden

Hello from LuLu…



…and Wally.



The lawn area looking south…



…and looking north.  Blooming in the foreground is a lace cap hydrangea.  In the middle distance is a butterfly bush, and beyond that is a purple smoke tree.  Daylilies edge the lawn.  They’re just starting to bloom.



LuLu in the front walk.



Finally the stairs are not looking quite so raw.  Lady’s Mantle spills onto them and Creeping Jenny is working its way across.



Much of the reworked garden is still in its awkward years, waiting for the shrubs to fill out.  Knowing how large hydrangeas and azaleas will get, for instance, I’ve left plenty of room for them to grow.   My eyes see it as it will eventually look, but the camera sees it in the here and now.  Today’s photos are of areas with more mature growth.  It’s so hard to wait for the rest of the garden to come around, as well.

Our sun is in and out, but at least there’s no rain in the forecast.  Most likely our prettiest days will come while I’m at work, but lunch on the sunny deck will be nice.  Maybe, just maybe Rich will finally be able to refinish the decks.  Hoping…  Have a beautiful day!

Stamping and Stamp Room

I recently took a few days away from the computer so I could tend to other matters around the house.  #1 on the list was cleaning, tidying, and reorganizing my stamp room.  How many times have I done that?  Many!  This time I didn’t discard anything or give anything away (except a hot glue gun).  I figured I bought this stuff, I’m going to use it.  My room wasn’t what you’d call a “mess”.  I keep it relatively clean and tidy.  However, I found myself digging through embellishment drawers and being surprised by what I found there.  Once it had been cleaned and reorganized (a process that took place over several days) well, what do you know, I felt like stamping.
So… I inked up a new Flourishes set which I picked up from their latest release.  I would love to have them all, but I chose just one that I fell head over heels in love with – Summer Blossom.  I haven’t used the largest main image yet, but I love every stamp in the set and I think it’s very versatile as to the style of card you can create with it.  My first card is soft and feminine, a teensy touch vintage.  I used the smallest floral image in the set, as well as my new possibly favorite designer paper – My Mind’s Eye Howdy Doody – also from Flourishes.  I made the card from Flourishes’ Classic Ivory cardstock and colored the image with Copic markers.  The curved borders were cut with Spellbinders Curved Rectangle Nestabilities (S5-006).  The scalloped border is a Stampin’ Up! punch.



The next card is bright and flirty feminine, on Classic White cardstock, also colored with Copic markers.  The resin sticker frame is one of those items I unearthed in my stamp room.  It may be old by the standards of today’s fast moving market, but it got a face lift with a little color coordination and some new stamps.  Am I having fun yet?  You bet!



About my stamp room…  The first thing I organized was the ribbon.  It’s still the same Ribbon Central I’ve had for years.  However, it had become piled high with ribbon that had no place else to go.  No home of its own.  No slot to slip into.  That’s what comes of a ribbon obsession and several years on a design team.  I should have taken a “before” picture, but I wasn’t thinking about blogging at the time.  This is the cabinet top “after”.  The jars are scraps.  The cards of old Stampin’ Up! ribbon collections are in letter holders from Staples.



This is a partial view of the cabinet drawer.  Oh, there’s more – much more.  This is organized by type – printed, novelty, taffeta, organdy, satin, etc.  Some of these ribbons go back many years.



This is the overflow.  Good grief, can you imagine how disorganized this was?  I cleaned out these drawers specifically to house the ribbon.



These are just brads.  Nothing but brads.  They were here, there and everywhere, but now they’re all in one place.  The jar holds buttons, but that’s another story.



Thought I’d show you how I store my 6 x 6 pads.  It’s not genius, but it works in the allotted space.  I keep the scraps inside the pad and store the pads upside down so the scraps won’t fall out.  I have to thumb through to make my selections, but it’s surprisingly not that difficult to find what I’m looking for.



Everything else has its own designated space, too, which makes stamping easier and much more fun for me.  I just don’t function well in disarray.  Naturally, even the creation of a single card makes the room look like an explosion occurred (come on, you know what I’m saying), but so far I've been picking it up afterward.  We’ll see how long I can keep this up.  Looking forward to more stamping.  Have a great day!

A Floral Moment

It looks like we might have a few pretty days ahead of us (keeping my fingers crossed).  My poor flowers would so love a good stretch of sunshine.  I hope you’re enjoying a beautiful 4th of July.  I’ll be enjoying it as well, regardless of the weather.  Take care!

Friends, Fun, and Fruit

I had the pleasure of meeting up with my online stamping and blogging friend, Sue Berker, last Tuesday.  We’ve been acquainted for years through SCS and our blogs, and it was wonderful to finally meet face to face.  Perhaps you’ve visited Sue at her blog, Sharing What I Love.  I’ve always enjoyed not only Sue’s stamp art, but her positive outlook on life  Here we are in my yard with LuLu looking up at us.



I took them to dinner at my favorite local restaurant – The Coach House.  The food is great but the real attraction for me is the garden room.  The dining area is enclosed and covered and open year ‘round.  It’s heated if necessary, and there’s less flowers in winter, but the atmosphere is very cozy.  I wish I could say this next photo is my garden, but, in fact, it’s just outside the garden room.  This is Sue and her husband, John.



I don’t think Sue ever visits anyone without taking a gift.  She’s a real sweetheart.  She came with a little bag of stamping goodies for me so, of course, I had to play the first chance I got.



The Hero Arts Designer Fruit stamp set (rhinestones included) and the ribbon are from Sue.  I colored very simply with Copic markers.  The designer paper is BasicGrey Lemonade, and the embossing was done with a Sizzix folder from Stampin’ Up!.  I believe it’s called Elegant Bouquet.

That’s it from me today.  I’m heading back to work tomorrow after a week at home.  It’s been a very pleasant week, with the highlight, of course, being my time spent with Sue and John.  Enjoy your day!