Coffee and Friends

Another Monday, another CCEE challenge. The instructions for this one was to make a card using mostly brown and black. When I ink up a stamp I almost always stamp a few extra images, so I had enough parts to make up a second card.

recipe: stamps- SU (Floral, French Script), Inkadinkado (sentiment), Raindrops On Roses (cup and saucer); paper- chocolate brown (Bazzil), medium brown, cream, natural, black; ink- black archival; accessories- black brads, ribbon (Offray), pop dots, Cuttlebug embossing folder; techniques- paper piercing.

Garden Update

I haven't been taking weekly photos as I did at first. The changes are not as great now. But I did do some alterations to this bed this week. I had to say farewell to my bleeding heart for the year. The foliage was getting really yellow and unattractive, so I cut it out. The other plants around it are full enough to hide the cut stems. Also, I removed the lemon balm. It was too big, and I needed the space for a boxwood I got on sale. Anyway, I'll have lemon balm plants popping up everywhere that I can harvest and replant somewhere else. Also, the spiderwort is pretty much finished. I'm going to cut it back and see if I can get aother blooming from it. I'm still not totally satisfied with this bed and will probably make a few changes next year. But that's the fun of gardening, isn't it?

Wild Wasabi Happiness

Isn't that a cool name for a color? Wild wasabi! This card is for this week's color challenge on Splitcoast...wild wasabi, taken with teal, and white. This huge stamp is difficult to stamp with dye inks. I'm just never quite satisfied. So I use pigment inks. They're thicker and coat better. This time I went on to emboss it with white. I have a flower punch the exact same size as the top row of flowers, so I added them with white pearlized brads. The centers of the flowers in the middle row are colored with a gel pen and a dot of crystal Stickles was added. For the bottom row of flowers, i just colored in the petals with the teal SU marker.

recipe: stamps (Happiness by Stampin'Up), paper (wild wasabi, taken with teal, white), ink (white pigment), accessories (brads from All Sorts of Things, gel pen, flower punch from EK Success, teal SU marker, Offray ribbon)

Paisley Friendship

Sometimes I really have to think out a card. But it sure is cool when things fall together easily. I have a box of parts in my craft room...stamped images, parts of unfinished cards, backgrounds. This card with the paisley background that i've had for ages and couldn't find anything i liked to put on top, accidentally got thrown on a pile on my table with this stamped silhouette image. I like them together.

recipe: paper (chocolate brown, SU certainly celery, Basic Grey dp), ink (black archival, SU chocolate chip), stamps (Paisley and Thankful Thoughts-SU), accessories (Offray ribbon, metal leaf charm)

Friends Furever

One of the Monday challenges my small stamping group (CCEE) does each month is a supply challenge. One member of the group (this month, Cindy Haffner) sends the same supplies to each of us with instructions. Cindy arranged with Kim of MFT to send us an adorable stamp set called "Friends Furever". The only other instruction was to use two different designer papers. The greatest fun of the supply challenge is seeing the totally different work each of the eight of us come up with using the same materials. If you would like to see everyone else's, check out the CCEE blog listed on the left side of my blog.

This card uses designer paper from Cosmo Cricket. The child's shirt is paper pieced. The bone was cut out, sponged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (antique linen), cut in half and positioned as hinges. I colored the image with a combination of Stampin'Up markers and Prismacolor pencils/Turpenoid.

remaining recipe: paper (SU chocolate chip, very vanilla), brads, pop dots

Meme Mose

I love the nostalgic quality of flowers. Just as a song can evoke a memory or a time, I associate certain flowers with people in my life. Sweet peas and weeping willows remind me of Meme Mose. We lived next door to my maternal grandmother so, needless to say, we spent a lot of time around her house. There was a porch type of swing underneath a willow tree, and whenever she would swing with us she sang "how would you like to go up in a swing...." in her warbley voice. To this day, I can't swing without that tune going through my head. I've sung it many times to my kids, and now to my grandkids as we enjoy our porch swing. And of course, it isn't quite right unless you sing it in a warbley voice.

I had to grow sweet peas. First of all, I love them. But just as important...they're a Meme Mose flower. In her back yard was the washhouse (which was a little building they stored all sorts of things in, and I was always dying to rummage through but seldom got to), and by the washhouse was an old fashioned metal gate that led to the road. Sweet peas grew all over the fence beside the gate. I loved getting bouquets because sweet peas are the perfect bouquet flower. The stems are stiff and the perfect length to gather into a little nosegay. And they're purple. What more could you ask for?

Little Delights

I was weeding this morning, and found this little fellow on my liatris. After chasing him away twice, I finally captured this shot. It's not as sharp as I'd like, but I had to use zoom, got only one chance and was in an awkward position.

This is my first year for the liatris. I've loved it in flower arrangements and wanted to try growing it. I'm anxious to see how much it increases each year.