Friend Blend

I'm back with a teacup card!  Our neighborhood ladies have monthly coffees where we get together and CHAT CHAT CHAT about anything and everything.  It's a great way to find out what's going on in the neighborhood and meet new people.  So, I hope to try to host one in May before our new puppy arrives.  I know it will be hard during puppy training time so wanted to do it before that day comes.  When I saw the Spellbinders teacup die, I knew it would be coming home with me eventually.  I'm a tea drinker so just love this!  I cut the die twice and layered the DP on top to look more like a porcelain tea cup.  I found these beautiful wired flowers in my stash from ages ago and they worked perfectly.  I added a few pearls to the centers.  The tea bag was made from a mini tag stamp and punch by SU.  I stamped it with a Verve stamp and added the twine.  The ribbon looks really dark here but is much lighter in real life.  I think it is the way the light hit it.  

Hope you have a great spring weekend!  It's supposed to be much cooler here so I plan to spend some time in my craft room.  I got lots of new goodies today so am anxious to play with them.  See you...

Mother's Day Card

Today I made a Mother's Day card to share with you.  It used lots of dies and punches.  The dies are by Spellbinders and Memory Box.  The punches are by Martha Stewart.  The inside of the card is a Sizzix embossing folder and the sentiment is by Hero Arts.  The ribbon is silk ribbon by May Arts.  I made the stick pin from my beads stash (yes, another hobby!).  The green rick rack is velvet ribbon from my stash too.  

My granddoggy left today to go back home.  We really enjoyed having her here this past week.  I think she loves coming here too!  There are lots and lots of critters to hunt!  Hopefully my other granddoggy and it's Mommy and Daddy will be visiting in the next few weeks too.

I have lots and lots of cards to get done in May so it will be a busy month!  Hope you have a great weekend!

Graduation card

I'm finally back with a graduation card.  Blogger upgraded their site so I had to change my browser to Google Chrome (thanks to my hubby!) and now things are back to normal.  When I have computer problems, I have to wait until my hubby gets home so sometimes it takes awhile!  I am starting to get the graduation announcements - somehow, they always seem to find my house!  So, here is a card I made yesterday.  The directions are on You Tube under "Graduation Hat Fun Fold Card".  It's actually quite simple to do....once you learn to follow directions!  I made my own tassel out of DMC floss (it doesn't show too well because it is burgundy).  The doggie is by Penny Black and the others are miscellaneous stamps.

We are busy working on a vegetable garden in our back yard.  We have no idea how well it will do here at the high elevation and the many roaming animals in this area.  I grew tomatoes last year in a clay pot and they did great so that convinced us to try building a much larger garden.  We LOVE veggies!

Have a great rest of the week!

In Sympathy

Another sympathy card here...for a NC friend so the dogwood is perfect. It's a Memory Box stamp and the background is Inkadinkado. I added the gold metallic paper to make it a little more special. The dogwood flower is cut out and popped up for added dimension.

I've been busy working on some dog collars this week. They are so simple to put together and I can make them any color I want and decorate them as I please. So fun! Still haven't come up with a name yet but we are leaning towards Molly. We have had all "M" named dogs (Max, Meg and Muffy) so my hubby wants to stick with that tradition. If you have any suggestions....please forward them on to me!

Have a great day!

Sweet Columbine

Here is a Columbine flower I stamped and cut using a Memory Box set designed especially for Simple Pleasures here in the Springs. I added 6 more die cuts around the sides by Memory Box - Macarena Corner. A few pearls here and there and it's done. This is one of two sympathy cards I needed - never fun to do.

Hope you have a great weekend! I think I have several graduation cards that I will be needing so maybe I can get a start on those this weekend.

Another Easter card...

Hope you had a nice Easter! Mine started out in a way that wasn't too pleasing to me! At the last minute, I decided I would go up to my daughter's house for dinner. It's about 1 hour and 15 minutes away which is not too bad - unless you have back troubles - and then it can seem like 15 hours!!! But, I did it anyways and was happy to be there to enjoy my first Easter dinner that I had not prepared in 32 years! How nice is that! And she cooks extremely well so it was YUM YUM good! BUT...before I left, I went downstairs to get her basket of goodies! Well, the Easter mouse had visited and ate HALF (or more) of the 2 Cadbury CHOCOLATE eggs in the basket! I was not happy. Not only that...but I had to drive up to Denver to deliver this basket and I was not about to look for a mouse in it. So, I grabbed a zipped freezer grocery bag and quickly put the basket inside and put it in the VERY BACK of the car. I feared that mouse would get out of there and come see me in the driver's seat and cause a major accident. YES, I HATE those critters. So, we made the trip with no problems and Josh and Brittany got the bag out of the car. Her dog went nuts over the basket. She knew there had been a critter in there and she wanted it. So, they emptied the basket as I stood as far away as I could get...and found nothing. That meant the mouse was back at my house! Oh no! Not good. When my hubby got home from work on Tues, we went and bought some traps. Well, guess what? We caught a BIG healthy mouse today! Yes, it was either full of chocolate or pregnant! Either way...it is now gone and I am very happy. 3 more traps waiting for any other uninvited Easter guests! I'll keep you posted.

That brings me to my next bit of exciting news!!! We are going to be proud parents (not grandparents!!!) of a new puppy on June 2! It's time to have help taking care of uninvited guests!!! We will be getting a new Westie. It's almost like having a new baby. We ordered a pet pen and some toys today. I ordered a bunch of supplies to make some cute collars, leashes, and harnesses. We are still figuring out a crate and booster seat. After about the first year or so she will have the free run of the house if she is good. Until then, we would like to keep our new home together. So, my time with crafting will be severely limited as I begin the long process of training her. It's a LOT of very time consuming and hard work but I think I am ready for it.

Here is a card I never got posted. It has lots of diecuts by Spellbinders and a few floral punches that have been distressed on the edges. The white lacy edging is cut from a circular die. I used a $1 stamp for the sentiment and added some pearls and a bow. Hope you have a great day and I'll be back soon!

Golden Beauties

It's such a beautiful day for an Easter egg hunt. Hope all the little kids had lots of fun today hunting eggs and again tomorrow. While my kids were in college, we continued to carry on the tradition of Easter Egg hunts at our house. They loved them even in their 20's! And you may wonder why??? Well, we put paper money in the plastic eggs! You just can't imagine how much fun we had watching young adults hunting for eggs in our back yard!!! And they were hunting them as fast as they could cause they didn't want their sibbling to get more money than they got. I loved every minute of it! We actually did it our last Easter in Arizona when they were both married!!! Their spouses loved it too! I think I got greater joy out of watching them as married kids hunting for Easter eggs than I did when they were 4 or 5 years old! Unfortunately neither of them will be here this Easter so no egg hunts.

Here is another card using some of the same die cuts. As you can see, I do LOVE the Spellbinders frame. The flourish is a MFT die. The flowers are punches. Simple card!

Have a wonderful Easter day!

Pretty Pink Tulips

Don't you just love tulips! I sure do. We got to see all the gorgeous tulips in every color of the rainbow when we were in Holland and I still did not get my fill of them!!! This is a card made using a Spellbinders frame die and a Memory Box tulip die. I cut out additional tulips in the pinks and glued them on top of my green tulip base. Oh, do I love my new Big Shot!!!

I am back to sewing on a quilt. If I spent a few hours JUST sewing, I could get it done. But, I get side tracked and thus the delays. And today I found some little droppings under a railing in my craft room. I don't know if it is from a mouse or flies or what. They are 1/8" to 1/4' long and pencil lead thin. What do you think? Maybe you shouldn't tell me. I'm very squeemish. I need my granddoggy to come visit and take care of this problem. HMMM...I may be getting a puppy sooner than I thought. There are some Westies available at the end of May. They are so hard to find in Colorado but I did find a breeder in Denver that has some. Been watching for awhile now! I know they are SO SO much work to train but I also know that the training pays off and they are the most wonderful dogs. Will have to make a decision soon since you really need to train them in the summer here. Stay tuned!

Have a great Easter weekend. No plans here. Just me, myself and I here so lots of crafting!

Ballet Bunny

Another Easter card here...Ballerina Bunny from Penny Black. Back when my daughter was about 4 years old, I made her a dress with this Daisy Kingdom Ballerina Bunny design. So, when I saw this stamp many years ago, I couldn't resist picking it up. I only wish I had saved all those Daisy Kingdom dresses I made her. But, in those days, I made all of her clothes and just couldn't save too much since we moved around so much. The white frame is by Spellbinders and I absolutely love it and use it a lot. I'm so happy to have a Big Shot again!

I hope to get a few more cards posted this weekend so drop by between your Easter festivities!

Happy Easter

Today was a great day! I got my new Big Shot! I don't think there are too many cards that I make that I don't use the Big Shot for at least one cutting. So, when mine broke...everything came to a halt! It's amazing how much better my new one cuts and I don't have to use 6 or 7 shims! So here is a bunny card I made with a Spellbinder's die and I'm not sure what clear stamp company this is from but it's been around for quite a few years. The DP is by Imaginisce and the white border is a MS punch. I love the suede ribbon from Sharon Johnson's shop, No Time to Stamp.

Winter came back yesterday and left us with a foot of snow today. It was a very wet snow too which made it difficult to blow it off the driveway. We went to the Springs today and it was bone dry there. It's quickly warming up again and spring will be back by the weekend!

See you again real soon!!!

Easter Basket for you

My day did not start out too well! I have known for awhile that my Big Shot was about ready to go. Well, today was the day. It just quit. Handle won't turn. Nothing! So, I called a few of my favorite places locally to get prices on a new one. I wanted one NOW. I got a big order of die cuts on Saturday and REALLY wanted to play with them. Well, guess what? They are all $99 in town. So, I finally decided that I really could wait a few days and save $30 by ordering online. So, Wednesday will be a good day for me!!! I signed up for the 2 day Amazon Prime "trial" JUST so I could get it by Wednesday! I will most likely cancel after my month of free shipping and 2 days delivery. You know how us stampers are....when we need something...we need it NOW!

But, here is my final project before the funeral! I got this adorable basket die by Marianne. It also came with a flower and a leaf die cut. But, I was unable to use them so resorted to stamping some cute little eggs from a $1 stamp at Michael's (a few years ago). The little bunny in the basket is by Paper Salon (many years ago). And the green grass is hot fix fibers that I picked up at a stamp show a few years ago in Phoenix. I added a few rhinestones to the basket to bling it up a bit.

We have been so so busy here working on more house projects. We worked out in our yard all day yesterday and were ready to start planting a garden. Well, it was near 80 yesterday and it's in the low 30's now and starting to snow! Crazy weather! So, we changed gear and put up shelves in the garage. They were long overdue! We cleaned the floors yesterday so it's like a whole new garage today! Many more projects on our list - UGH!