Happy Birthday Judi

My dear friend and SU demo, Judi, has a birthday today! I worked on her present(s) this weekend, but I can't show everyone because she hasn't seen them yet. I told her I'm holding them hostage until I see the new SU catalog - I'm not really. I really excited to giver her her gifts, because I know she'll love them.

I'm Making a Trip to the Vet Today

Tarzan had a bath last night, poor guy. He is nice and sweet smelling and soft today. I'm off to the vet today to get some of the magical flea stuff. It's expensive, but it works so well. Just so everyone doesn't think we tortured the poor guy - he did get a little tuna when he was done.

Sunday is a Good Day for Creating

My online friend, Kimmie, issued another challenge this weekend. I did her long card challenge last week. And this week, she challenged us to create a card using pastels and black. I had the barely banana and creamy caramel out for a SCS color challenge, so I used those. The stamps I used are my first Studio G clear stamps that I found in the dollar bin at Micheal's this weekend. The flower is stamped in real red and the stem in sage shadow. The image is matted on black. The greeting is stamped in black and accented with a couple of black brads. You can't see in the photo, but I also stamped the flower in barely banana along the top of the card. The caramel strip is stamped with the SU crosshatch background. Kimmie is right - a little bit of black makes the whole card "pop".

I sent out some happy mail this week

I meant to post these cards earlier in the week. One of my sisters-in-law had some surgery this week, so my parents had two of their granddaughters for the week. I made the girls some cards so they would get some mail at Grandmas. The mail is so slow, I hope the cards got there before the girls left this weekend. The barely banana and lavender lace card was for Sydney and the pretty in pink and regal rose card was for Sarah. I used the SU set Wild About You.

The chicken card went to Mom and my recuperating SIL, Kirsten. I used the SU set Best of Cluck ( I love chickens) with a kraft base card and blush blossom, bashful blue, and certainly celery strips of card stock and a chocolate chip mat for the chicken image. The zig zag stitching is a stamp - I don't sew!

Relax and Enjoy Your Day

My online friend, Kimmie, posted a challenge to make a LONG card. I'd never made one that was long, so I decided to give it a try. I used a base of Barely Banana that is 8.5x8. I stamped the beach chair from shore thing after I colored it with markers to get the two tone, and matted it with Ballet Blue. The pattern paper is SU Sarah. I made a scallop border with a punch and some Certainly Celery paper. The greeting is from Riveting and says Enjoy Your Day. It is stamped in Ballet Blue on Barely Banana and punched out. And, as always, a little ribbon to finish it off. I mailed out a ton of cards yesterday, but didn't have a good place to send this one. The perfect occasion will come up soon I'm sure. I'll post the rest of the cards that got mailed out yesterday later in the week - I want to let the recipients get them before I post.

Wishing You Well

Miss Stanly County is in Raleigh this week for the Miss North Carolina Pageant. They have a couple of practice days and then several nights of competition. This is the first card I sent Sara. The card base is 4x4 Certainly celery with a Rose Red layer stamped with the Crosshatch background. The center of the flower is Wishing You Well from the Riveting stamp set. A little celery ribbon finishes it off. I thought it was a fresh, young card to send a young woman.

I made a bunch of cards this weekend, so I'll have lots to show you this week.

Happy Father's Day

For once I was on the ball and got my Father's Day cards made AND sent ahead of time. Tim still hasn't seen his, but I will post a photo anyway. I didn't get my Dad's gift sent. I made it several months ago - and forgot! It's been boxed up, and it got buried. It'll get shipped on Monday.

The card is made with an old SU stamp set called Espress Yourself, and the background stamp is Crosshatch. The coffee cups and beans are stamped in basic brown ink, and I colored the coffee cups with my markers. The card base is Old Olive and the layers are Certainly Celery and Elegant Eggplant. The design is from a SCS sketch challenge, and the colors I used are a SCS color challenge.

Tim was going to ride today, but we had a big storm over night - lightning thunder and hail. I laid in bed worrying about my new roof and my new car. But this morning, it looks like the tomato plants were the only things injured.

So happy Father's Day to my Dad, Dennis; my husband Tim who is a wonderful father to Dylan; and to my brothers Joe and Jim who are the best Dad's to Sarah and Sydney, and Hannah and Matthew.

It Was a Hot Weekend

It was in the low 90's all weekend, so I tried to stay cool inside. Tim went riding Sunday, so I had some time to make some cards - lots of birthdays this month. The hot weather made me think of orange and pink, so I used those two colors and a Bella image from my friend Kimmie for a couple cards. They look like summer to me - flowers and hot, bright colors.

I did venture out Sunday afternoon to attend the wardrobe showing of Miss Stanly County. She is a beautiful young lady. The Miss NC competition will be next week, so think good thoughts for Sara. Here she is in her interview suit (Jeff, her "paparazzi" took this photo).

It's Graduation Time

All the high schools are graduating today here in Stanly County. My friend Judi's youngest daughter, Sara, is graduating at 1:00 pm. I made this card for her. I used the Happy Harmony stamp set in her school colors - real red and bliss blue with whisper white. I used my real red and old olive markers for the flowers. The background was stamped in Versa Mark and I mixed clear embossing powder and dazzling diamonds and embossed - so the background is sparkly. I used my red marker to color the words from different phrase stamps. The words didn't come out perfectly since they are stamped over the embossing. I'm so happy with how it turned out.

Dylan has been out of school for over a week now. He is now a JUNIOR! And my two nieces, Sarah and Hannah will now be second graders. I guess since all the kids are out of school, it must be summer.

Some Real Cat Pages

Here are the pages I did last weekend - one is Tarzan and the other is Fitzie. Now I need to get some cute photos of Riley and make a page for him. It took me awhile to make these pages, I think the switch from 8.5x11 pages to 12x12 pages is throwing me off.

"Daddy's Boy" is Tarzan and Tim. Tim found Tarzan in the pump house when we lived in Locust. Tarzan likes me, and will curl up next to me. But the minute Tim comes around I get abandoned. Tarzan is his Daddy's boy. For the base of this page, I used Always Artichoke and a scrap of unknown pattern paper. For accents, I used some Magic Mesh and brought out my stack of eyelets. The title is stamped on chipboard and a tag with Rough Edges alphabet.

"So Very Cute" is Fitzie sitting in different baskets. The first photo is when she was on;y a year old and the last photo is her last week. She loves curling up in a basket. For this page I used a Taken with Teal base and some great pattern papers. I also used some Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery and Only Orange papers to coordinate with the paper. I used the So Very stamp set for the title and a MM flourish set for the curly stamps. I accented the page with brads, ribbon and a Prima flower.

That's a Funny Looking Cat

This weekend I scrapbooked a few animal pages. One of Fitzie in baskets, one of Tarzan, and the possum page. It seems like I don't get to make many pink pages, so the possum got a pink page. I also pulled out my long unused eyelets this weekend. The possum page got pretty little flower eyelets. I sure hope this possum was a girl :) I did the journaling on the computer because it was a long story. The only stamping is the title - I don't have any possum stamps.

Tim was away most of the weekend. He, and a group of guys, did the Burn 24-Hour race. This was Tim's first 24-hour race. He usually does 12-hour races solo. I think he enjoyed being on a team for this one. After lots of strategy, they placed 10th. They could have placed higher, but there was a prize for "strategic 10th place" and they wanted the prize - a case of Burn energy drink to share and a tube of chamois butter for each of them.

For Memorial Day, we went over to some of Tim's bike friends. They all went out and did a quick and easy ride, while I stayed at the house and guarded the beer. We grilled brats and had a very enjoyable afternoon. Tim's bike friends are good people.

Books have arrived

Today's mail brought the three book I'll be reading and judging. The first one is The Cowboy's Return by Linda Warren, the second is Simple Gifts by Shelley Galloway, and the third one is The Nurse's Longed-For Family by Fiona Lowe. And, they are all autographed! Tim will be gone all weekend doing the 24-hour Burn race in N. Wilkesboro, so I'll have all weekend to just read my new books.

Aspen Gold Reader's Choice Awards

I'm really excited - I'm going to be a judge for the Aspen Gold Reader's Choice Award sponsored by the Heart of Denver Romance Writers. In my application to be a judge, I had to select several romance sub-genres that I would be interested in judging. I choose: single title, historical, or series category. Next week I should receive my package of books and then I'll know what category I'll be judging in. I should receive no more than 5 titles that I'll have to read, so I should be able to handle reading 5 romance books :)

I'll keep you posted on how this goes and what I have to read.

Father and Son Together

I just had to share this adorable page I put together this morning. Well, that's not quite true. I put the pictures on this morning. I actually made the pages several months ago. A group of my online friends from SCS got together and made scrapbook pages for each other. These are the pages I made for everyone else - only they got 12x12 and I made mine 81/2x11. We have one package of pictures of Tim and Dylan when Dylan was a baby. Tim scanned a couple of these for me the other night (don't want to use originals on my pages).

The background paper is certainly celery and I also used some so saffron and brocade blue. The pattern paper is Sarah by SU. The stamp set is Polka Dots & Paisley, which my wonderful friend Judi let me borrow. For accents I used a Prima flower, some ribbon around the chipboard "t" and did some paper piercing along the bottom of the pages.

The perfect page for these sweet pictures of Tim and Dylan almost 16 years ago.

To affect the quality of the day...

We had a great weekend, lovely weather and time spent together. Yesterday Tim and I went for a hike in the Uwharrie Forest. Saw a tree neither of us recognized so took a picture and brought home a leaf. Identified it as a Chestnut Oak. There sure a lots of Oak varieties.

This afternoon we went in to Charlotte for our friend Patricia's graduation with a Masters Degree. Patricia takes care of our cats when we take long trips. She's also our foster kitty, Simon's mom. We then drove out to the Whitewater Center so Tim could show it to me. It's one of the places he races at. Came home and grilled some lamb chops for dinner, and now we're just relaxing.

I had to sit down and make a card for Patricia this morning. I chose The Art of Life stamp set because of the great verse - To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts by Henry David Thoreau. I used two shades of pink and a brown. A little ribbon, a clip and some eyelets finished it off.

All that I am or hope to be, I owe my mother.

That's the quote I used for my latest scrapbook page. It's my Mother's Day present to my Mom - hope you like it Mom. The picture was taken in April 2006 when my parents were down for a visit. I took Mom to one of my favorite events - the Friends of the Pfieffer University Library Author Luncheon. The speaker was Ann B. Ross, author of the Miss Julia books.

This is my first real attempt at making a 12x12 scrapbook page. I really enjoyed the larger, square format, and I will definitely be making more pages this size. Last week, SBTC65 challenge, on splitcoast, was to make a page about Mom. I started the page by CASEing a layout on the Autumn Leaves Look blog. The turquoise and pattern paper are from My Minds Eye, and the chipboard monogram is Lil Davis. I used the CC114 colors of rose red, apricot appeal, tempting turquoise and green galore. The stamp sets I used were Big Pieces and Little pieces. There's also a dab of ribbon - can't do a page without ribbon, and some metal edge tags.

Mother's Day Cards

I wanted to share the Mother's Day cards I made this year. I couldn't share before because my Mom reads my blog - hi Mom. I'll admit I CASED from someone on splitcoststampers.com. Since the card is very plain, I had Tim bring me home some nice, heavy white card stock. I stamped a small square with sage shadow and the retired paisley print background stamp. The leaves are white embossed on vellum. Inside I stamped Happy Mother's Day in sage shadow. I thought it was a simple, but elegant card.

Happy Mother's Day

Tim made us a nice breakfast today. And this afternoon he is meeting some bike people to look over local trail opportunities. I'm going to try and do some scrapping. This morning I made q quick little card. I need to send a thank you RAK to a great stamping friend. I found the sketch on Beate's blog, and that is what I used as my starting point. I had some sei pattern paper out on the table from a previous project, so I grabbed a scrap of that. The I chose one of the darling Bella images that my great stamping friend sent me. I used SU certainly celery solid cardstock, a prima flower, and a colored brad. The pattern paper came with some matching embellishments, so I grabbed a tab to use as an accent. I colored the image with my SU watercolor crayons and a blender pen. Hope you enjoy this card. And if you are a mother - Happy Mother's Day.

What year do you belong to?

I found this neat quiz on my friend Sally's blog. Had to try it for myself.

You Belong in 1987

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Another Layout from our Trip to the Beach

"Fly" is photos of the day we spent at the Wright Brother Memorial in Kitty Hawk. I was glad it was February, because the place has no trees ans must be miserable in the hot, humid summer with hundreds of other people. But, we had a beautiful day. We even had a picnic lunch on the grounds. I've tried to use the same colors and stamps for all of the three layouts I've made of our trip. I think I still want to make one more layout of some general photos of the trip.