New Washer!

Well, instead of fixing the washer, we went and bought a new one! Turns out the old one was 18 years old - decided it probably wasn't worth trying to get it fixed. We went to Lowe's when it opened and bought a new washer. I am already wishing I had opted for a lesser model. This one has more bells and whistles than I know what to do with. I fell for the energy saving sales talk! I will give it a whirl tomorrow. And my granddaughters are finally home again! They have been gone all week, and almost all of the week before. They are here spending the night tonight, and I am extremely grateful that everyone is home safe and sound. Did I mention that my son went on a motorcyle trip this week? You can guess how thrilled I was about that. Was good to have everyone back here tonight for dinner - new potatoes, green beans and cucumbers were right out of our garden. Good eats! In case you are wondering - I did have steak and gravy to go with it. Also Zucchini bread for dessert.

Today's card is one that we made in Stamp Club this afternoon. The stamp set is "Flight of the Butterfly" and it is cased. The ladies loved using our new butterfly punch. When you open the card, a slew of little butterflys pop up, on a spiral. The small half pearls are from the Pretties kit and I think it makes the card look so elegant! That is why it is such a surprise to see the whimsical little butterflys pop up when you open it! Thanks for stopping by. Happy Stamping.

Took a Jaunt Today!

Today my husband and I decided that we could take some time out and go to Cabelas, avbove Wheeling, WV. We hadn't been there in quite some time, and boy, oh, boy! Talk about improvements! For those of you who don't know, Cabellas is like a Bass Pro Shop and Smoky Mountain Knife Works all rolled into one. We started with the aquarium - very nice array of fish, then on around to see the African Elephant and other animals exhibit. So nicely done. At the center of the store there are all kinds of mountain goats, polar bears, etc. I found animals that I had never heard of--not even in the crossword puzzles! They were aweinspiring! I don't want to mislead you - there were tons and tons of merchandise for sale too, there was cooking utensils, dishes, tents, fishing rods, guns, everything that you might expect to see in a high testosterone place of business. You ask what are the women doing while the men are hyperventilating over all these wondrous displays??? They checked out the homemade fudge in the general store area, checked out the restaurant, the clothes, the shoes, and of course the above named exhibits. Then she sat down on one of the many resting places and pulled her trusty book out of her purse and read a bit. Or, different scenario--she dumped him and went on down the road to one of the many new stores that have opened! JC Penneys, Kohls, Panera Bread, Applebees, Dress Barn, Bob Evans, Petco, and the very closest to Cabellas???? The Russell Stover Candy store! There was even a Michaels. After a nice stop for dinner in Parkersburg we went to Crafts 2000! Wow! I bought some project storage boxes, and I eally like them. They are clear and I can tell what is in them. We came home and I washed the clothes. You note I said, Washed. The washing machine quit working at that point. It rinsed them, but it wouldn't spin thne water out, and it ran the tub over, so we had to mop the floor, take every last piece of clothes out, wring it out, and hung up on the lines on the porch--At 11 o'clock at night! What Fun. The water had to all be dipped out of the tub, and there it sits waiting for the Washer Angel to fix it!

I made the 2 cards at the top of this post after the washer episode. I do have more cards to post this week, but for now, I am ready to head to bed. I have church and a Stamp Club tomorrow. Happy Stamping!

Holly Jolly Christmas

This card was made by my Daughter, Mary Ann. She is the co-creater of my blog. Actually she does all the technical stuff and I do the writing. She is a new stamper and is getting really good at it. I don't think that you can see it from the picture, but there are torn pieces of white cardstock to make the layers of snow! She has cut and placed each tree, Santa and Rudolph! I love this card. It is all from the set, Holly Jolly Christmas. I just love it! Thanks for sharing with us! I love getting my Christmas cards made early--but unless I get started making my cards to trade at Convention, I am not going to be ready for that, let alone be ready for Christmas! Happy Stamping!

Funny How Things Work Out!

I spent a good part of the last weekend working on straightening and cleaning out my stamping area. I had retired sets of stamps, and partial sets, kits, markers,--everthing a mess! So I decided that I would put the words that I used into groups--birthday wishes, Christmas, Thank You, Baby, Wedding, etc. And I got rid of a lot of extra boxes that were left over when I combined sets. I rearely have a call for wedding or baby much for myself, but decided to keep those anyway for cusomer use in classes. Today, I got a call from a friend of mine asking me if I would make Baby Shower Invitations for her daughter's baby shower! Wasn't I proud of myself that I knew where those Baby Stamps were!!! She wanted it to have Lady Bugs on it as the baby's room is being done in Lady Bugs! Would you believe that another friend of mine had created invitations for the very same request a year or so ago--and I still had one of her favors, which I was able to turn into an invitation! I have come up with 3 choices, and may work on another one later today. I am including all 3 possibilities in my post today. The first one is very simple and just has a line of lady bugs. The one on the right, uses a pretty in pink onsie on a dotted swiss white background. The little white strip across the front of the onesie has a marching line of ladybugs. In the last samples, the Onesie IS the card itself. It is hinged at the top, and the you can put whatever sentiment you wish in the outside.

Happy Stamping!

Take Wings And Fly

Well, Yesterday did not go as planned! I was on the computer checking my e-mail when news came that the new Holiday Mini was online for demonstrators! I can't begin to tell you how much I really love it!!!! This is the best one that we have ever had!! New stamps , new dies, new designer paper!!! Yes, I am estatic and it shows! I can hardly wait till August to share it with you!

(PS, I didn't get my perm either, by the time I got through drooling over the new mini, it was time to get the other card ready for tonight's class!)

Now, on to the post of the day! I love butterflys! They are such a joy to watch as they flit from place to place. We tried to recapture that feeling with The Flight of the Butterfly" stamp set in last night's class. This set is very versatile with all the curvy words that come with it, and the various butterflys--spotted, flowered, plain solid! We used Almost Amethyst Card stock with a striped piece of Tea Party Designer paper. We used a sponge to put Almost Amethyst ink on the big flower from the Pretties Kit (doesn't show up well in the picture, sorry!) The the smaller flower was sponged with Pretty in Pink Ink. The Center of the flower is a pink circle brad from Circle Fire Brads (#109110). There is a piece of 1/4" white grosgrain ribbon across the center of the card. We attached the flower with mini glue dots. We took that one step further with the Pop Up Butterflies on the inside of one of our cards. Such fun! Hope you enjoy seeing it as much as we enjoyed making it. Happy Stamping!

Monday - Off and Running!

Good morning! Today with my granddaughters out of town, I am wondering what to do with myself! Guess I probably should go get that haircut and perm that I have been needing for the last couple of weeks! Before I hit the road, I wanted to post a couple of samples from the Christmas in July Class that we did over the weekend. The first one that looks like the present, is done with a Cuttlebug folder in the Big shot for the white part of the card and the punches used were the Scallop Circle and the new Snowflake punch. So simple, and so easy.

The other card is also easy, but it looks more complicated. The base layer is Handsome Hunter, and the next layer is Real Red Cardstock. We stamped the skaters (from Winter Post) first, masked them and then stamped the trees (from Lovely as a Tree). Next we used an oval cut with the Big Shot and our Ovals die, as a mask and sponged Bashful Blue all around the oval, which creates the spotlight on the skaters. We colored the skaters with watercolor pencils and used blender pens to enhance the colors. (I might add that all my stampers did a MUCH better job than I did with the coloring!) We finished it off by adding the little deer from (Winter Post) and then put a little Crystal Effects, applied with a cotton swab--the cheap ones work best, as they don't have so much cotton that you can't get into the small places. We topped it all off with a sprinkling of Dazzling Diamonds on the Crystal Effects, for an icy, snowy look. This was my favorite card of the day. Thanks for stopping by. Happy Stamping!

Classes!

What a great time we had at our "Christmas in July" class on Saturday! We had one new stamper, and it was such fun to watch her catch our joy in stamping! We started out with a very, very simple card--didn't want to scare her away the first thing! Then we moved on to more complicated cards. I also had 2 of the cards ready to show them that we are going to be making in the "Flight of the Butterfly" class on Monday night. I will post those for you later in the week. I am still working on the fourth card for the class-just finished cutting the pieces for the third one--and the class isn't until tomorrow night, so for me, I am ahead of the game!

Today was a really nice quiet day here. I slept in and then went to lunch with my family, before they all scatter for the week. We had company for dinner tonight, a long time friend that shares our love of a West Virginia favoite--fried green tomato sandwiches. Well, actually, these were fried zucchini and bacon sandwiches--our tomatoes haven't gotten big enough to fry yet! And as the zucchini are plentiful from the garden right now, we had fresh, warm zucchini bread straight from the oven for dessert! One of my favorites, and so easy. You don't even have to get the mixer out! My kind of recipe. Zucchini Bread

1 cup salad oil
3 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 cups grated raw zucchini (I kind of pack it in, and let the excess juice overflow)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1 scant tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. (heaping) ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut

Combine oil, eggs sugar, zucchini, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl Blend well. Stir in flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Do not beat. Stir in pecans and coconut. Spoon batter into 2-well greased 8 ½” x 4 ½“ x 2 5/8”
loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until done.

Enjoy! And thanks for stopping by today. Happy Stamping!