More Relay cards

These are a few of the cards I've done today. I'm up to 23 towards my goal of 100 for Relay The first one is last season's new papers for Close To My Heart. I kind of like the combination of colors. The next three are from a paper pack that I bought ages ago. I like the playfulness of them.

This is the same paper but made it a little more formal than playful.

Inspiration

Having made over 120 Christmas cards this year and many others throughout the year, people ask me how I come up with all the ideas. Well, I'm not the "artist" that some might think. I am an avid card magazine collector. When I run out of ideas in this pea brain I start devouring some of my collection. That's what I did last night. I rarely copy a design totally, but use the basic idea and go from there. I love this one, but actually I am more of a monochromatic person myself. I wouldn't naturally have thought of using the red polka dot with tourquoise, burgandy and green. It's pretty here, but it's really not "me." But I loved the idea and used it for inspiration. The card is from the Cards Magazine April 2008. I have a difficult time with masculine designs. I love ribbon and flowers and flourishes, but sometimes I have to get more grounded and do something for a guy. It's like going outside of my comfort zone. I do like the other one with the frame covering the edge of the blue paper, though I did this purposely.

Both of thsese cards are made with some chipboard doodads that I bought at the dollar store some time ago. They were very bold colors and didn't really match any papers I have. The one on the guys card was a travel theme in browns. I sanded it down to obscure the pattern and added a little ink. The frame on the girly card was very bright pink so I sanded it a little more than the other, stamped it with a small flourish and inked it. The one on the bottom was the same and was actually stamped with the same brown ink but it scanned green for some reason. I like the second one better, what do you think?

Garden Progress

The date on this picture is obviously wrong. Every time you open it up to get the disc out it looses it's date, and I didn't feel like changing it again. However, this picture was taken Sunday morning. It's doing well. You can see that the cilantro is kind of leggy and kind of laying over and I don't exactly know why. The dill did the same thing last week but has perked up now. I think it may be that I have not reset the timers for the light and have been manually turning it on and off and maybe it's getting too much light. I just need to get my manual out and read it again.

Relay cards

I got on a roll tonight... well, a mini roll anyway. I'm getting geared up for the Relay for Life. Don't know if I will try and sell them before or just do it at the event. Last year the dear lady that got me into this in the first place, took them to bake sales and events through out the year, but this year I don't think I can get them to her, she is in Snohomish.

Of course they have to have flourishes!

The Demise of the Tomato

Sadly, this is all that is left of my aerogarden tomato plants. It must be a record though. It was growing for 7 months and still producing. I cut off all these little babies and discarded the plants. There were many more tiny babies but I figured they weren't going to get any bigger. The root system was so prolific that it had smothered the filter in the aerogarden and blocked the pump from running. Usually aerogarden roots are like little white hairs, but this actually had a stem-like root in the center of each plant. I had removed one tomato plant several months ago because I didn't like the taste of the particular tomato. But onward and upward, my seed started kit is on order... back order, but I placed the order anyway.

I'm a few hours early for this post. The last picture was taken Monday morning the 12th, and this one is Sunday evening, but thought I might not have time tomorrow morning to do it. Can you see the growth? They've all grown quite a bit. The slow-poke parsley even has it's second leaf growth (the curly leaf). I tried to make an order yesterday and am very excited to get it, but it was backordered. "It" is a transplant kit to start your own seeds and then transplant them in the spring. I can't wait. There are 70 little pockets for seeds. You take the top part (where the little pods are sitting now) of the aerogarden off and it sits down over it. But guess it has to wait a bit.

The Promise of Spring

In the midst of all the bad weather we've been having it is so cool to see these daffodils sprouting up. I went out today and pulled up a few little weeds and can't wait until spring to start seeing the new life again.