Family

In all the different houses we have lived in, this picture has been hanging on my wall since about 1990. It is a crayon/watercolor by a very special little girl. It usually hangs in my crafting room but now is in our bedroom. Here is the artist... the littlest one. The taller beauty created the little artist.

And this is them today. Well, 35 days ago. I'm sure I have posted about the wedding before, but just was feeling retrospective today. My beautiful granddaughter Elizabeth was married to the love of her life, David. Yes, another generation of 'David's'. It's a good name, you know! And so I've heard, another good man also. The other additions to the family since the original photo are Joshua, the tall handsome one on the right, Allison, the little beauty in red, and Melody the little angel on the right.

Saturday

I love Saturdays! Didn't get up until 8am, then had a nice visit from our friends Marjie and Steve, then off to Snohomish to finish clearing out the storage there. It is done! We stopped in Lake Stevens at Conto's and had our favorite ham sub with honey mustard dressing. I started that when I was on one of my diets and I switched the mayo for honey mustard dressing and it is sooooo good. They always know when we are there by what we order. Nobody else does that.

The time has flown by today though. When we got home I did these two little cards, inspired by Paper Crafts May/June issue. I cut the little pieces while watching tv last night. I had gotten kind of in a rut with my cards all being standard size, and these are the same size, so they will fit in the same envies but just cut long ways. I like it and think I'll do a few more with different designs.

Dave had a major milestone yesterday with the water problems here. After tens of thousands of dollars and 9 months of work he found a major fracture in the main line. The discovery didn't come without much consternation yesterday of capping off the pipe and that causing another rupture. If his last capping hadn't worked, we would have been dead in the water (no pun intended) until Monday with three homes without water. We prayed a lot and it held. Monday he gets to do the actual bypass and then there is just one more small leak up-line. Had we really known about this water situation we would have reconsidered coming here. But life is an adventure... or venture, and we sure did venture out on this one.

Mom mini album

I got some Adirondack alcohol inks today and I'm dying... (get it) to use them, but knew that I had to finish this little album first or it would be sitting forever. This is page 3 and 4. The ribbon had white dots and they didn't look right with the beige and colonial white, so I used a q-tip and light brown ink and colored the dots. The two little flowers on the top of page 4 were to cover a boo-boo where I smeared the red ink, but I think it looks okay. I was going to stamp the buttoms with stazon ink but it didn't come out as crisp as I wanted so ended up just stamping on the cs. It's the same effect.

First and second generation stamping of flowers

The completed album.

Mom mini album

I woke up at 3 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and worked on this.

Page 1 and 2 of the mini album I started Monday. I realized after stamping the flourish on page 2 that I think it is suppose to be a candle. Well, so it's an upside down candle now. The flowers on page 1 I bought at a garage sale a couple years ago. The ribbons I dyed with coffee because they were white and I wanted an ecru. The only colors in this are going to be the black, brown, beige or ecru and red. At least that is the plan right now. Each page is one inch longer than the first page, and again, each one is on chipboard.

Front cover

This is the front cover to a mini album that I saw at the scrap store. It is only four pages, all of chipboard. I cut it with the zutter cutter. Petunia update: We actually have plants! I can't believe how long it took them to get going, but now seem to be expanding daily. My little experimental pods are struggling. Most of the asters are sprouted, but very slow. The scabiosa sprouted early and then it was like they had too much fertilizer or something and shot way up until the root was growing on top of the soil, then they died. There are a couple still growing though. You can definately see the advantage of using the regular aerogarden pods. I just have to weigh now whether it is more important to have 100% success, or save some $'s and have 40% success rate.

New Technique

I didn't know which version, the scanned or photographer version would show the details better, so I posted both. I did this one for the "Take it off" challenge on 2Peas. They said you could use ink or paint so I used what I had available, which was an acrylic type paint that you mix with reinkers to get different shades to use and also gives more texture to your inks. I experimented with several things before coming up with this. I put a glob of the paint on the paper and added one drop of yellow and mixed it up a bit, then did the same with blue. Then mix them together by hand. Then I took a large daisy stamp (you want something without a lot of detail) and stamped it into the wet paint.

I stamped the paint off in between on another sheet of card stock and after they were dry I cut them out and will use them on another card. The paint (called Create-A-Shade) leaves it with a real glossy. textury look and I love it. I think that you are actually suppose to use a brayer on the paint before stamping but I thought that would mix the colors more than I wanted. I will definately be using this technique again, I really like it. I kind of hated to cover it up with anything, but then it wouldn't be much of a card...haha

Sad Daffodils

My poor daffodils are hanging their heads this morning. It is raining now on top of the snow, but these tenacious little guys will recover once again. These are REALLY sad daffs. This is the side of the road that we can't see from our front window and the kids know it, so they enjoy stomping them....grrrrr.

This little helebores that Marjie gave me last summer is right at home in the snow. If we have heavy snow it gets weighed down, but pops right up when it melts.

Yesterday we were out for most of the day, but today I hope to get some paper crafting done. We went to Scrapbook Nook and I saw a cute mini album that I want to make for Relay for Life using my Zutter Cutter.

Laser Level

I wanted to share a very helpful "find" with my paper crafting friends. I found this at a Liquidation store but I'm sure they can be found in any hardware store. At first when I brought it home I didn't think it was going to work because I turned it on and shot it towards the wall and it was a verticle line, coming from the round space on the end. I was really bummed and it sat for a few months in a drawer. But then I brought it out one day to help me hang a picture and I told my dh why I bought it and how dissappointed I was in it. He quietly sat it down on a flat surface and the laser comes out between the little "v" on the bottom when it is on a flat surface. I was thrilled! Gee I guess we keep these guys around for something, hey?!

I have had a terrible time getting things straight on my cards, or maybe I'm just anal about it, I don't know. But anyway, if you lay your card or layout on the grid on your cutting mat evenly along the lines and the little "v" on another line where you want to lay your embellishment, mat etc., and shine the laser across the line to the other side, you will get a perfect line to lay you piece on. I hope this helps someone else and if it does, let me know.

For my other passion, gardening; our weather was beautiful the last three days and I've been outside working. I got the blower out, or actually I should say that Dave got it out, started it and put it on my back before he went out to do his water line duties. Did all the roads in the community where the fir and cedar trees have been shedding. We had the roads done professionally after the fall leaves so this is just what has accumulated since then. The next day I went out to the sidewalk in front of the community and blew the leaves off the sidewalk and left them for the city to pick up...haha. Then we went to the local nursery to check out what kind of mulch I am going to order for Spring Clean up day (we provide the mulch for all the residents). I was so bummed because I just opened an account with these people and they don't have anything except bark and topsoil, no compost! Argh! But they did have perennials on sale! So I spent yesterday planting 16 new perennials in the long area at the entrance. Three different colors of lupine, 3 of columbine, some dianthysis, vinca blue, ajuga (i'll probably be sorry for that one, but I needed ground cover), and some others. Today we are getting a nice rain so they will be good and watered in. Now I want to spend some time this rainy weekend doing some card making!

Economic Stimulus?

Oh Mr. Obama! I'm so in awe of your economic plan for the U.S. While you are putting all these billions and trillions of dollars into economic stimulus packages for the execs so they can fly around in their jets, you are also thinking of the little people and giving us a stimulus package so that we will go out and spend lots of money to support these tycoons. But wait a minute... what is our plan? We get a tax relief package in our paychecks. I think I'll go out and buy a new car with my stimulus package. Let's see, do you think that $21.46 will be a good down payment? But this isn't the end of it... We get to pay it back at the end of the year! His stimulus package for all Americans is that they take less taxes out of our paychecks today, but we have to pay it back on April 15th 2010. WHAT A DEAL!

Petunia sprouts

Finally they look like little plants! It must be froggy's influence. There is also one little scabiosa sprout in my experimental section (not pictured).

No snow today but it was really cold this morning. Had to be out today quite a bit and thought my fingers were going to crack right off! But it's beautiful and sunny this afternoon.

Walter's Bedtime

Poor Walter. When we were living in Lake Stevens and both working all day, I felt guilt about locking him up at night after being penned all day, and we started letting him sleep with us. We had to put a stop to that in Snohomish when he started having accidents at night. After a couple times of getting up at night to change the bed and wash the mattress we figured it was time for him to hit the floor. So he had a bed on the floor beside Dave. No, Dave wasn't on the floor, just Walter. He would beg and plead for us to take him to bed with us and it was so hard to say no, but we just had to. Then we found out that he was sneaking out at night to do nasties, so we had to graduate to a pen again.

So now we have this ritual. Before bed Dave takes him out potty and then babies him all the way back in, cuddling him and talking to him, but when they hit the bedroom door it starts in. He turns in to Mr. Grumpy. He growls and bites at Dave's hands. Then he sits him down on the floor and it continues. He will sit there for the longest time growling and barking. Then eventually he will make his way to the pen, still growing.

He gets in still grumbling and growling and will do that for several minutes before settling down.

Sometimes he will break the routine, and Dave will sit him down and he will literally run for the bed, but once in there he barks and growls for about 5 minutes before going to sleep. But then come morning, we can hardly get him out of the bed. Dave will bring the bed out with him and open the door, then get coffee and sit down at the computer, and maybe he will come out on his own, but quite often he has to be persuaded out.

Oh yes, and we continue to have daily snow storms. It's so wierd. Sunday it was snowing the biggest flakes you've ever seen. They accumulated quite suddenly and we even had a thunder storm at the same time. Then in the afternoon the sun came out and you would have thought it was spring again. Then today, the same thing. The flakes weren't quite as big as yesterday, but in my daily update from the mayor he said that the hills were quite slippery and they had snow plows out. Then in the afternoon we had a brief spell of beautiful sunshine again, and then back to the snow.

I worked for about 3 hours this morning coming up with this card. It was a 2Peas color challenge and the inspiration was a picture of lilacs. I didn't have a lilac stamp so I used a small stamp and made my own. But then I didn't like it, so decided to us a vellum overlay to mute it. I like the way it turned out. While I was sitting at my scraptable making little lilacs I was looking out on this -

Yet another freaky snow storm.

Card Challenge for 2Peas in a Bucket

For those who aren't familiar, 2Peas is the largest and most popular paper crafting website. They have forums and galleries where you can post artwork, classes and all kinds of stuff. It's been around for a long time, and while it has changed ownership it is still a good place to go for inspiration. I've been a member since I started scrapping in '03. The General Stamping board is having a challenge event called Winterfest 09. I've never taken part in any of the contests before, but decided to jump in to this one. There are so many incredibly talented people on that board though that sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed. But it is wonderful for inspiration. This card was for two challenges. One was a sketch; a basic design that you use to create a different card. and the other was to stamp on a chipboard accent for a card. I love flourishes and this is almost flourish overload, but I like it anyway. The paper is some that I bought at Stupid Prices last week. Got a killer deal. There were 300 sheets of good quality papers with three of each pattern. They are all kind of winter colors and lots of flourishes and pretty patterns.

Speaking of Stupid Prices and killer deals... we went today and I got an OTT Lite for $17! I'll tell you I snatched that baby up! I made them take it out of the package and plug it in first, and it works perfectly. I have another smaller OTT Lite and the retail price on it was $70. I used a 40% Michaels coupon, so I didn't have to pay that. If you've never used an OTT lite, they are like the difference between antenae tv and HDTV. The lighting is perfect and there is no color distortion like regular flourescent lighting.

Aerogarden Experiment

I took my little aster and scabiosa plants out of the aerogarden and planted in peat pots. When I went to buy the potting soil I also bought some Orchid Moss to use for my experiment... I'll talk about that later. But while I was reading on the Orchid Moss package it said that you can use orchid moss on tiny little starts when transplanting. So I took the little pods out of the aerogarden, wrapped them in orchid moss (that had been well soaked) and then packed Miracle Grow potting soil around them. They've been in there for a couple of days and doing well. Scabiosa

Asters

The Aerogarden Seed starter kit is resusable, however they want you to pay $19.99 to buy 45 more little pods to put in them. This kind of took the wind out of my sails for resusing, as it would take two packages to fill the tray even once. But then I thought about using moss as a plug in the bottom and building my own little starter pods.

So, that is what led me to the Orchid Moss. My first inclination was peat moss but I couldn't find a small enough package and then started reading about the Orchid Moss. I stuffed it into the hole (which is open ended) dry hoping that when it absorbs the water that it will expand and plug the hole sufficiently to hold the soil. The hole is just about as big around as my index finger so it made it easy to stuff. Then I added Ferry Morse Organic Seed Starter mix. I have used other seed starter mixes before and it didn't seem to absorb the water well, but this seems to be just fine. I planted the rest of the Asters and Scabiosa. Since I know how long it took to sprout before, I have a good reference point for the experiment. Even if it takes a couple days longer, it sure will beat spending $40 to start seeds.

You can also see my little petunia starts to the right. They are growing ever so slowly.

I hope to be doing some card making this weekend for the 2Peas Winterfest 2009 stamping challenge, so will be posting some cards later.