Card for Patty

Every few weeks I make a card for one of our residents/neighbors.  She is suffering terminal cancer.  I have wanted to do a card with lots of flowers on it so figured this was a good time to do it.  She loves purple/lavender. 

Check out my peas

There are two different varieties, a snow pea and a dwarf pea.  But check out the color o the blossom!  It is lavender and purple, I've never seen that.  I think that it is the white blossom that is the snow pea.  For being a dwarf, they are already about 5 feet tall. 

Copics

My first finished creation with my new Copics markers.  For my non-paper crafting friends, Copics are the best thing that ever happened to someone like me that really struggled with coloring in my stamps.  For my paper crafting friends, bear with me, I know they aren't perfect, but I'm learning.  I tried a few different blending techniques on these cards.  I signed up yesterday for a class but it doesn't happen until August.  So in the meantime I just struggle through with Utube videos and hints from friends on how to best use these babies. 

I've been thinking a long time about getting these markers because they are a good size investment, so I wanted to make sure that they were something that I would actually use and not just put in a drawer.  I started looking on ebay and craigslist and just happened across a guy that was selling 20 markers and he said 'make an offer.'  So I made an offer of $40 (there were 20 of them), thinking that he would counter-offer.  But he didn't!  I was totally shocked.  This is actually $140 worth of markers.  Now you see why I thought long and hard before decided to jump in to this.  There are three styles of these basic alcohol ink markers; Originals that are square, Sketch that are oval and Ciao which are smaller and round.  I am supplementing my original 20 with the Sketch markers now.  The Originals are not as popular as the other two, but are very nice to work with and have a chisel tip and a hard pointed tip (I forget what they all that).  There are 323 colors in all and I hope eventually to have them all.  There is also a new "Wide" copic, but I doubt that most card makers would use this as it makes a one inch swath.

Now I have to re-think my stamp purchases.  I have always bought stamps that don't have to be colored in because I am so bad at it.  The coloring comes from the miriad of stamp pads that I have.  A lot of my Christmas stamps involve coloring so I will have a lot of fun this year.

Oh yes, the border is done with my other new passion... border punches.  I love the designs of the EK Success punches and some of Martha's.

More flowers

Just a couple quick picks of some flowers today.  Things are starting to come together now.  I know that I took one of this lupine last week, but it has darkened up so much since then. 

  It looks so pretty to look out my office window and see this.

 I do not have good fortune with roses, so I am thrilled to see this blooming in my garden.  I took this one from the vacant lot where we moved a new home in. 

This dianthasus has grown nicely in the last two years.

First Roadtrip for the Season

We didn't really know where we were going yesterday, we got in the car and Dave says..."what direction?" and I said east. That's the way most of our day trips begin. I wanted to go to Black Diamond just because I hadn't been there and it is quite close. Didn't get any pictures there, don't know why. Being only about 5 miles from busy Auburn it was a delight to drive through and see the farms and stop for brunch. Then it was again which way? And I said east again. It was kind of agreed upon that we wouldn't go to Yakima this time, we didn't find much to look at last time.

We got a picture of Mt. Rainer from this same stop last year but it looked completely different this time with the cloud formations.

Just beyond Chinook Pass the snow got quite deep, but it didn't last for too long.

We intended (if anything is actually intended on this type of trip) to turn off at this point and head in another direction, but couldn't find the road, so we ended up going through Yakima anyway.

It was about 60 degrees near Chinook Pass, and 84 in Yakima.  We drove on through Yakima into Ellensburg.

Then through Leavenworth and on home down Highway 2. What I love about Washington is that you can go from snowy mountains to treeless hills and back in to farmland again, just ine one day.  We got home about 10:30 last night after 395 miles.  Next week the plan is to go to the ocean. 

Garden update

I am so pleased with the growth on this lupine.  It was quite small last year.  Just don't look at the big weed beside it. 

Look at my Plumeria! It actually looks like real leaves now and not an obscene gesture. I thought that I had posted this earlier but couldn't find it, so the second picture  was taken about a month and a half ago.  It just seemed to really shoot up in the last week.  It will be interesting to see if it actually blooms this year.

Last weekend was the Relay for Life, and I sold 60 cards and met my fundraising goal.  Now I will be working on some card kits to be put together for Operation Write Home.  They will be assembled by other crafters this month and then shipped off to the troops for sending home to their loved ones.  Then I will start in earnest on my Christmas cards.  I've done a few already. 

What I've been up to lately

We all know that I haven't been stamping lately, so what have I been up to?  Well, lots of stuff, but the most fun has been in the garden.  This is some of my late blooming tulips.  The rest of the tulips have come and gone weeks ago, but these guys continue to brighten my garden.

This is my little fledgling vegetable garden.  I did trim the grass around it after I took the picture.  I planted two different kind of peas, beets, lettuce, carrots, spinach and two kinds of squash.  The onions are from last year.  They froze and were quite soft, but then started to grow again so I transplanted them so they weren't willy nilly in my garden.  Not sure how well they will do.  They are actually going to seed and I'm considering leaving them go for the seeds just in case they don't produce good onions.  I have to have my marigolds at the end since that is the end that faces the road.

We had the roads paved in the community last week and had to get some topsoil to fill in a ditch and just happened to get several yards more than what was needed, so I completed this flower bed on the side of the house that I've been working on for two years.  It started on the far end around the rock, then last year I dug up the sod and brought in topsoil and now it is all the way and I am so happy with it.  It will look much better when my little annuals bloom and I get a few perenials in there too.

I scavenged the driftwood from a lot that was vacated, and the strawberry pots with sedum's I started last year and are doing nicely.I didn't start the fuschia plant by myself, I bought it and another one last week.  I do have several other baskets that I started but they are still babies.  I will photograph them when they get larger and prettier.  Today I bought some pretty double pink ivy geranium and can't wait to get them planted.  All my annuals are planted at the entrance and I'm having a time keeping them watered, as I haven't set up anything yet, so I have to haul water by the two gallon watering can, and that is a pain!