4th of July Lake Living

These are pictures I took when my daughter was visiting us.  Luckily, our boat was out of the shop by the time she got here.  It had been in the shop for about 3 weeks.  They had to order some parts and install them plus we were waiting for a new bimini top to arrive.  We were lucky and they all arrived the day before Ashley did!

Sunset on July 4th - waiting for fireworks to start.

Ashley enjoying her time off!

Our captain!

July 4th group selfie!

Friday night - we stopped by King Canary Brewery to have a beer after dinner at Flock.

My patriotic card I made for the 4th!  I used my SU Blends to color this DSP (Flowering Foil from Sale-a-Bration)

3 D POP UP CUBE CARD

What a great weekend I had!  Ashley was able to come for a visit!!  It was touch and go for a while, but she was finally allowed to travel.  She didn't find out for sure if she could come until late last Thursday so it was after midnight when she and Bogart arrived!  On Friday she and I played around in my stamp room after going to water exercise in the community pool.  Saturday we went out on the boat for a while and were able to watch fireworks on the lake.  Sunday we drove to Fort Mill, SC to get some peaches (Ashley's favorite fruit.)  On Monday, we did the water exercise again and played around with stamping some more.  Tuesday, again ... water exercise and back out on the boat for a couple of hours until it started raining.  The best thing that happened for Ashley on Tuesday was that she went to my hairdresser and got her hair cut and colored.  

Here are a couple of 3D cards that we made.  We watched a video by Debbie Henderson (on Facebook) to make this card.  It folds flat for mailing.

This one is Ashley's.  She used Seaside Shore (retired) and High Tide for her card.

Isn't it cute?

This one is mine.

I needed to put my birds up a little higher so they would show better.  I used Bird Banter for my card (retired)

So this morning when it was time for Ashley to drive back to Maryland, Bogart (her cat) was in his carrier .... until he saw Ashley with her suitcase heading toward him.  He quickly got out of the carrier and went into hiding.  We found him upstairs in one of the bedrooms hiding among the stuffed animal corner!  Can you spot him below?  It reminded us of ET when he hid in the closet among all the stuffed animals!

After Ashley got her hair done, we met Mom and Angela at an outdoor restaurant for dinner.

BONUS DAYS are here again!

Earn Coupons with Bonus Days in July and redeem them in August! Don’t forget… the Holiday Mini Catalog launches on August 4th. 

Loving Sunflowers!

I've been playing around again with the Celebrate Sunflowers stamp bundle.  I love these sunflowers and they are so easy to color with the SU Blends.

I really like this sunflower on the Cinnamon Cider cardstock!  The pattern in the strip at the bottom is from Tasteful Touches which also can be purchased as a bundle.  The dies that come with this bundle are labels - Tasteful Labels Dies which I can see myself using them a bunch!

Another sunflower card - this time using Bermuda Bay and black cardstock.  

I trimmed some of the flowers off the front of the card and used them on the inside.  Makes a pretty inside.

I got to meet the newest member of our family last Sunday.  We had a family get-together at my sister, Marianne's house.  Derek (my nephew) and his wife brought sweet little Abigail who is 2 months old now.  I didn't get to hold the baby but mom did which was great.

Celebrate Sunflowers

Don't you just love sunflowers?!!  When I lived in Washington state, I had sunflowers in my garden and loved them.  Here are some interesting facts about them that perhaps you didn't know.

• Each sunflower is actually thousands of teeny flowers.  The yellow petals and fuzzy brown centers are actually individual flowers themselves.  As many as 2,000 can make up the classic sunflower bloom.
• You should harvest sunflowers in the morning, not the afternoon.  They may wilt if you clip them in the afternoon.
• Sunflowers are native to the Americas and were domesticated around 1000 B.C.  In 2014, 1.7 million acres were planted in the US.  The majority of those were found in North Dakota.
• A dried sunflower makes a unique, natural bird feeder.  Our feathered friends love to snack on sunflower seeds just like we do.
• Each sunflower can contain as many as 1,000 to 2,000 seeds (lots for the birds to munch on!)
• There are about 70 species of sunflowers.
• The French word for sunflower is "tournesol," which means "turns with the sun."
• The tallest sunflower on record was over 30 feet tall!
• Sunflowers have been planted to help soak up nuclear radiation.

In the new Annual Catalog, the Celebrate Sunflowers bundle can be found on page 13.  It is in the Flowers For Every Season suite.  Here is one of the cards I made with this set.

I stamped the base sunflower with Memento Black Ink and used my So Saffron SU Blends to color the petals.   The sunflower outline and detail center piece is die cut with Copper foil paper.  The very center is die cut from Early Espresso cardstock.  I die cut the leaves in Mossy Meadow.  I found the little circle embellishments in my stash and decided to use them for an accent.  The base card is So Saffron.

Close up of the sunflower.

Press-N-Seal Tasteful Touches

I love this card!  I followed a tutorial by Andrea Walford and made a few little changes.   It's not as complicated as it looks!  I used the flower from Tasteful Touches and the sentiment from Blossoms In Bloom.

I stamped the flower image 5 times onto white cardstock using the following ink colors:  Gorgeous Grape, Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Mango Medley and Granny Apple Green.  I then fussy cut each flower trying to cut as close to the edge as possible so not a lot of white shows.  Next I positioned the flowers where I wanted them on the card and then placed Press-n-Seal on top of the flowers, gently pressing the Press-n-Seal against the fussy cut flowers.  This is called the Press-n-Seal technique which I had never done before.  Press-n-Seal is a unique "like saran wrap but much better" product that makes this card much easier to make.  After arranging all the flowers on the card, I used Press-n-Seal to pick them all up at once.  This made it easy to stamp the leaves where I wanted them (with the help of my Stamparatus) and to apply adhesive to the back of everything and place it back into the original spot.  Such a time saver!  The leaves were stamped in the same color as the flowers but they were each stamped off once.  Using Tombow liquid glue, I adhered a 1/2" strip of gold foil paper to the right side.  Lay the Press'n'Seal flowers back on top of the stamped (leaves) cardstock panel.  Carefully pull back the Press'n'Seal off the flowers and put glue on all the flowers (except Grape).  Allow a few seconds for the glue to set up and then gently remove the Press'n'Seal.  Put a couple of Glue Dots for the gold thread in a spot under the Grape flower so it does not show.  Adhere the Grape flower with dimensionalds and add your text and a little bling.

Give Peace a Chance

This world just seems like it has turned upside down!  In North Carolina, where I live, we are in Phase 2 of re-opening and I'll be honest .... it scares me.  We have had an increase of confirmed cases since the state was opened up a little a few weeks ago.   I am still staying at home as much as I can, but wearing a mask each time I venture out.  I try not to overreact but honestly, I feel like a lot of people are just going right back to normal and are not taking the precautions they ought to.  We drove to South Carolina over the weekend.  Our first stop (with our masks) was Frugal McDoogals (a wine and liquor warehouse in Fort Mill, SC.)  The line to get in the store was funny to me but I was glad that the correct precautions were taken.  Next we went to the Peach Stand.  Same thing - people lined  up (most with masks) to get in the little market.  After those places, we drove to a little restaurant that we love.  They have the best fried chicken and veggies.   Yum!  Since we were there at an odd time (2:00), we didn't figure they would be very busy - plus, there are only about 15 tables in the restaurant and several had "do not sit" signs on them for social distancing.  By the time we finished our meal, the restaurant was almost full with only a couple of tables left.  Guess everyone else had the same idea as we did about going early (or late depending on what your meal is.)

Ashley just sent us these Steelers masks!

And if COVID wasn't enough for all of us to deal with ... the country seems to be at war with each other in terms of the unrest we are experiencing.  I feel like we are at a turning point.  It saddens me that a video of a black man getting murdered right in front of our eyes has happened for the world to stop and pay attention! 

Let's all sing John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance" which was an anti-war song.

Color Coach

I have been working on a Color Coach project.  Do you remember when Stampin'Up! offered a Color Coach?  Many times, I struggle with color combinations and need something quick and easy to put colors together.  I have kept the two Color Coach's that I have bought in the past and added all the new colors to it.  I took apart the two that I had and combined them with the new colors.  If you google on line "SU Color Coach" you will find a lot of them that you can download and make your own like I did on mine.  This stack of color is my "go to" when I'm looking for colors to combine.  I can fan them out and try different colors together to see how I like them.  It makes color selections simple.

They couldn't all fit on one so I just divided them up and labeled them to make it easier.  I could also have put them on a large ring but I had those little screws already.  I may put them all together later if this doesn't work.

This is the front of the card.  If I didn't already have the card with the color combinations from my old Color Coach, I cut a piece of coordinating cardstock and adhered the combos to it (see Sea Side Spray card below.)

This is the back of the cards with the different color combinations.   

This is one of the cards I had to make.  I googled and found the new in-colors, printed them out and adhered them to a piece of cardstock that matched.

Hope this helps you with matching colors.

Birds and Branches

I understand we are still dealing with COVID-19, but I think we need to make as good of a summer as we can.  Most of us can get outside in some form - whether sitting on the porch, taking a walk, or participating in some form of an activity (golf, tennis, swim, etc.).  For those of you with children, my hat is off to you trying to make it a fun summer.  My point is - summer is moving quickly and fall will be here before we know it!  Think about doing some card making with your children.  It's a great activity when it is hot outside.  Maybe start on your Christmas cards.  Believe it or not, but on July 1st Stampin'Up! is releasing their Holiday Catalog to demonstrators!  This is a first on having it so early.  Happy Stampin'!

Believe it or not but it was actually cold (and rainy) here yesterday!  Even Sonny was cold and put on long sleeves.  We broke a record I think with temps just getting to 61 degrees and I don't think it is going to be much warmer today!  Why couldn't this have been last week when our A/C was not working!

I'm still fighting the pain in my back and have to take a lot of "sitting breaks" during the day.  I can tell when I've done too much.  Last week, I thought I was doing pretty good.  There were several days that I didn't even take any Tylenol, Alieve, etc.  But Friday did me in.  I went to water exercise in the morning and in the afternoon I went to a friend's house.  She lives on the lake and has been wanting me to come over and paddleboard or kayak with her.  I kayaked until my arms got sore and then switched with her and tried to use the paddleboard.  I didn't feel comfortable standing so just got on my knees and paddled until I couldn't anymore!  She ended up tying a rope to my board and towing me back to the house.  Aren't I a wimp??   I really felt like one especially when I leaned over to pick something up and felt a pop on my side!  Not sure what I did but I was in a lot of pain the rest of the day and Saturday.  I am better now but I am really taking it easy.

Here is one of the cards I made for the NC Quarterly swap (that was canceled!)  I love this Birds & Branches stamp set (catalog on page 120).  It was the first stamp set that I ordered from the new Annual Catalog.  The stamps - birds, branches, eggs and nest images - all coordinate with the Birds & More Dies to help you create beautiful cards!

For You, My Friend

Happy Monday!  Hope you had a good weekend.  It was very pleasant here all weekend.  The temps have been rather low for June which is very nice.  We just turned our A/C on a week ago.  Unfortunately, our upstairs unit was in need of freon.  We had to wait a couple of days for the A/C guy to come and fix it.  Sonny was in the A/C/Heating business (York) and has a jug of freon but he doesn't have the tools to put it in the unit.  But at least we only have to pay for the service call and not for the freon because it is ridiculously expensive.  There were a couple of nights last week before we got it fixed that when we went to bed, it was 85 degrees upstairs!  Luckily we have an old box fan that we turned on and it did the trick for us.  Our A/C units are on their last legs ... they are 20 years old so we know we are on borrowed time with them.  We haven't been able to go out on our boat because it also is not running!  Sonny worked on it for several days with no luck so he had to take it to the shop.  It's been a little over a week now and we haven't heard from them.  Hopefully, we'll have it by this weekend so Sonny can spend Father's Day on the lake.

I pulled out one of my old Paper Pumpkin stamps (from Jan. and Feb. 2019) to make this card.  

The card base is Calypso Coral.  I ran the Whisper White piece through the Country Floral Embossing Folder (retired).  I used a dauber to lightly put ink (Mint Macaron and Calypso Coral) onto the raised up flowers and leaves.  The Mint Macaron and Whisper White piece in the center was run through the Rectangles Dies.  I used SU Blends to color the cactus, lizard, bird and teacup.