Growing Up.....

As beautiful as my daughter has grown to be, it is sad for me to see her growing up so fast.  She had a graduation dance at her middle school last month, and she will now be going to the High School in the Fall.  Time is flying by as my kids are growing right before my eyes into pre-adults.  How is it that time seems to move faster as you are watching your children grow? 


I am sharing with you today a sketch of what my daughter looked like the day of the dance.  Her hair turned out so beautifully, but you cannot see that in the sketch.  I was hoping for this card to turn out a little bit differently, and I was going to start all over again, but my husband really liked it alot, so I am keeping it, BUT I think I am going to try this again with a new idea.  Still wanted to share with you, since if my husband liked it, I thought maybe some of you might like it too.  I do love the look of a sketch, but I need to master how to work that into a card better next time.   Actually, I made this into a stand, so that it can be displayed rather than as a card.  So....there you have it. 

I used some prima roses and adhesive embellishments that can be found at the McMahon Five Designs Store

I entered this into the Stamp Something Challenge to create something vintage with flowers...and

The Corrosive Challenge..Use lots of flowers

Aly's Sunday Challenge: Flowers

Thanks for having a look, and I appreciate all that take the time to comment and share your thoughts with me.  Many blessings to you.


Have a wonderful day!

Nature at its Best....

We discovered this precious baby bird, and I wanted to share this sweet picture with you.  My husband wanted to trim some branches yesterday when finding a Mama bird very upset with him.  He figured there must be a reason why she didn't want us near that tree.  From a distance, hubby managed to get a good shot of the sweet little baby popping it's head up from the nest.   Needless to say, we did not get to trim that tree.  It can wait until the babies are gone. 

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful summer day!  Thanks for dropping by for a look, and hope to see you soon!

Hugs and Blessings

MMSC59 A New Type of Card For Me...and It's About Time!!

Welcome to my blog.  I have a special card to share with you today.

I have had this idea brewing around in my head for probably around two years now on how to make my cards more friendly to all my bulky embellishments, yet I never gave it a try until now.  It occured to me at Christmas time around two Christmases ago that my cards were becoming far too heavily embellished on the inside to look very graceful when they are closed....actually, they really didn't close, and I hated the way they looked like that as well as having difficulty fitting them into their envelopes properly, so as I pondered a solution to this problem,  I never gave it life until now.....  I have posted many pictures for you to see the difference in the way this card lays with a fully embellished inside with some very bulky roses.  It looks just beautiful compared to the way the cards used to pop up in the front when I did this before.   Now, don't ask me what took me so long to finally make this kind of a card.  I guess I just don't always think ahead when I am creating.  I do love the result though, and I know that I will be doing this again for my bulky cards.   I hope that maybe this may help some of you that may have shared this same headache if you enjoy fancying up your card insides too. 

Now, onto the details of this card:

I don't know if you have heard the news or not, but my good friend Priscilla of Priscillastyles has a great group on her new site here, and there is also an opportunity to get in on some freebie digis from some really awesome artists.  I found this one over there, and of course with that adorable kitty on it had won my heart.  I just had to make a card with that image.  This particular digi is from Karen's Doodles.  Thank you Karen's Doodles for this super cute image!!

I know that most of you already know that I have a passion for pinks, and I really took advantage of that on this card.  I so love those beautiful pearl flourishes with the pink roses on them.  The flourishes as well as the flowers for this card came from McMahon Five Designs...one of my FAVORITE places to shop!!

Don't you love how beautifully that this card lays when flat?

Thanks for visiting me for a spell today, and I hope you enjoyed your stay.  Please leave me a comment to let me know what you think of my new style of card.  I had so much fun making this one.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Some challenges for this card:

Midnight Madness: Sketch

Bee Crafty:  Pink n Girly

Caardvarks: embossing

Charisma: Bling

La La Land: embossing

City Crafter: Pink, Purple and Pearls

Little Red Wagon: Beads

Stamp Something: Summer

Totally Gorjuss: Sugar and Spice

Creative Inspirations: Monochrome

Bunny Zoes: Nice and Girly

Hugs!

As Promised...An update on the Garden...

Happy Summer Everyone!!!  So far, our summer has been very busy and full days.  We started our garden last month from scratch.  It is coming along so nicely.  We are really excited about it.  I am sharing some pictures from the very beginning up to today.  I never realized how much fun it would be to watch my own garden grow : )

Step one was to prepare the ground....Everyone got in on this part.  Shovels a going, dirt turning and new soil being put down.  A fun and dirty mess was had by all.

This is where ALL of the plants began with lots of patience and proper care.  What a miracle it is to watch. 

I am adding a picture of some grass we had to plant due to a trampoline killing all of the grass under it last year.  If you look down a few pictures, you will see how beautiful this grass grew in only a few weeks!

Well, here we are today with the corn.  Look how big they got already.  I can't wait for the first corn to erupt!

Ok, now I don't want to hear you all tell me how much I need to weed.  I know that it needs done, and I am getting there, but there just haven't been enough hours in the day.  Hope to do some of that this weekend.

These are a few of the tomatoe plants.  We have a bunch more, but I am happy with how nicely they are coming along.

I can't remember which this one is...the watermelon or the cantelope.  I guess we'll find out soon ; )

Here's the pride and joy.  I LOVE how great the cucumber plants are growing.  Don't they look wonderful? 

A closer look at the cucumbers.

We ran out of room, so had to do some plants in containers.  We have beans, and some other veggies not shown.  We planted carrots, pumpkins and jack o lanterns too.

Here is a look at some of them together.  We have two areas with about the same amount in each of them that we are planting.

Here's the shot of the grass we planted where the trampoline killed last year.   Very happy with how pretty it grew in.

Thanks for dropping by to share in the joy of my garden today.  I can't wait to show you some of the produce that comes from it.  I hope you all have a very enjoyable summer and hope you will stop by here from time to time to say hello to me. 

Blessings to you all~

 

MMSC57 Crush the Turtle Happy Birthday Shaker Card

It's a rainy day here today and even a bit chilly for this time of year :(   but, on the bright side, it gives me the chance to post a card for you all to see.  I decided to take the opportunity to make a birthday card for my little boy whose birthday isn't until the end of July, but you know how summer is.  I didn't want to miss my chance.  He LOVES shaker cards, and he is still into the Finding Nemo stuff, so I thought that Crush the Turtle would be a cute card for him.  I got this image from McMahon Five Designs.  They have tons of great images and products over there to choose from.  I love using their stuff!!  I also created my background using white paper sprayed with glimmer mist.  I have never been great at coloring digi images, so I admit that I have alot to learn there, but thankfully, my son will not mind that part.  I added some bubbles to my image with crystal accents, punched out some coral with the MS fern punch and added some sand and shells for the shaker.  I used acetate for my shaker film, and I embossed it to give it a feel of the ocean.  I also framed it with the MS border punch that reminds me of seashells.  I added lots of glitter and a sentiment or two, and I think I am set to give this to the birthday boy.  I know he is going to love it.  I already showed my husband who couldn't resist shaking it up a few times.  I hope you enjoy it too. 

I hope you can see the bubbles in this photo. 

Side view, so that you can see it as if it were an aquarium.

I added some more coral to the card as an afterthought.  Hope it holds up.   I took this pic today, so with the gloomy day, it didn't turn out so bright.   If you enlarge this picture, you can see the embossing on the acetate which turned out pretty cool, I think.

Thanks for visiting me today.  I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I am glad you could share a little bit of it with me.  Drop me a line and let me know what you think of my Crush shaker.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

I am entering this into the MM challenge this week.  Hope my friends over there enjoy it.  Will be happy to hear from them. : )

Some other challenges for this card are:

Aifactory:  Anything goes with a punch

Caardvarks: Embossing

Crafts and me: For family...this is for my son.

Crafty Creations: Childs play

Cupcake Crafts: Dazzle us

Cuttlebug Challenges: Paint inspired...created paint splattered paper using my glimmer mists and used my swirl embossing folder on my acetate to give a wavy look.

Everybody Art Challenge:  Things with wings...Does this turtle have wings?? They look like wings to me.  Hope it qualifies.

For Fun Challenges: Happy Birthday

Meljen's: Dry embossing

One Stop Craft Challenge:  Make your own dp...I made mine with glimmer mist.

OCC: Summer inspiration

Pixie Dust Studio: Punch it out

Stampin for the weekend:  Summer//travel

Stampin' Sisters in Christ: Animal

The Sisterhood of Crafters: celebrate a birth

The Treehouse: Beach theme

Hugs and blessings to you,

Get Well Card and Some Challenges...

Hi Friends~ I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!  We are unofficially into summer here.  Today was the last day of school for my kids, and they are well ready for a fun-filled summer.  I must admit, I have been looking forward to it as much as I think they have been. 

Sadly, my post today is the result of some bad news that my husband found out about a very young co-worker of his.  She is a mere 30-years old and has been diagnosed with breast cancer.  It is always a tragic thing to hear of news like this, but when a young lady who is only in the young stages of her adult life is stricken with such a thing, it strikes those of us that are Mothers in a tender spot.  She does not have children yet, and I think she would have really liked to have at some point.   We are all wishing her a complete recovery with as little discomfort as possible.  She has a surgery coming up here shortly as this cancer is seeming to be too aggressive to wait, so my husband asked if I could make a nice card for her to wish her a quick recovery and let her know that she has our prayers and support. 

As you all know, I have been out of the loop here for a bit with my crafting, and I have a bit of a lack of mojo.  Get well and sympathy cards are not easy for me on a good mojo day, so this was exceptionally difficult for me to come up with.  It's a rather simple card, but I am hoping is a little cheerful as well as full of prayerful wishes.  I'm also hoping that it doesn't come across as Easter-y.  I could have chose different colors, I suppose, but this seemed to fit well at the time. 

I've decided to enter this into some challenges as I truly have missed them in my absence.
Aifactory- Anything with a punch
Charisma- Flowers
Meljens- dry embossing
One Stitch At A Time- New... Fab new Martha Stewart Border Punch, and some new flowers too.
Paperplay- Flowers and Sparkle
Pixie Dust- Punch it out
Your Next Stamp- Border Punch
Sweet Stampin'- Pimp your card


 I hope you all have a wonderful day, and have an enjoyable summer.  I thank you greatly for your support, comments and dropping by to visit me when you can.  I really look forward to it and hope to have you by again soon. 
Hugs,