Thank you...

Not sure anyone checks my blog anymore--I know I don't! My life has been upside down for the last eight months helping to take care of my father. He passed away last week. Please don't be sad--he is in a much better place, and I hope he's happy.

I have not stamped in eight months but hope to get back to it soon. I have made the decision not to maintain the blog anymore, though.

So thank you all for following me and for all your kind comments while I did dip my toe in the blogging world. I love you all!!!

I think I’m back…

Been awhile, hasn’t it? Can I start by saying I’ve missed blogging and all my blogging friends!! I hope you all haven’t forgotten about me!!! Why have I been gone, you may ask. Well, this is why:

Yup—that’s my Daddio. I won’t bore you with all the details, but he went in the hospital early in June. After spending about a week in the hospital, they refused to release him unless he was going to 24 hour care. Since he was adamant that he didn’t want to go to a nursing home, we’ve been taking care of him at his home ever since. I’ve taken on the bulk of the duties, and have been living at his house most of the last month and a half. He lives about 40 miles away from me, so I’ve spent very little time at my own house between working and taking care of him. Well, we had a meeting with the Hospice team last Friday, and after all the care and pampering we’ve been giving him, they agreed that we could scale back on his care. So, I think I’m going to be able to spend all week sleeping in my own bed!!! He has his good days and bad days, but he’s in much better shape than he was at the beginning of June. He’s a skinny little thing, isn’t he? He weights 100 pounds soaking wet, even after a month of three meals a day.

I wasn’t able to do any stamping or other artwork while I was at his house—I dragged enough stuff there as it was, without taking inks and stamps and paints and paper…you get the drift. I was able to do some creative things, though. Let me ask all of you—when was the last time you crocheted? I don’t think I’ve done any extensive crocheting for a good 30 years! However, I got a wild hair before my dad went in the hospital and decided to crochet an afghan for my special needs sister, Lisa. Here’s a not very good picture of her and the afghan I crocheted for her:

She’s waving at me, trying to get me to leave! Once I finished that one, I needed something to keep my hands busy while staying with my dad, so in addition to helping my nieces with some of their 4-H projects, I made even more afghans. Here’s my niece, Casey, and the one I made for her. The picture is awful—I took all of these with my phone. The colors in this afghan are turquoise, lime green and yellow:

Then I had to make one for my dad, since he’s always freezing. Here’s his:

Then I  made one for my other niece, Morgan. Here she is with hers:

  I couldn’t leave out their big brother, could I? I don’t have a picture of him, but here’s his afghan. The colors don’t show up very well—I used a camo variegated yarn and two shades of green:

Wow—was this addicting!!! Now I have Casey hooked (LOL—pun intended). She wanted to learn how to crochet, so I taught her and she’s going full steam ahead!! 

I’m sure my postings will still be sporadic for awhile—I have to take care of my much neglected house and yard, I’ll still be going to my dad’s regularly, and work is getting ready to be crazy for the next three weeks. I just wanted to assure everyone that I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, and I promise I’ll be back visiting your blogs in the very near future!!!

Drunken Stampers #19…

I have a quick card to post tonight that fits Drunken Stampers challenge 19—Birthdays.This card is for my wonderful friend, Angie, whose birthday is tomorrow. The card sketch is from Roni’s blog. I used the Medium Bee from Jo Capper-Sandon’s stamp line at Stampotique Originals. The button is a vintage one I found at the antique fair last month, and I broke into the vintage lace my blog buddy, Lynn, sent me. I love that I can tie two lovely people together with a piece of lace!!

Here’s the card:

 

If any of you follow me regularly—I want to let you know that my blogging may be a bit erratic over the next few weeks. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my blurfing lately, and I haven’t had a chance to play very many challenges. My dad has been in the hospital and is now in hospice—we hope he will be able to come out of hospice, but I think that’s wishful thinking on our part. Please keep him in your prayers.

Aww….I got a blog award!

Thank you to my good blogger buddy, Lynn, from Trash To Treasure Art, for nominating me for this wonderfully prestigious blog award! Sorry I didn’t get this posted sooner, but I’ve been busy crafting my lies!!!!!

Here’s how it works.

1. Express gratitude to the blogger who bestowed the award unto you. Thank you, Lynn, my Idaho soul sister!!!

2 Display the picture on your blog proudly.

3. Be nice and provide a link to the person who gave it to you. (Here it is again—Lynn at Trash To Treasure Art).

4. Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth, or switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.

5. Nominate seven creative writers who might be into doing this. I am passing this one on to Bloggers who make me smile, laugh, or emote in some way or another.

6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate and let the owners of those blogs know.

OK—here are my lies—or are they truths? You decide!!! (I’ll give you a hint—two are truths and four are lies…)

1. As you all know, George Clooney grew up in the Cincinnati area, where I was born and raised. He and I dated briefly in high school, but I dumped him because he was a lousy kisser. He’s much better looking now—he must have had a nose job or something.

2. While helping a friend in Florida move from her apartment to a condo, I had the opportunity to meet Prince Albert of Monaco at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. I wish his good friend, Bono, would have been with him at the time! (Party like a rock star!!!)

3. When I was in my early 20s (30 years and quite a few pounds ago) I was a pretty famous local stripper. My stage name was Texas Trixie and my costume had a cowgirl theme (explains my fascination with cowgirl stamps, doesn’t it?) The bartender at the club where I stripped had a thing for me, and invented the Buttery Nipple (a “shooter” drink for those of you who don’t imbibe) in my honor. Texas Trixie is long gone, but the Buttery Nipple lives on!!

4. I truly am a famous writer, which makes this award so appropriate! My pen name is Danielle Steele.

5. Everyone knows I’m really a “shrinking violet.”

6. While in Rome, I got on a bus full of Italian sailors (not on purpose!) Rather than give me one of their seats, I ended up standing at the front of the bus while the sailors proceeded to sing to me until I got off at my stop.

OK—now I need to nominate seven blogs for this same award. I didn’t come up with seven, but did do five—I hope the blog badge police don’t get me!!! Here are my nominations:

1. Roni at Ink Stains—Roni is incredibly talented and very generous with her knowledge. She posts lots of great tutorials, and has a fabulous book to boot!

2. Nan at Nan’s Niche—Nan does beautiful work of all kinds. Her scrapbook pages almost make me want to start scrapbooking, and that’s saying something!!! 

3. Suzie at Passionate About Crafting—Suzie has lots of hobbies, just like me. She quilts, knits, and does paper crafts. Stop and visit her blog!

4. Peg and Spike at Drunken Stampers—gotta love the blog name, plus they have great challenges (although I confess I haven’t played yet)!

5. Dawn at Dawn…a new day—Dawn does beautiful work and has been a real inspiration to me in my cardmaking. Plus, I love her llama pictures!!!

So many challenges, so little time…

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I had hoped to play a little more over the weekend, but other things kept getting in the way! I finally sat down this afternoon while watching some John Wayne movies on TV and worked on this card. When it was done, it ended up fulfilling three different challenges, although I’m only going to officially enter it in one.

My niece is turning 11 in a couple of weeks, and I asked her if she wanted a cute card or a funky card. She said definitely funky! (I knew last year’s cute card was probably the last I could get away with!) Well, the planets were in perfect alignment for funky today, since my Stampotique Originals stamps arrived last week and were calling my name!!

I went looking for a “funky” sketch, and decided that the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge 55 fit the bill. (I’m not entering it in this challenge, because I deviated from the sketch a little.) The Stampotique Designers Challenge 8 is to use purple, and since that is one of my niece’s favorite colors, it was a no-brainer to use some Basic Grey papers from the Kioshi line. (Not entering this one, either, since I kind of CASE’d Monique, one of the DT members—loved the zig zag!) Finally, Gingersnap Challenge 54 is pencils, and I colored the image with watercolor pencils and a water brush. The background uses DI inks, and by process of elimination, this is the challenge I’m entering!

So—here’s my niece’s card in all its Moth Fab glory—let me know if you think it’s funky enough!!

I had hoped to finish the mini-album covers this weekend, but I’m still mulling that over. I’m thinking of metal but haven’t made up my mind yet.

Mini-album, part 10…

This is the last spread in the mini-album from Roni. The challenges were to use the color yellow (the reason will become evident when you read the verse!) and to use a stamp you have not previously used in the book. Well, the challenge part was easy—I painted cardstock for the background with Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paint in Yellow Pastel, and then streaked it with Touch of Yellow. These colors are BRIGHT!!! You can see them here at Simon Says Stamp. The challenge came in trying to take a picture! It took awhile, but the yellow finally came out kind of close. The challenge to use a stamp that I hadn’t used before was easy, too. I used one of the first stamps I ever bought—who knew it would be so versatile?? The verse for this final part is, “Friendship is like peeing your pants. Everyone can see it but only you can feel the true warmth.” Don’t you love it? Now, here’s my take on the final spread:

I hope you’ve had as much fun with this little book as I have! I need to figure out what to do to the covers, and I also want to go back and distress/ink the edges a bit (you can still see the chipboard edges) and maybe embellish some of the pages a little more. The hardest thing I need to do is decide who to give it to!!

I also want to say again—this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. I really didn’t think I could do it, but it ended up being very easy when it was broken down into manageable chunks. If you’ve been hesitant to try something like this book or any project outside your comfort zone, I say, throw caution to the wind! What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll have a “learning experience?” Go for it, and be sure to share it with all of us!

GC53 challenge…

Hey, everybody! I decided to finish up a project I started over the weekend for Gingersnap Creations challenge, GC53, Read. The challenge was to, “Use readers, reading, books, familiar stories and text as your jumping off point for this one!”

Let me just say that I had a great idea that didn’t translate very well in the execution. I think we’ll write this one off as “a learning experience.”

My mom’s oldest sister, Aunt Sissy, had polio as a child, which left her increasingly debilitated and unable to walk. By the time I could remember her, she was paralyzed and required complete care. But when she was still able to function on her own, she was an avid reader. She belonged to the Book of the Month Club for years, and had quite a collection. Out of all her nieces and nephews, I was the only one who liked to read, and she gave me all her books. One that she insisted I read was a book called A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter. I fell in love with that book, and it became a summer reading tradition for me from about the 5th grade all the way through high school. It was very romantic—Elnora Comstock was an awkward girl with a cold mother who ended up finding romance. The story takes place in the swamps of northeastern Indiana, where Elnora hunted butterflies to sell to collectors as a way to put herself through school. The whole idea of it seemed so romantic to me—catching butterflies, wandering through the swamp, and especially the name—Limberlost. Isn’t that a great word?

So—on to my project. I decided to use this book as my inspiration. First, I tore some pages from an old paperback and glued them to a piece of grungeboard. I then went over them with DI in Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, and Walnut Stain. So far, so good. But this is where I ran into trouble. I’ve never been a vellum kind of gal so really have no experience with it. However, I have this pack of luscious Webster’s Pages paper that had a piece of vellum in it that happened to have butterflies on it, so I thought I would put this over the glued down text. I used a pretty ordinary technique—cut the vellum to size, covered the text pages with matte medium, and glued down the vellum, which promptly proceeded to curl up into a little roll. Now what? Well, I covered the top of the vellum with the matte medium, too, in hopes that would even it all out. It kind of did, but not very well. The vellum proceeded to get a little misshapen and wrinkled up. In addition, the grungeboard also started to curl. Great. I set it all aside to dry for awhile, then glued a collage image on top of the vellum. There were also some sticker letters in the Webster’s Pages pack, so I used them to spell “limberlost” across the piece. I put it inside a phone book to hopefully flatten out, but when I got it out tonight, it was still kind of curled. There are still wrinkles in the vellum, too, so I decided to cover some of those up with lace trim, which is really too light, I think. I used the same lace to make a rosette, and put a Basic Grey brad in the middle. It doesn’t look very good, but I think I’m going to stop before I waste any more supplies!!! So—here it is, in all its pitiful glory!

 

If you’re still reading after all of this, I’ll share some more info with you. Gene Stratton-Porter lived in the swampy area of northeastern Indiana where this book takes place. Her home is an Indiana historic site, and I believe the property surrounding it is a nature preserve. I’ve never been there, but have driven past the signs pointing the way. I think I’m going to put it on my list of things to do this summer—I’ll read the book again for the first time in years, and then drive up there for a visit. I’m planning to go to Shipshewana, Indiana, sometime this summer for their weekly flea market—I can make Limberlost a stop along the way. Stay tuned—I’ll tell you all about it when I go!!