Stormy Weather

Hi all!   I just wanted to share some pics of a "lovely" little storm that rolled through NW Indiana tonight.   I'm not usually one to take pictures during these things but I was intending on taking some pictures of my garden when I saw the clouds approaching.   Within about 5 minutes of this picture, this is what I saw....

Then it started getting a little scary...

This is the last picture I took before the tornado sirens started going off.   That's when I decided to go inside and get in the basement.

Pretty scary stuff, huh?   Thankfully there was no tornado, but when I saw that sky - yikes - I was worried!  My son and I went in the basement and prayed (hubby was upstairs watching - grrrr) and thankfully God kept us safe.  :o)

I hope you're all having a happy sunny week so far.   Thank goodness the forecast is good here for the next couple of days!
Hugs!
Sue :o)

Pink Treats

Hello Everyone!   I thought I'd share a little project I made on my Cricut the other night.   I thought it would be cute to make a matching tag for the card this time.   Both the cake and the ice cream cone were cut with the Sweet Treats cartridge and I used DCWV Sweet Stack paper.

Now that I've really gotten used to the Cricut I'm finding that I like the images better when I add details to them before assembling.   For instance on the ice cream cone I used my stylus to add a crosshatch pattern to the cone, I added chalks to the edges of each piece, and then finally added highlights with my white gel pen.   I did the same on the pieces for the cake, and then added dots along the scalloped edge on the top of the tag.

I finished off the inside of the card with some punched hearts that I sponged with ink on one side and then accented on the other with the white gel pen.   I suppose I could have cut them on the Cricut but that would have require switching cartridges.   Looks like I'm going to have to get that thing (I think it's called the carousel) so I can avoid having to switch out cartridges in the middle of a project.

Well I hope you enjoyed my project today.   I'm heading back downstairs to play until dinner and then I'm going to work in the yard this evening.   My vegetable garden is really coming along and it's time to stake up the tomato plants and weed again after all the rain we've had.  I hope you're having a wonderful day!

Hugs!
Sue :o)

Cleaning The Craft Room Today

Hi Everyone!
It's rainy and soggy and muggy here today so instead of playing in the garden I decided to clean up the craft room (or the craft pit - depending on how you see it).   I've had this idea in my head of lining the face of these storage drawers with patterned paper, so I got started on that first.   These particular drawers are pretty old and looked beat up, so I like the makeover!

I also used some of the same papers to line my cups where I keep my tools, pens and painbrushes.

 I got my Cricut cartridges all in order too and tidied up the little box where I keep precut card stock.

This is the storage drawer where I keep all my scraps of patterned paper.   Each color has it's own cellophane bag and I keep one for large scraps and one for small scraps.   I throw away nothing!

Here's a jar of my grandma's buttons I keep on one of the shleves above my workspace.   This is the grandmother who taught me to plant flowers and sew and cross stitch, so  I don't use these buttons on projects because they're sentimental.   When I was little she used to let me sprawl them out all over the floor so I could look at them, and sometimes I still do.  :o)   If you look at the bottom of the glass jar next to the buttons you'll see a bunch of rocks that my son gave me when he was little.   He colored some of them and I'm just too sentimental to get rid of them.

Next we have one of my punch drawers.   I keep all my huge ones in one drawer, border punches in another drawer, then medium and small in their own drawers.  

And lastly I have my ribbon drawer which ... errrr .... needs some work.   LOL.   I wanted to point out the ribbon wound up on clothespins though.   These are my grandma's clothespins and sat in a bag in my closet ohh... for the last 30 years since she passed away.   I finally put them to good use in a place I could see them all the time.  

Well I hope you enjoyed your view into my craft room today!  I'm back downstairs to continue cleaning!

Have a blessed day!

Hugs!  Sue :o)

Gift Tags

Hello everyone!    I've been on a bit of a tag making kick lately so I thought I'd share a few of my creations.   I actually have a whole container of them in my craft room but you can only share so much on your blog at once, right?   These tags were actually pretty simple once I got in the hang of making the rosettes.   I found a tutorial on making them here on Lolly's blog.   She is so fun, isn't she?   If you've never visited her blog before do so right now.   She's hilarious and actually very informative.

Along with rosettes I added some quilled fluffy flowers too (that's what I call them anyway) and I think they added a nice touch!   I used card stock to make the rosettes, quilling paper to make the fluffy flowers, and the tags were cut on my Cricut from K&Co. paper.

These tags were super simple to make too.   Much simpler than the rosette/fluffy flower tags.   I cut the tags on my Cricut (again K&Co. paper) and the flowers were also cut on the Cricut using A Walk In My Garden cartridge.   I added the buttons because ..... I like buttons.

That's all I have to share today.   I hope you're having a lovely start of summer.   Today is my son's last day of school and then (hold on a minute let me get a tissue) I'll have a high schooler on my hands.   Seems like just yesterday I was fretting about leaving him at preschool and now I'm starting to panic about college savings and just how much money it's going to cost to insure him when he starts driving.   :o)   God is good though and I know He's gonna see me through this just like He has everything else in life.

Have a blessed day!  Hugs!
Sue :o)

It's a Happy Flowery Day

Hello Friends!
Today's blog entry has nothing to do with stamps or paper.   I'm one of those crazy people who have a BUNCH of different hobbies and I regularly bounce around amongst them.   Next to paper crafts, gardening is my favorite hobby eveeerrrrrrr, so come take a look in my yard and see what I do in when I'm not crafting or cleaning my house.  :o)

This is the view you'd see if you were sitting on my deck and looking through toward our little pond.   Notice my husband's gargoyl?   I hate that thing but I let him keep it because he lets me have real pets. 

Here's a clearer view of the pond.  

This is a view standing by the pool and looking back at the house.   I feel like I need a tree in there somewhere but hubby is saying no.   I'll work on him.

This is a view of the front of my house.  Notice no gargoyls.   

A closer view of the little bed by my front door.  Something is already chewing on my rose.  Grrrrr.

This is one of  a bunch of allium I planted around our river brich in the front yard.   I had to straddle a bush to get this shot, but you gotta do what you gotta do to document your hobbies, right?

And finally, some happy yellow flowers on my front porch.

I hope you enjoyed peeking into my yard this afternoon.   I don't know about you, but flowers just make me so darn happy.  :o)   The way I see it, flowers are a visible manifestation of God's love and creativity and beauty.   HE created these things.   He thought up what every one of them should look like, smell like and where they should grow, and I do believe He delights in their beauty every bit as much as we do.  

If you scroll down to the very bottom of my blog, I'll be posting weekly pictures of my garden until it starts to snow!

Here's wishing you happy yellow flowers today!   Hugs!
Sue :o)

Give a Hoot!

Hello Everyone!   I just wanted to share some cards I made with my new Give a Hoot Cricut cartridge!   The images are on this cartridge are just too stinkin' cute!   I knew right away that I wanted to use my DCWV green stack with these images - especially with the card above.   Love that little bird background paper!

I used the same papers on this card and the sentiment is from SU.   So I'm having fun - right?   I'm cutting, gluing and assembling little critters - and then I got to thinking that these little critters needed some dimension.   So I broke out the chalks and my markers and my white gel pen and did this....

I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of doing that, but whatever ---- better late than never, right?   All I did was add decorative chalk around the edges of the images (I seal it with good old fashioned cheap hairspray), and then I added some accents with my white gel pen.   It adds something, don't ya think?   Oh, and on this card I used K&Co. background papers. 

Well, that's all I have to share today.   I have a nice stack of critters on my desk that need to be attached to cards, so as soon as I do that I'll have more to share.   I hope you're all having a great day!   God bless!

Sue :o)

Bloom!

Hey there!  I wanted to share this cute little project I made a few weeks ago.   I bought this wood shadow box/barn at the dollar store several years ago and it's been sitting in my craft closet waiting patiently all this time.  :o)   Just goes to show that sometimes hoarding is a good thing.  Before decorating I gave it a light sanding and then lightly washed it with white acrylic paint.  I wanted it to look whitewashed so I left some areas of wood showing through the paint.

Then I went to town with lots and lots of paper flowers.   Some were cut on the Cricut, some were cut on the Cuttlebug, some were punched and some were quilled.   It's amzing how many flowers you can make with paper, huh?

After filling all the little boxes with flowers, I added embellishments like quilled circles, buttons, and rhinestone dragonflies --- oh and dew drops too. (Can't get enough of those dewdrops).

I had a lot of fun making this bloom box and honestly it wasn't hard at all.   The quilling took the longest to do but I love doing it so it wasn't like work.

I hope you're all having a great spring/summer so far!   I'm excited because my son only has a week and a half left of school and then SUMMER VACATION!   I can't wait to sleep in and enjoy a little more relaxed routine.  Thankfully he decided against taking summer school this year so we don't have to be out the door by 7:15.   Yeesh!

I'm hoping to post some more projects this week.   I've been having some technical difficulties with my computer - or as my husband puts it "operator error" but it seems to be working now.   :o)   Have a happy Monday!

Hugs!
Sue :o)