Trip to Chicago

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to share some photos of my trip to Chicago last Friday.   My Sister in Law and my son and I took the train into the city and headed right for the Art Institute.   I just love those big lions out front!   Inside, we made a beeline for the Impressionists and spent quite awhile in those galleries.

Being the avid gardener, I always swoon over the Monets - especially the big ones like this iris painting.   I could literally sit and stare at these things all day which - probably makes me a little weird.   :o)

I had to get a picture of his signature too.   Don't ask me why.   Just seemed like a good idea at the time.

My second favorites are the Renoirs.   I just love the beautiful colors and all the little details in his paintings.

And of course I had to pay Vince a visit - since I was there.   A few years back my Aunt Jo and I went to the museum solely to see this painting and after searching for it for about an hour we discovered it was on loan to another museum.   He was there this time though!

This is also another favorite of mine by Berthe Morisot.  

This is my lunch - not art.  LOL.   BLT salad and a roll that we ended up feeding to the pigeons in the courtyard.   I wish I could post all the pictures I took but I don't think they give me that much space per blog - plus I'd be here all night downloading pictures.    We spent about 3 and a half hours in the museum and then headed across the street to Millenium Park which is TOTALLY AWESOME.   I finally got to see the big bean in person.

My reflection is on that bean somewhere LOL.   After that it was time to head back to the train and home to Indiana.   I love visiting the city and all the spectacular sights but .... I still love home best.

Well, I think I'm going to turn in early tonight as we had a rather late one last night.   My son and I went to the book store yesterday evening and when we pulled onto our street we found a little baby racoon that was injured.   A friend of mine has rescued them before, so I called her and she was nice enough to come over and get it.   But alas - the poor little dear didn't make it.   I've been wondering why God put that little critter in my path if it was just going to die - but then at church this morning I think He answered me when the word "compassion" just popped into my head for no reason.   I do believe that everything happens for a reason - even if it's just to teach a simple little lesson - so that's what I'm going to take from this experience.  

Boy - I'm really running at the keyboard tonight.  LOL.   Seriouly though - my Advil PM is kicking in so I'm signing off for the night.   I hope you all had a great weekend!
Hugs!
Sue :o)

More Collage Cards

Hello Blog Friends!

I hope this post finds you all well and enjoying your summer.   I've been running like crazy with Vacation Bible School this week.   It's a TON of work but it's so worth it.   So far this week we've made little rainbow fish and bookmarks.  Tonight we're making faux aquariums of out blue plastic plates and foamies (gotta love foamies), tomorrow we're making jellyfish (I'll post pics of these later this week), and Friday we're making fleece blankets that are going to be sent to Africa through Samaritan's Purse.   I'm really excited about that one because all our little kidlets are going to make something with their hands and send it to another child who has next to nothing in this world.   The kidlets are excited about it too and keep asking every day if we're going to make blankets yet.  LOL.

So I thought I'd share some more of my collage cards today as I haven't been in the craft room much this week - well - except to cut foam bookmarks.   The one above was made using a ton of scraps in my handy dandy little scrap bin.  The circles were all cut on my Cricut, and the texty flowers were made with the Cuttlebug.   Other materials include stickers, chipboard, buttons, and sticky rhinestones.

Here's another one!   The little turtles and butterflies are from a sticker sheet I bought at the Dollar Store (gotta love the Dollar Store too).   Again I cut the circles on my Cricut, and added paper flowers, brads, clear dew drops, and some dry embossing with the Cuttlebug.   As soon as this week is over I plan on making a bunch more of these cards, both for my Etsy store and some to go in a gallery that my friend has just opened.   The green card above is still in my shop but this little bug one and the blue one I showed you last week have already sold.

Well, I'm off to finish prepping crafts for tomorrow night.   Thank you all for your sweet comments!  I'll talk to you soon!
Sue :o)

Collage Cards

Hello Crafty Friends!   
I know I've been a bit MIA lately but seriously - I've been busy!   We went camping, had a birthday party for my DH, had a 4th of July party (same day as DH party), and now I'm in the midst of preparing for VBS the week after next.   I betcha can't guess what I'm in charge of this year.   CRAFTS!   Ha!  You won't hear me crying about that --- well --- until the last day of VBS when I have to clean up the craft room at church after a week of little ones wreaking crafting havoc!   It's all good though.   VBS rules!

So I've been feeling a little stuck lately.   You know the rut of doing the same thing all the time until your mojo just leaves without saying a word?   That was me.   So as is often the case when I've got crafter's block, I went searching for some inspiration on blogs.   I found a really cool idea here on this blog - and boy - I spent nearly an hour looking over Christine's embellished paper doilies.   That was the jump start I needed - an idea - so I went to work and came up with this.....

Now I didn't do it exactly like Christine did, but I did use the idea of embellishing circles and using lots of layers and embellishments, and well --- I like it.   This is only one of six cards I fired off in one week.   I'll share more later - otherwise you'll be here all day!

I used a variety of materials on this card.   The circles were cut with my Cricut.   I also used some Nestabilities dies, punches, sticky backed pearls, die cuts from K&Co., dew drops, ribbon and oh yeah - the polka dots embossing folder for the Cuttlebug.   This is a lot different than what I usually do and trying something new really helped me get my mojo back.   If you get a chance go check out her blog here and be prepared to be amazed!

I hope you all have a wonderful, sunny, blessed weekend!
Hugs!
Sue :o)

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)