I'm Back!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here--water in the basement, a trip to Vegas, and then lots of projects to do when I got home.  I've been meaning to post something new here on my blog all week, and I'm finally getting to it now.  It's going to be quick, though, because we have one of the grandkids for the evening and we promised her we'd go bowling.  Life in the fast lane!

While we were in Las Vegas, we took some time to go sight seeing in the Mojave Desert.  These photos are from the Valley of Fire State Park, a truly spectacular place.

And here's a very simple card that I made the other day.  Nothing fancy because sometimes I need a notecard that I can send to a man.  Apparently, they don't appreciate glitter and ribbons as much as we girls do! The stamp is from Class Act, and I used a technique from the new Technique Junkies Emboss or Die CD called Scored Embossing.

 Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter

It's Coming!!!!

Spring is coming!!!  Look what I found today....

One Last Tulip

All of the pretty spring tulips are gone now, and here's the last of the cards I made using the Spring Wishes set.

For my background I taped together strips of scrap paper, embossed the whole piece in my Cuttlebug, then lightly sanded the surface to highlight the embossing. The vertical strip uses a Technique Junkies technique called Drywall Stitching. The Pierced Spotlight around the tulips is also a technique from Technique Junkies. I did my coloring on this one with Prismacolor pencils.

The tulips may be gone now, but I'll leave you with a picture of the beautiful foxgloves that are blooming in my garden right now.

Over Already

I'm always amazed by how quickly time flies when you are on vacation. It seems like we just got here, and our vacation is over already. Here are a few pictures of what we did the last few days:

The first photo is of the African elephants at the San Diego Zoo--Mom, her 2-year old female, and her baby male who was just 3 days old. He weighed 225 lb at birth, but doesn't he look so tiny compared to his mom and sister?

Next we have a lion sunning himself...

This is the view from the patio at the Orfila Winery in Escondido...

And these are some of the orchids inside the Botanical Building at Balboa Park in San Diego...

Be back soon!

Greetings from California

I'm on vacation this week in San Diego, and I fully intended to show you some new cards while I'm away--except that I forgot to load the pics onto this laptop. I suppose it could have been worse...that seems to be the only thing I forgot to pack!

Since I don't have any cards to show, I thought I'd share a few vacations photos instead. The first was is the view from the park in La Jolla. The second photo is the famous Hotel Del in Coronado, and the last was taken at Seaport Village in San Diego.

Enjoy!

Let the Raking Begin

Take a look at this pic of my front yard. Can you actually see any of the yard? Now look at those trees...still plenty of leaves to fall. Yikes! As pretty as they are, I have to admit that the raking thing can get a bit old. Oh well, guess what we'll be doing for the next couple of weeks, LOL!

This was the last good weekend around here for leaf peeping, so we took advantage by going for a long walk on the Greenway on Saturday. Here are a couple of pics I took along the way. The first on is a Wood Duck we spotted in Beaver Pond. He kept swimming away from me, so this was the best I could do. Part of the trail goes through a farm, and the second pic is the view looking over a field of cabbages.

And last, but not least--or maybe it is, I'll let you be the judge--Here's a card I made this weekend. The leaf stamps are from Memory Box. The leave is a solid stamp, which I colored directly with watercolor crayons and then spritzed with water. I stamped onto watercolor paper that I had also spritzed lightly with water. After everything was good and dry, I stamped the veins and drew in the leaf outlines.

Fall Folliage

I went out for a walk the other day hoping to get some pictures that I can use as reference shots for a painting. For those of you who are familiar with this area, I was out on the Greenway heading North from Copper Hill Road in East Granby, CT. The foliage is right at peak here, and I was out late in the afternoon, so the lighting was amazing. I took TONS of pictures, and thought you might enjoy seeing a few of them.

Lots to Talk About Today

I'll start off with what I think is just the coolest thing...I got my first blog award thanks to Shirley at Card Art, Etc. "My first award", LOL, looks like my head has swelled and I'm already planning to receive more awards! Not really...I'm just excited to have received the I Love Your Blog award. I "know" Shirley from the Technique Junkies group, and she creates some of the most amazing artwork. Be sure to check out her blog!

Recipients of this award are asked to post the award, link it back to the person who sent it to them, and then pass it on to 7 more recipients. Not an easy task for me. Not because there aren't tons of deserving recipients, but because I never seem to have the time to find them all. And, as Shirley has already said, if you take the time to blog so that you can share your creations with the rest of us, you automatically deserve an award! But, I need to pick 7, so here they are: Donna at Serenity in Stamping, Barb at Stampelicious, Natasha at Palm Trees and Pogosticks, Rose Ann at Paper Delightz, Jacquie at Simple Reflections about Quilting, Cats and Kids, Linda at Linda Quilts Too, and Donna at Quilting Grandma. Thanks for sharing your creations with the rest of us

And...I have a card to share too! The stamps I used are from the DoodleFactory Witch's Brew set available at Starving Artistamps. My paper is mostly from my scrap pile (where to all those scraps come from?), except for the background, which is Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine. I used Brilliance Graphite Black ink and colored my spider with Copic markers. The sentiment is stamped multiple times using a Stamp-a-ma-jig to keep everything lined up. If you don't have one of those babies, run to your nearest stamp store and get one. Seriously

And finally, to close out this post, which I think may be my longest ever, I just wanted to share some photos I took while walking on the trail in back of my house yesterday. (Hmmm...longest sentence ever too?) We are just starting to see some color in the trees and the air is dry and crisp. My favorite time of year!