Back to Real Life

I am back home in Maryland and the weather is PERFECT! I love the Fall! I do not think I could live in Florida where it is 90+ degrees with 90%+ humidity in the middle of October.

I have unpacked the clothes - had to do them first to get the nasty suitcases out of sight so the cat stopped checking them out. I need to leave the house to go to work tomorrow, and I cannot have her freaking, ya know?

Today I unpacked the stamps and supplies I had taken with me. As I did, I rediscovered the card fronts I made in FL and realized I had a few I have not shared yet.

I found this stamp in a gift shop. My Dad and I were looking for trinkets to bring back, and there was a whole rack of stamps "Made in Florida", so I grabbed this one and one other that has not seen ink yet.

I never had the SU flamingo stamps, so this one just called to me. If you look closely, he looks a bit under the weather, so he would be perfect for a Get Well card. For this one, I just paired him with some Basic Grey papers I had out.

I brought my Supersize Snowflake stamps with me and mounted them. This stamp is the same size as our background stamps, and has both a solid and an outline snowflake in the set, in addition to a sentiment that I cut off and mounted on the end.

As with the Pick A Petal set, I like these large images to hang off the edge of the card. It lets me use the image without overwhelming the card, and leaves room for a sentiment or for some bling.

I got the idea for using the Joy sentiment with the snowflake from a post on Julie Ebersole's blog where she showed the cover of the latest Paper Crafts Holiday Cards issue.

Recipe (all products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Supersize Snowflake, Love & Joy, Short & Sweet; Ink - Versamark, Old Olive; Paper - Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Retired DS paper; Other - Silver EP, White gg ribbon colored with Old Olive marker, silver brad from retired Vintage Brads, Dimensional.

One of the things I labor at is serious cards. I like the whimsical and full-of-attitude ones much better! I know several sections of my Craft Show offerings are thin, and Baby cards is one of those areas. I bought the Everything Baby set because I have been looking for an "Oh, Baby" sentiment for a while now. I know it does not meet the 50% rule, but hey, I am my own best customer! I packed it for Florida so I would use it!

I paired the sentiment with the Lockhart baby carriage, which I inked in Basic Gray and stamped off once to soften it a bit. I did not color the carriage, just the blanket. I colored the ribbon by rubbing it on the Soft Sky ink pad. It came out a little dark, but it gives some contrast that way. I made two more of this design...one in pink and one in apricot.

Recipe (all products except the carriage are by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Everything Baby, Carriage (Lockhart); Ink - Basic Gray, Soft Sky; Paper - Soft Sky, Whisper White, Soft Sky DS paper; Other - White gg ribbon, Ticket Corner punch.

One other area of my offerings where I could use some more designs are Wedding cards. People seem to look for more traditional, serious, classic-type cards, so I thought I'd work on that. I actually have a Happy Anniversary card similar to this design and someone asked if I had any that said 'wedding' instead. Well, now I do!

I had forgotten what the Anniversary card looked like, so I had to wing this one. I knew I wanted to use the flourish from Baroque Motifs, and I looked and looked for a Stampin' Up! wedding sentiment but had none with me, so I broke open my Impression Obsession clear stamp sentiments I had packed. I like how it came out!

Recipe (All products by Stampin' Up! except the sentiment): Stamps, Baroque Motifs, sentiment (Impression Obsession); Ink - Sahara Sand; Paper - Very Vanilla textured card stock, Sahara Sand, Very Vanills; Other - Vanilla Tafetta ribbon, Ticket Corner punch.

This is the one card I managed to do today amid all the unpacking. I saw the directions for making this snowflake on SCS and I just had to try it! It uses both the small and large Tag punches - so simple! The original card and a link to the instructions can be found here.

I can see the possibilities with this technique. I used Shimmer Paper for the tag punch-outs, but it is difficult to see in the photo. I plan to try other variations of this design, like using patterned vellum or adding glitter so it is more showy.

Recipe (all products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Short & Sweet; Ink - Sage Shadow; Paper - Sage SHadow, Soft Sky, Wintergreen DS paper, Shimmer White, Vellum; Other - Lg & Sm Tag punches, Snowflake punch, Ice Rhinestone brads, Soft Sky double-stitched ribbon, Dimensionals.

Enough creating for today. I have to go finish the laundery so I can go to work in the morning. ;-)

Leaving Paradise

I am now at the end of this beautiful vacation. I love coming to Sanibel Island because there is absolutely nothing to do unless you golf or shop - neither of which I do; or like to eat out, which I do not. I have biked in prior years since the island has wonderful bike paths; I even brought my own bike one year, but not this year...it sounded like work. So this year I was a very successful total slug. As it should be. ;-)

I am ready to leave this lovely place, and ready to go home, but I am NOT ready to go back to work. Nuh-uh! Unfortunately there is that pesky thing called a 'mortgage' and, oh, yeah, that last order I placed with Stampin' Up! so I could be maybe prepared for my Holiday Stamp Camp in early November. Details!

I do miss the cat, though large parts of her in the form of hair are attached to everything I have here. ;-)

So it will be life as usual when I get home Saturday afternoon, barring the cat that will be attached to me at the hip. I'll give her some luvin' and put away the nasty suitcases, and head back to work on Monday. I'll get back to my normal stamping routine as I start to prepare for my two Holiday Shows and maybe a do few more Farmers Markets. Looking forward to being home.

Culinary Adventures in Paradise

My Dad buys green bananas. Not the yellow ones tinted with a little green - just green. He puts them in the drawer of the fridge and a few days later they are ugly, but just the right ripeness for him.

While shopping for food for week #2, he picked up some green bananas, put them in the drawer of the fridge, and 2 days later they were still green and rock hard. So he put them in a brown bag on the counter. Two days later, still green and rock hard. Then he put them on the patio table to see if the hot & humid would prod them along. Nope.

We started to think they were plantains, not bananas. Does Del Monte do plantains?

So this morning I'd had enough of these mis-behaving bananas and decided to treat them like plantains - I fried 'em! I spent a few minutes breaking into one of them...peeling the little bugger was NOT fun. I sliced it up and fried it in a little oil and butter (that's all the lubricants we have left). Then I used the flat side of a large knife (the only 'flat' thing in the whole kitchen) to smash them and put them back in the oil. They came out okay - not a lot of flavor besides 'fried', but okay. At least we did not have to throw them out. I hate doing that...

And last night we cut into the mini-pineapple we got. It is really just a mini-pineapple, not a picked-too-soon regular-sized one. It was sweet and yummy!

Today we need to go to the grocery store again. Normally we buy just enough food to make it through the week, and Thursday night is traditionally 'left overs' night for dinner. After dinner we purge the fridge because we head to the airport at O'Dark Thirty Friday morning.

But, we had all our leftovers last night! What are we to do!? We figured we could make it through breakfasts and lunches with the meager bread and cheese we have left, but dinner? Oh, darn, we'll have to go OUT - TWICE! Life is really tough, dontcha think? ;-)

I am also winding down on my desire to stamp. I think I forgot enough stuff this time (like white EP) that I got stopped in my tracks one too many times, and I've started to pack things up. No, really! Can you imagine ME giving up on STAMPing? Sigh - I think I've just had enough of nothingness and I am ready to come home.

After we go out for dinner, of course!

More Stash Diving

Another day at the beach, and it was heavenly. I actually sat by the hot tub instead of by the pool to be as far away from the screaming kids and their screaming parents as was humanly possible. The sun is out and it is hot, but there is also a pretty stiff wind blowing which makes it tolerable. I got in about an hour of sun so I did not feel like I wasted a perfectly good day by staying inside ALL day. Then I started to stamp.

Did you ever try to use up stuff, only to find out it was really difficult to make a dent anywhere? Or at least a visible dent? I tell ya, if I never buy anything else (yeah, right!), I'll never use up what I already have. But I will certainly keep trying! :-)


This card and the next one came about when I simply had to have the two sentiments from Gina K. I immediately thought to use them with my Stampin' Up! Best of Cluck set (that I could not bring myself to sell when it retired) and so they all went into my boxes o'stuff to take with me for this trip.

Instead of breaking into a virgin piece of paper, I used scraps from the already-started-cutting-into pack of Basic Grey Blush. It took me a while, but I got it laid out to my satisfaction.


The biggest challenge for me today was stamping the chicken part of the image without the ink schmearing! Man, oh, man! First I used a black marker, then the Basic Gray marker, both on Very Vanilla - even let it dry for a while - and it still schmeared! Then I thought I'd win the battle and used a Versamarker, intending to emboss the darn thing. Nope - I could not get a clean image to save my soul. Probably Operator Error.

Last resort - I switched to Naturals Ivory card stock. No schmear since the ink soaked right in. Fine with me! ;-)

I just love these chickens and am glad I found some more sentiments to use with them!

Recipe: Stamps - Best of Cluck (SU) and sentiments by Gina K Designs; Paper - Taken with Teal and Naturals Ivory (SU), Basic Grey Blush paper pad; Ink - Basic Gray (SU), Taken With Teal, Cameo Coral, Sahara Sand and More Mustard markers (SU); Accessories - misc. gingham ribbon.

The last time I was in my LSS back in Maryland I picked up yet another Lockhart veggie stamp because I finally figured out what to do with them! I just needed the right sentiment, and "Salad Dressing", also by Lockhart, was perfect! I actually decided the Lavender one looked better without the sentiment (who puts lavender in salad, anyway?)

Most of the Lockhart samples are very simple, with just one or two layers of color behind the image, so I decided to go with what works.

For both of these I used a scrap of paper from the SU Porcelain Prints paper. I matted both the images with Wild Wasabi, adding either Lavender or Lilac (I forget!) to the Lavender one, and Blue Bayou to the Leek. Both of them got the double-stitched Wild Wasabi ribbon. Except for moving the sentiment up a bit, I like how they turned out!



In this last shot, the card front is simply for perspective. While shopping for groceries for week #2, I bumped into this tiny pineapple. Isn't it the cutest thing? I had to have it! Once we finish up the normal-sized pineapple, we'll break into this one.

My next challenge is to play with some of my Rosie's Roadshow stuff I've collected and try to make something with it. ;-)

Necessity, the Mother of Invention

One of the first things I do when I hit the island is to get my bones to the liquor store. It's not that I drink much, but I do consume more here than in the whole year at home. I just love walking the beach during the heat of the day, then sitting around in the evening sipping an icy Margarita.

So I went to make a blender of the stuff the other evening, and I found I had forgotten to get Triple Sec! Lotsa Tequila, but no Triple Sec. Oh, well, I did without and lived through it. Barely.

Then tonight I had a brainstorm - use Pomegranate juice! And I did! I used the same amount as I would have put in of Triple Sec, and they are yummy! Success!

While I have pomegranate on my mind, I wanted to share this bookmark I made. I had talked myself out of buying any of the new SU wrapping paper and coordinating satin ribbon since I do not celebrate Christmas, and I knew I'd have a TON of the stuff left over. Then I was enabled by a thread on SCS, and I bought ALL of the wrapping paper and ribbon. Sigh. I am weak.

I was playing with the ribbon the other day ... actually I was fondling it - it is GORgeous - and I decided to make a bookmark out of it. I had seen one in a previous SU catalog with a set I broke down and finally bought, just before it retired, but I never got around to making a bookmark. This ribbon just screams bookmark. It is heavy and soft and I just love it, can you tell? :-)

I stamped four images from the True Friend set in Purely Pomegranate ink on Very Vanilla card stock, then cut them out, then put a brad in the center of each.

I ran snail adhesive on the back side of one of the cut-outs and stuck on one ribbon end. I stuck on two Dimensionals, then lined up a second cut-out image to cover up the ribbon end.

I repeated this on the other end of the ribbon. Done!

I think this will be a perfect Holiday Stamp Camp project.

Now back to that blender full of Margaritas...they are beginning to melt!

Another day in Paradise

I am not sure how I got so lucky, but the weather in FL has been amazing! No sign of the dreaded rain clouds ... just beeeautiful!

So I got up this morning and walked the beach. As soon as I hit the sand, I turn left and head towards the Sanibel Lighthouse at the end of the Gulf side of the island. Round trip it is about 3 miles. The first two days I only walked a little, being as I have been so recently a total slug, and was not sure if I'd collapse in the surf or not. So far, so good, so this morning I just kept going and found myself AT the lighthouse. My, oh my. That meant I had to now walk back. I made it okay, but called it a day in the fresh air category.

Along the way I saw a ton of birds - mosly having breakfast. The surf had pelicans galore in addition to the shore birds that were sunning in between snacks. And, as an added bonus, on the way back I saw some dolphins between the sand bars. Too cool! (the tide was coming in, so they were fine...not trapped or anything)

After some breakfast and chatting with family for a while, I settled down to stamp. I am in "Limited Supply" mode again - stuck with whatever I could pack. I mostly packed all the stuff I had to have but have never used. Trapped, with nothing else to do, and no easy access to other stuff (the local stamp store has given up most of its stamp space to scrapbooking supplies), so I must use what I brought with me!

First up is a card I made for someone who ordered a bunch of sentiment-free cards. I have been wanting to try the shadow technique, and I actually had this card in mind before I left town.

First I stamped the image in Sahara Sand (the shadow) followed by a second stamping in Basic Gray. I thought the pure Basic Gray was too dark, so I stamped it off to get a lighter color. I like how it came out!

Recipe (all supplies by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - Baroque Motifs; Ink - Sahara Sand, Basic Gray; Paper - Very Vanilla and Basic Gray cardstock, Charbon DS paper; Accessories - Vanilla Taffta ribbon, SAMJ.

This card was totally inspired by one of the ribbons in the District Ribbon Originals set (SU). It is Sage Shadow and Blue Bayou, and it is gorgeous. I think one of the original reasons I became addicted to SU 5 years ago was they had a Sage-color card stock!

Anyway, I think my ah-ha moments with this card were (1) I had no Blue Bayou marker, so I used Not Quite Navy and it worked GREAT! and (2) the background was a little plain, so I Versamarked one of the other images as a background.

Recipe (all products by Stampin' Up!): Stamps - True Friend; Ink - Versamark, Not Quite Navy and Sage Shadow markers; Paper - Blue Bayou, Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla.

Then I broke into my stack o' Basic Grey paper pads. I have 4 of them, and I got them because they were there and they called to me - you know how that goes, right?

This card started out to be for today's SCS Sketch Challenge, but since I liked the bird so much, I did not want to cover it up, so I moved the tab/overlay down a bit. I am pretty sure this was enough of a change to disqualify me from the challenge, but I like how it came out! I was still inspired by the challenge, so all is well. ;-)

Recipe: Stamps - Savvy Stamps; Paper - Naturals Ivory and Basic Black (SU), Basic Grey Blush paper pad; Ink - SU's Basic Gray; Other - SU's Vintage Brads (copper - retired.)

My last card for today is based on Beate John's tutorial for a file folder card. I changed the size a little bit, and I like how it came out.

This one also uses some of my Basic Grey stash, so these last two cards technically qualify for my Stash Dive self-challenge. ;-)

Recipe: Stamps - My Sentiments Exactly; Paper - Naturals Ivory (SU), Basic Grey Stella Ruby paper pad; Ink - Basic Gray (SU); Accessories - SU's corner rounder punch and Round Tab punch.

That's all for today. That walk on the beach did me in, and I am ready for a nap. Unfortunately it is dinner time, and we are going to Cheeburger, Cheeburger to make up for how well we have been eating the rest of this week. All the calories and cholestorol you could want in one sitting! Gotta do it, though...it's TRADITION! Yep, the whole deal - a Cheeseburger with all the toppings (I get bacon and grilled onions, too), onion rings AND fries, and a malt. YUMMO!

I am sure once we get back from dinner, it will be nap time!

Toto, we're not in Kansas any more ...

At 12:00 noon today, I crossed over the causeway from Ft. Myers to my timeshare on Sanibel Island, unpacked the car - food first, then stamps, followed by clothes - and by 12:30 I was on the beach looking at the Gulf of Mexico (see photo.) Man, can life get any better?!?!

I expected it to rain all week, or at least be overcast, but imagine my surprise when I woke up to this! And there is a pretty stiff breeze, too. Gotta love it!

So far I have sunned and soaked at the pool with my Brother & Dad to do a little catching up, I walked the beach a few times, and this evening I am going over to their unit to have dinner. After that I think I'll call it a day. Tomorrow I start in with the heavy decisions - beach or pool. Actually, I usually walk the beach in the mornings for a few hours, then decide between pool or stamping, usually splitting my time between both. Life's tough, I know. I hope to crank out some projects for my Holiday Stamp Camp I am having two weeks after I get home. LOTS of time!

Let's pray for no big wind (think Hurricane)...rain I can handle. ;-)