Saturday, June 30, 2012

Project 365 - Week 26

WOW!  I'm 1/2 way through the year in my photography project!  I'm so proud that I've stuck it through.  I need to invest some time learning some more and progressing, but I'm loving taking pictures.

School ended this week, so some pictures are of the events, and some are of my flowers :)


Roses have started blooming.  These are a very deep red/pink.  They are the hardest color for me to photograph.  I'm honestly not sure if these are the Morden Roses or the Vancouver ones (I have two rose bushes).  But they are loaded with buds.  


Rainbow!  Finally caught this one one night.  The sun was finally setting about 10:30 pm and while it was raining,  I could see the entire bow in the sky.  Spectacular are God's wonders!


This shot will not do the "real-life being there" justice, but it was the same rainstorm from the front of the yard with the sunset.  The golden glow and shine off the wet street was amazing.  It was still raining even as I took this shot.  I wish I could capture THAT! :)

Last day of school.  PLEASE ignore my son's crazy outfit.  It was track and field day and his teams' colors were multi-colored, so he went to town.  You can't see his red socks too :)  This lovely lady was his teacher for two years.  She's made such an investment into him as a learner and leader.  She has championed him in such wonderful ways.  It will be hard not to have her next year, she was just one of those teachers that really "got" my kid :)  We're so grateful!



Awards Night! This son has grown so much as a learner the past two years.  He set goals for himself last year and this year and has surpassed them on so many levels and I'm so very proud of him.  School isn't his favourite thing, he'd much rather be playing sports, and yet he's so bright, and he's learned some great skills academically this year in the Academic Challenge program he was accepted to.  It was accelerated learning and really thrived in it.  

Asters, with a little marigolds mixed in.  Such a pretty mix!  And my burgundy iris' in the background are about done!


Siberian Iris.  What a beautiful flower.  One of my favourites for the spikey tall greenery and the soft blooms.  We've had some gorgeous days this week and I've loved watching my yard bloom!  

Thanks for sharing my week with me!  

4th Blog-A-Versary Candy Winner

.....annnnnnd the of my 4th BD Blog Candy winner is!

#19 who is....



 Jayne said...
Congratulations on 4 fantastic years. I could say that you're inspiring me, which would be true. But, in the spirit of the thing, colors and patterns are inspiring me. I love the vibrant colors of summer and it feels like some new patterns are coming out, begging to be incorporated in my work. Thanks for your generosity.


Congratulations Jayne!  Contact me by email (see my sidebar profile link) in the next 48 hours and I'll get this mailed out to you!

Thanks everyone for the great comments!  Always a pleasure to interact with you!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Patriotism for the 4th



Today's Flourishes Friday is going to focus on some patriotism!  Canada Day is July 1 and of course the 4th is...well, the 4th!

Whenever we are in the US for the 4th we are usually in the little town my husband grew up in.  There are maybe 200 people there.  Our kids love being there and in particular love lighting fireworks each day (little smoke bombs, fire crackers, snaps, curly snakes, etc.) and then they love the small town parade where they still drive in tractors and throw candy.  Aw, small town America!  So fun!   When we're in Canada for the 1st, it's a little different.  We're in a big city, and though we can go and see the big fireworks display we can't light them ourselves here.  We still have fun, it's just different fun.  :)  

So today, my card celebrates all that my children love about the 4th of July with Flourishes Patriotism on Parade set.  A parade with fireworks!


Looks fun doesn't it?  I inked the parade silhouette in the set with Memento Danube Blue and the new Memento Love Letter ink, doing the fireworks in the same colors.  Some double stamped to give the feeling of the firesworks fading.  Then I added the die cut star and Spellbinders heart die along with some buttons and twine.  The God Bless the USA sentiment is actually a lot more vivid in real life.  I swiped the striped embossed layer with my Craft White pad, to give it the stars and stripes feel.  Very clean and simple, but fun.  Just how my kids would like it.  5 x 5 in size if you were wondering.  

So join the rest of the girls playing today to pay patriotic tribute...

Monday, June 25, 2012

4 Year Blog-a-Versary!

Hello Gang!  4 years ago I started this little blog of mine :)  It's been a fun creative adventure that I've loved, and have so enjoyed sharing with you....now I want to share a little extra of the fun with you to say thank you!  I have some summer blog candy to share with you...


It includes:  Flourishes NEW Summer Blossoms Stamp Set
Couture Creations Compassionate Embossing Folder (I love this one!)
Prima 6 x 6 Songbird Designer paper (I did use two sheets, the rest is yours!)
Ranger Vintage Photo Distress Ink pad
Want 2 Scrap Nestabling
Assorted Ribbon:  crochet, corduroy, taffeta etc.  

RULES:  Leave one comment on this post telling me the answer to: "What's inspiring me this summer?" 

Include your email address.  It can be in type form ( xyz at some server dot com) 

Deadline NOON Saturday June 30th MST.  I'll post a winner that evening :)

Entries must be from North America.  


Thank you for your kindness, for coming by to see what I've been up to each week, and for sharing this journey with me!  I'm so blessed by you!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Summer Lemonade

How about something soft and summery, with the perfect touch of tart and sweetness for this summer day?  I made this card for submission to a magazine and it wasn't accepted but now I get to share it with you!

A little bit of pretty lemonade for two! :)  With Flourishes On the Porch set that I love so much, paired with this month's Flourishes Kit - Sunkissed.  I used the Pennant Dies from Spellbinders and the SU Button Sizzlit die to top them off as accents.  

Short and sweet for today, we're moving our office at work upstairs (yay!  After 8 years in the basement!)  But wow a lot of work ahead.  I'll need some lemonade when this is done!

Copics:  Y0000, Y11, Y13, Y15, Y26, BG11, BG70, BG0000, V20, V22

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Project 365 - Week 25

Summer!  How wonderful!  Hope you've had a great week and thanks for joining me for the photos in my 365 Project this week.  


June 17 - Father's Day!  A sweet moment between my beloved and our youngest.  


June 18 - Sky.  Wow we've had some beautiful days this week.  This is one of my favourite times of the year.  We have immense amounts of sunlight and the temperatures are warm but not crazy hot.  this was a little storm rolling in,  I was driving home and there was a gorgeous rainbow, but of course by the time I got home the rainbow had disappeared, but the sky was still great.  

June 19 - Ok...these next photos are a series that crack me up... I asked our youngest to do a little photo-shoot on the trampoline.  He was totally game.  His acrobatics just made us both giggle.  



(Spiderman pose)



Whew!  Tired!  :)

These next shots are from the weekend.  It was ball-hockey playoffs for both boys, and now the seasons have wrapped up.  Both of them played SO well this year.  I am so very proud of their abilities, work ethic and sportsmanship.  


Our older son's team, after the last game.  VERY sweaty.  Some were trying to be serious, some goofy.  


June 23 - Our youngest after his last game, a treat with grandma and grandpa at Tim Hortons, it's a Canadian Coffee and Donut Institution!  


The boys are blessed that G & G can come to some of their games.  Where was our daughter?  SLEEPING.  She's such a teenager :)  She just finished her 5 finals, and she worked really hard, so I let her sleep in as long as she wanted.  Summer is here for her!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

For Wee Olivia


Welcome back to a Friday Free for All at Flourishes with another peek at this month's New Releases!  I had the perfect set-up this month.  As I mentioned in last week's 365 Photos, some friends of ours just had a baby girl.  She was five weeks early, but outside of a little jaundice, perfectly healthy, and beautiful.  She arrived right on time for her own Baby Shower last weekend, and I knew exactly what I would make her, a Name Frame from our new Letters in Blossom Set.  Lots of pictures today!

I also knew what her little room was decorated as, so I knew how to color it all up too....here's a vinyl wall decal that they're putting up in her room....


Isn't that a gorgeous robin's egg blue?  

And here's the name frame I made for her (you can click on photos to make them larger if you like).


I inked the letters of her name onto watercolor paper and then watercolored them with our new Letraset Aqua Markers.  I washed a soft blue/green background and then added the pretty little bird die-cut (SU) and embossed it with the Fireflies Embossing Folder.  The frame was a nice simple one from Ikea, I love the beaded accent.  


Just that embossing detail alone on the bird takes it up a notch don't you think?

One more close-up of the letters.  



I added the tealy ribbon as a simple accent and wrote her birth details in Multi-liner.  

Now here's the card I made to match for her using our adorable Hello Baby set.  


Copic Colored and paired up with MME's Fiddlesticks paper.  I think one of the greatest things about this hobby is that you can give such special personalized gifts to someone.  Her mama, and the whole baby shower thought it was wonderful.  That always makes me feel good :)


And here I am at the baby shower with this beautiful little girl.  It was delightful to hold her!  None of my kids were ever this small!  


Be sure to check out the rest of the Design Team this Free for All Friday....and remember, TODAY is the last day you can purchase the June New Release Bundle at a Discount!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Ready for Takeoff

I'd like to be ready for take-off somewhere fun right now too!  :)  But instead I've made it in card form.   This week The Cat's Pajamas had a challenge to create something that could be taken by the wind, or blown on.  I thought GREAT!  I have some TCP stamps for that....I read a little too late that it also needs a TCP die for the challenge, which I don't have.  Oh well, this will be a graduation card for one of my girls that finished her photo-journalism degree.  I'm really proud of her, and excited for the pathways ahead for her.


Copic coloring, paper piecing (with MME - Howdy Doody paper), Spellbinders Edgeabilities, some twine holding the air banner and some pretty ribbon....that's all she wrote!  


I really love the idea of a flowery-gingham plane with a bunny pilot {giggle}!  

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Project 365 - Week 24

You know, in my head June is supposed to be a "slower" month.  Yeah, um,  not finding it that way this month!  Some of you are probably with me on this right?  We've been so busy with graduations, youth events, sports, and school functions.  I'm pooped!  But a great week to show you about :)



June 10 - 3 on 3 BB - Our older son joined a 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament with his 3 best friends.  So, this is NEAT, an acronym of all their names.  They have been friends since birth really, one friend moved here a few years later, and what great young guys they are.  The tournament was so fun for them, even if they didn't win :)  



June 11 - This is what it's like with boys.  They were trying to see how goofy they could be.  



June 12 - Passports - We had to renew the kids' passports before we go on our Missions Trip this summer, so we took a trip downtown on our day off.  This is my favourite building in the city, which is also downtown.  It's a Hotel right on the river valley edge, and is built like a castle.  We stayed there on our wedding night almost 19 years ago, and it's as regal inside as outside.  



June 13 - :(  A boo boo I caused on our van.  GRR.  When I was leaving work I didn't notice that a neighbour had parked in our church parking lot about 2 feet out of the spot behind me.  Yeah.  I hit/scraped his metal plate from the tailgate of his truck on my left fender.  No damage to him of course, but not so much for our van.  All my fault no matter what, but a total bummer.  

So, I also added this pic from the day.  I was weeding my flower beds later that evening, and the bees were loving the lupine along side of me,  (you can see it in the distance above), so I snapped this one of one of the bees, click on it if you want to see him closer...





June 14 - Graduation :)  This is not actually a picture I took (because I can't believe it but I forgot my camera that day!), but this is our Intern at his University Graduation Ceremony.  We're so proud of him, and so blessed to have had him work with us for 6 years, he's like another family member to us.  This fall he'll be starting Seminary, and we're thrilled to watch him continue to grow in his leadership and calling.  


June 15 - My irises just started blooming this week.  




June 16 - Baby Shower!  This little lady was 5 weeks early, and she is only 8 days old, she's SO tiny!   She arrived in time to celebrate her baby shower today!  She's the daughter of friends of ours that were former volunteers/interns with us in youth/college ministry.  We've performed and celebrated the ceremonies for a lot of weddings of former leaders, and even students already, but this is our FIRST BABY from our leaders :)  She's just gorgeous!  Later this week I'll show you the card and present I made for her.  I got to hold her today and OH it was just delicious!

Happy Saturday everyone!  

Thursday, June 14, 2012

An Invitation to Happily Ever After :)


A doubly-lovely post for you today!  We're wrapping up our June Releases with a great set for those lovely occasions of love, marriage, showers....all kinds of events you might want to celebrate....and I'll also show you a new Invite PDF Download now available from Flourishes for $2.  It's blank for you to fill in and embellish for all the special times you want to include others in....baby shower, book club invite, birthday party, wedding shower....anything your heart desires!

First, Happily Ever After...

I had a really fun time doing something very different with the Blossoms Collection sets put together with Happily Ever After.  Remember the movie "The Princess Bride"?  Remember the chaplain preaching "wuv...twue wuv"....


The letters are from the Letters in Blossom set....and then I added the "True Love" sentiment from the Happily Ever After on the main image, coloring up the letters in black and adding color with Copics.  Then on the background layer, I took a cue from Ally Cope and stamped the Summer Blossoms images on white Flourishes Cardstock and then colored all the background in black.  I love how it turned out.  


This is how it looked before assembling.  As you can see I left a little bit in the center uncolored because I knew the main image would cover it.  Isn't that dramatic looking?  It does take time, but boy is it worth it!


I used this month's SFYTT from Jen Del Muro.  And embossed the Spellbinder's hearts as well as the black horizontal flag too - with Art Nouveau - Fireflies folder.  

Now for the PDF Invitation...


How about a little Garden Party at my place? :)  

I've combined this lovely invitation with the Sunflower set I love so much.  I've stamped and colored the image seperately (with Prismacolors) and then popped it up on the design combining it with the


I've edged the invitation out with Classic Scallop Edgeabilities.  

So, now you've seen all the goodies available this month at Flourishes!  I know you want it all!  

Here's a link to all the sets where you can see them in all their beauty .... Remember, the New Release Bundle is only available at a discount for one week!

And you can still enter in the Noon Time Challenges as well as the 10 Minute Challenge to win these gorgeous sets.  Deadline is 5 pm Friday!  Join us for the announcement of the Winner's Circle Saturday at Noon on the Flourishes Blog!

Want to win this set? All you need to do is leave some love in the form of a comment on the blogs below! Why? You need to try to figure out…..


One of these awesome ladies on our link list below will be picking a name from the comments on her blog post today. We don’t know which one it is… so the more blogs you leave comments on, the more chances you have to win! With that bit of eye candy, you’ll surely want to see the design team’s cards and creations in full color when you take a trip over to their blogs! 

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Letters in Blossom Sets


Welcome to Day 2 of the beautiful Blossom Collection Spring Stamps!  I am so excited about this concept and the additions to the family that are coming.  Including today's awesome letter set.  I {{{heart}}}}this set!  I've been asking for a letter set for a while, and you'll love Marcella's beautiful artistry on it too.  

I went a little crazy and created personalized card sets for all the ladies in my Bible Study.  They are wonderful women and we've walked through a lot together.  So I made a set of 4 cards for each of them.  

There's a lot of pictures today so scroll on!  Any of them can be clicked on to enlarge the picture.  

As I made them I tried to think of each ladies' personality and paired colors together for that.  I grabbed lots of designer paper from my stash and went from there for my coloring...

Each set looks like this above, I started with the cards on the right, scoring all those backgrounds and individually coloring their initials, after 8 sets of cards....I knew I needed a more simple design for the other pair in each set, so I used a single inked monogram blending with my Letraset AquaMarker to soften the color, adding the flower spray from yesterdays' Summer Blossoms set, and the used an embossing folder to match the designer paper.  Each set also has its own tag and then stamped envelopes.  



Here's a closeup of the tag....


I used my Scor Buddy for the diagonal scoring and also this ribbon from the store (Woven Iridescent), probably my all time favourite ribbon we've ever carried....so much sheen, and ties beautifully!  


Of course I love the green :)  


Embossing Folder....Compassionate by Art Nouveau (sold out right now).  






I LOVE the embossing folder on the left in the above cards! Courtship by Art Nouveau.


Isn't it lovely?  



I thought about creating a box for each set of cards....but wow, when I realized how long these sets took me (despite using simple designs), I decided to go a different route.  When I packaged the cards I cut a piece of cardstock to match just slightly larger then the cards, stamped it up with the Summer Blossoms stamp and then tied them into bundles with the tag in a bow.  

Want to win this set? All you need to do is leave some love in the form of a comment on the blogs below! Why? You need to try to figure out…..
        
One of the ladies on our link list below will be picking a name from the comments on her blog post today. We don’t know which one it is… so the more blogs you leave comments on, the more chances you have to win! With that bit of eye candy, you’ll surely want to see the design team’s cards and creations in full color when you take a trip over to their blogs! 


DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD WIN OUR ENTIRE JUNE RELEASE? Have you checked out our 10 Minute Creations Challenge? Just click HERE to find out how to play! You can also play in our Noon Time Challenges, which kick off today and continue noon tomorrow! Our noon time challenges are fast-paced chances to win our full June release! All challenges will close this Friday at 5 PM ESTand winners will be announced Saturday in our Winner’s Circle blog post! So get those fingers inky and good luck!

Don’t forget our New Release Bundle! If you buy all three sets in a bundle, you save 10% off the price. But, this offer only lasts through next Friday, June 22! So… you have to act fast! Just click HERE to see! Come back to the Flourishes Blog at noon today for more Flourishes FUN!