Country Roads Stamping

It's Official!

Well, this is it - today is the day the new 2013-2014 Stampin Up Catalog goes live.  woohoo.  You can begin ordering out of the catalog today - You can purchase retiring stamp sets for 3 more days - then that's it.  So - here we go with New stuff!!!

I've used some of the new wasi tape here (candles) - love this candle look for a birthday card - and the flames - are the wings from the bird punch.  The greeting is a new one too - I used the scallop edgelit for the bottom also - and lookie - lookie - Strawberry Slush AGAIN!!!   

One more bit of information - begining today - three of Stampin Up's most popular greeting stamps are on sale!

Sassy Salutations - Wood - $17.96 sale price- Item # 132070

Sassy Salutations Clear Mount - $13.46 sale price -Item # 126707

Sweet Essentials - wood - $14.96 sale price-  # 132085

Sweet Essentials - clear -  $11.21 sale price-  #126457    

Petite Pairs - wood - $21.71 sale price - #128706

Petite Pairs - clear - $15.71 sale price- #122497

This sale goes until June 30!  

Have a great week-end.          

Bear Alert!

Oh my - big news here on the bee front!  One of our beekeepers that lives nearby had a bear come into his bee yard and do some damage.  So yep, the Hamricks are now on bear alert!  Yikes!  Steve went to check on his hives and be sure those that are not right here at our home - were okay.  Put up some Bear Guards to hopefully keep them away from his hives.  I thought we only had to worry about this when he took hives to the mountains.

So in honor of that new subject matter - here's today's share, using the two tags die which is only around for a couple more days.

Doesn't this bee look a bit concerned?  This would make such a cute favor holder - saw this that Heather Summers had made for a Valentine Day treat holder and knew I had to make one for husband.  The body of the bee is, in fact, two, two tags die cut and taped together.  Then a  1x3 inch strip at the front and back to make it a "closed" box.  The face uses the wide oval punch and the 1 3/4" circle punch.  Bird Punch for the eyes and your choice of circle for nose. 

I used some of our ribbon from the Spring Catalog for wings - thought they would stand up better.  Hopefully these bees won't have to be concerned and that was just a random bear roaming thru the neighborhood!  Have a great day and keep your eyes wide open - you never know what you might see. 

So many things to remember!!!

So first off today - one of my team members sent me a picture of cards that she had made for a bridal shower and I wanted to wait to share that on here until after the shower - Well, I just should have gone ahead and shared it then because then I kept forgetting it - until today - and then I could not find where I had saved it!  Yikes.  Finally all my ducks got in a row and I found it so here it is!

The Dress Up Framelits works for so much - funny that I thought it was something "goofy" when I first purchased it.  There are lots of things to be done with this and you can make so many different designs with this one framelit set.  So very nice Terri!

Then let me share with you the card I made for my grandson that will turn 3.  He is a big Super Hero fan.  Especially Captain America (I've had to work on learning these names because with girls I never needed the Super Hero names except for She-ra and Wonder woman!)So I went searching for some ideas - I found this one and I have no clue where it is from - I just jotted down the list of colors so I would have them in the right order - not the name of whoever's card it was.

He will be excited to see Captain America's shield - with His Z for his name right in the middle!.  Plus, this is a smaller size card, easy to fit in his little hands. 

That's all for the day today!  See you tomorrow!

Easy Event

Easy Event is one of the retiring stamp sets - figured I'd better get one last card out of it this week before it goes.  Trying to make that one last card before everything is gone. 

This background technique is one that is featured in the new 2013-2014 catalog - do you have yours yet?  Contact me to get yours - the new catalog goes online May 31.  Thought this went well with the little duck and his umbrella.  Hope your holiday was awesome - ours was great - despite cool temperatures.  We still got to spend some time with friends and gather some pictures for this week-end's Saturday with Steve.  Off for a busy day with classes and appointments all day!  See you tomorrow. 

 

Saturday with Steve - Spring time

Today's Saturday with Steve is simply sharing some of the signs of spring here "on the farm".  Hopefully we will do something "entertaining" this Holiday week-end to share with you next week but today's is just the fun side of our life.

When Spring comes, the first thing we start watching for are out sweet little brown bats and sure enough - they found their old roosting place on our back porch light:

We were happy to see these back - although I'm hoping there are more roosting elsewhere because we had 20 last year.  Hopefully more will show up.

Then ofcourse it is time for the "renters" to move in:

The bluebirds - I stayed far back to take this picture as they are leary of anyone near their home and I don't even like to take my scent there in case something else should follow me there, i.e. Rimfire - because he loves to watch baby birds and has no clue as to the power his big feet have.

Then robins - my goodness, we have about 5 nests of these near our home - if they all hatch successfully, we shouldn't have any worms in our yard at all - this one is literally on the side of our house.

It was difficult to get this picture, as I had to hang off the side of the porch and act uninterested in her!  Tricky to say the least.  All you can see is her little head sticking up.

Then ofcourse the flowers for spring, which are protected from my girls - so they don't get scratched out of the containers

Not all that attractive - but it does give the flowers a head start before the chickens can get in there and kill them, and speaking of chickens,   I came home one day early and the crazy girls were all spread out on the front steps - we are constantly shooing them off of the porch - this day they took advantage of the fact we were gone and I snapped the picture before they realized I was there. When they heard the snap of the camera-they scattered. 

and then Fred - Fred is one of our resident snakes.  I won't tell you how many of these "residents" we have.  They are just harmless garden snakes and they help control the bugs in the garden so we allow them peace and quiet - however, one was living underneath a cement slab at the pool and Rimfire found him - so  Steve had to fill in the hole under the slab because Rimfire would have killed the snake - so, have you ever seen a frustrated snake?  Check out this little face - he "glared" at Steve for quite awhile.  He couldn't understand why his happy home had been destroyed

Or maybe that's a smile?  He may have known something we didn't!!!  Hope I haven't made you cringe too much today - bats and snakes are not most people's favorite things.  Thanks for letting me share a few of our favorite things about Spring!  Have a great holiday week-end. 

Fall Foliage will soon be gone

Fall Foliage is one of the Stamp Sets that I will miss most from the new catalog - this has been a favorite "leaf" stamp of mine the minute it became available.  I decided that I would give it a whirl at shaving cream too!

So I love this one.  It is not leaving the house!  The color of re-inkers that I used are once again, daffodil delight, tangerine tango and old olive.  The leaf stamps were rock and rolled - although you can't really do that now with the new stamp pads - it really messes up your colors on your stamp pads.  So I took a dauber and dipped it in a little tangerine tango ink, that I had put on a clear block, and daubed an already inked old olive oak leaf - so that gave it a look of turning color for Fall.  Love how this one turned out.  That's it for today!  See you tomorrow.

Oops - one more thing - had to adjust my comments - I've had to delate upwards of 150 - 200 spam hits a day - so now you can still leave your comments - and thank you to each one of you that do so, but it may take an hour or so before they become visible - this will keep annoying spam from showing up in the comments!  Typepad is working on this so hopefully before too long it will go back to normal.  Thanks for your patience - nothing has changed for you - it is me who will have to be sure your comments are published! 

A little more shaving cream

After the technique class was finished on Tuesday, I wanted to try a couple more of the shaving cream technique cards like the By the Tide card of Tuesday.  So last night while it was raining and storming, I stayed down in the stamp room and worked, and I use that word loosely (work!) A couple of the stamps I wanted to use were out in the stamp room all packed and ready for stamp camp at Pennsboro this evening, so I had to make a few substitutions, as I did not want to run out in the rain!  Not certain I am happy with this finished card, but do like the background:

It needed something else - but wasn't satisfied with anything I tried!  So I just stopped at this - if something better comes along - I'll share it!  To get the background I swirled, daffodil delight, tangerine tango and old olive inks in shaving cream - then dipped the cardstock down in that.  Wiped it off, and then stamped the images in the very same colors.  I'll go out and get one of the other stamp sets tomorrow and try it.  Circle Circus is on the retiring list so it will only be available for 9 more days!

Tea picture

While in Fiji, one of the demonstrators that gave a demonstration was Penny Thomas and she had all these cute frames that she had done with various subject ideas - holidays, baby, wedding, etc.  So she posted one the other day about TEA - those of you that know my love for tea - I just had to make one of my own. 

I didn't have a picture frame that would work so I used a frame that I had covered with coffee filters.  Worked just fine with the picture. 

Love this - so me - makes me smile whenever I see it!  Another busy day here - past few days have been a wee bit stressful and busy - a few of life's bumps.  Hopefully a little easier today.  Have a great day. 

Fishies in the Sea

Quick post for today - just want to share one of the cards we'll be using at Technique day today - one of my favorites, featuring By the Tide:

Sorry so quick, super busy with a lot of things going on here!  Have a great day! 

Monday and a few left over butterflies!

Thanks to all of you that "hopped" thru the Remarkables Blog tour yesterday.  I still have a couple of cards left over from the butterflies - can't believe it!!!  I wanted to save this card because it was one of our make n takes at Saturday's workshop.

I saw a card similar to this on the display boards on our incentive trip to Fiji, so I completely changed this to fit the butterfly stamp and one of the retiring stamp sets:  Bordering on Romance.  I've used the new Cantaloupe Crisp ink color.  This butterfly looks nearly real!!  Curly cute is another one that is retiring - I'll really miss this one because I like it and use it often.  Think I will keep it in my "stash" of retired stamp sets to keep on using after it is gone from the catalog. 

Short and quick today - have overnight guests coming and stamp camp today as well as technique day tomorrow - a couple of busy days-off to get things done - have a great day.