Chewy chill-axin'

Most people would probably think that a cold snap would be a great time for hunkering down at home and crafting. Well, that would have been great if we hadn't had to start replacing appliances that have all begun to have issues. UGH. We now have a new washer/dryer. We're orking on replacing the wall oven/microwave combo. Such fun! But enough of that.

Since some of you have commented on Chewy, the white furry half of my profile pic, I thought I'd share a photo that I took of him this morning. It had been VERY cold for the last several days, with the thermometer outside reading 0 degrees F in the morning more often than not. Today it was about 10 and we're supposed to get into the mid-20s by later today. Whoa! It's a heatwave! LOL! Really! Apparently Chewy thought it was a heatwave.


See? He did his usual patrol of the perimeter of the yard then plopped himself down in the snow for a little rest. He chilled out there for a minute or two and then trotted back to the door to be let inside. What a rough life. :-)

tour of my spring flowers

Cut the yard in record time, so here's a quickie tour of the flowers that have been blooming in my backyard this spring.


This is the snowball viburnum. It was full of blooms this year! Now most of the petals have rained down and they do look like snow on the ground.


This is our allium. They look so unusual poking way up out of the garden bed.


This is a mountain bluet. Love those delicate petals!


The white peonies are always first to bloom of all of the colors of peonies that we have. The tightly closed bud that you can see in the photo will be pink when it deigns to open up.


Speaking of pink, here are some of the only tulips to survive the annual depredation of the bulbs by the vicious bunnies. We need to plant more bulbs--just didn't get a chance to this past fall.


This is a Japanese iris. More are blooming now, but I liked this shot.


A few coral bells are starting to make their way out. They're a fun splash of color against that green foliage.


And last but not least, these are our white azaleas. The bushes are filled with blooms. I have a photo similar to this one as my desktop. The petals have almost a translucent yet sparkly quality to them. So fun! And that's also a teaser for what I've got planned for my next blog entry--a crafty project that I did which has a translucent and kinda sorta sparkly look to it. Stay tuned! :-)

Have an egg-stra special day!

These are the eggs that were hard-boiled by me. YES! Two years running and no egg cooking casualties! My two girls did all of the decorating. No egg decorating casualties either, and only one minor dye spill. Woo hoo! The eggs will be traveling with us to Grandma and Grandpa's, where we'll be enjoying our Easter dinner with family.

Best wishes for a Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it! For those who don't, best wishes for an egg-stra special day. :-)

crazy spring weather

Just a few days ago we were enjoying such pretty spring weather here in Missouri. Trees and flowers were blooming. Buds were forming.


Our sunset maples were growing their little seedlings and getting ready to let those little helicopters take off.

Then Mother Nature decided to keep us from becoming too complacent about this whole spring thing and sent wind, freezing rain, sleet, and snow our way overnight.


We only got a couple of inches of the white stuff, and that was less than the original forecasts had predicted, but it still puts a bit of a damper on that spring feeling.


So, I thought I'd post a cheery card that I made a while back when I was playing with those new slim profile EK Success edger punches. This is the Swiss Cheese punch accenting the Hero Arts frog images and sentiment. The images were stamped on decorative paper, cut out, and colored. I left parts of the top froggy unglued and bent his arms (? LOL!) and legs out a bit to add some dimension. The embossing was made with a Cuttlebug border embossing folder.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sundays. :-)

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celebrate spring

The grass is coming back to life. (One of the neighbors has already cut his yard!) Trees are starting to put out leaves. Flowers are blooming. Time to celebrate spring!


I'd been keeping an eye out for crocuses. Those are usually the first bloomers in our yard. Sadly, I think the bunnies ate most of the ones in the backyard. These are some that I found at the front of the house. They're usually late because they're on the north side and don't get as much sun, but at least they're there!


We have a lot of daffodils blooming, too. I particularly like the soft color and delicate look of these flowers.


And last but not least, here's a card that I made to acknowledge the arrival of spring. The tulips aren't blooming yet, but they're getting close. I made this quite a while ago. Yes, I was a bit overly optimistic at the time, but I love spring! :-) I'd have to check to be sure, but I think I made this using some stamps from Michael's dollar bin that were stamped and colored using Memento inks and markers. The chipboard shapes are by Maya Road and were colored using Adirondack pigment inks. The die cuts were made using Spellbinders Nestabilities dies.

snow day, take 2

This is the card that I had to make today. I'd thought that I'd put away the winter theme for this season, but no.


This card was made using a set of Sizzix textured impressions folders--the snowflakes and the snowman. For the embossed snowflakes border I used the double 'bossing technique that I wrote about earlier. This time I used Core'dinations card stock. I embossed first this time and sanded the embossing. Those are the very light snowflakes that you see. I then debossed and dabbed the entire surface with Versamark Dazzle Frost. I think you can see some of the shimmer, particularly near the top of the card. The snowflake embellishments were made using a Martha Stewart punch. The sentiment is by Hero Arts and stamped using Memento dye inks.

This is why I was back in wintry mode. We'd already had a snow day Tuesday due to a mix of sleet and snow.


This is how my backyard looked this morning. The sun was shining, and the sky was turning blue as the clouds cleared out. We got probably close to 6" of snow in all, most of that coming overnight. It looked so pretty, but it was still rather cold at this point.


As you can see, that didn't deter some of us who were bound and determined to get out and run around and live in the moment. :-)

cardinal pics

This is one of my off-topic posts. One of the things that I enjoy about winter is seeing all of the birds that come to the feeders. They've been enthusiastic this week.

These are a couple of pics that I took on Monday before the snow. We'd just had a cold front drop us from a Sunday afternoon temperature of 59 to the teens later that night. The rain froze and glazed everything. The birds were quite content to hang around the feeders that I'd filled the day before. As usual, the most striking were the cardinals.

This male and female were enjoying sunflower seeds. It's not often that they'll both sit nicely at the same feeder. They may not have noticed each other.


And this is a male on his own, looking quite colorful against the green background.

Those are for you, Judie! :-)

Knockin' robin

I awoke to the sound of tapping on glass this morning. My husband had left for work quite some time earlier. It really was too early for anyone to be coming to the door. I got up to see who had decided to be an early riser on this Sunday morning. My girls were still in bed, no surprise, and the dog was curled up on the landing of the stairs, his usual spot. From upstairs I could see through the sidelights of the front door. No one was out there. Puzzled, I was ready to head back to bed to read when I heard that sound again. *tap* *tap* *tap* This time I directed my gaze higher, toward the half round window that's above the front door. Hello!


It was a robin. I looked at it. It looked at me. Then it tapped its beak on the glass again. It's been a stormy morning, still is. You can see the raindrops on the glass. Maybe it just wanted in out of the wet. Maybe it was wanting to play with our dog, who likes to stalk and chase robins in the backyard, never catching them. Or maybe it just wanted someone else to be up and awake, too. Oh well, it was early on a Sunday, but it's nice to start it off with a song.

Knockin' robin
Tweet, tweet, tweet
Knockin' robin
Tweet, twiddly dee....

My apologies if I've just gotten a song stuck in your head, too. :-)

Now it's Spring!

I'd thought that the crocuses were all goners this year, victims of the annual munching by the predatory bunnies of the backyard. I was out earlier this afternoon, enjoying this mild but very breezy day. Lo and behold, I spied some of these! There were just a couple of these pale yellow ones, a few bright yellow ones, and no purples, but now it feels like spring. :-)

TGIF, everyone! :-)

This means spring, right?

I spotted a couple of these hopping around in the backyard this afternoon. Robins are a sure sign of spring, right?


I know, I know, but actually, we've had a very spring-like day here, and we'll have another one tomorrow. Then Monday is supposed to bring us snow and sleet. UGH! I am so ready for winter to be over!

On the other hand, these cardinals usually remind me of winter because they look so pretty against the snow. They looked pretty today, even without snow.


Birds haven't been the only wildlife visiting the yard. For the last couple of years, we'd had mysterious visitors raiding our bird feeders. We never knew what they were, though we had some suspects. A number of weeks ago, we changed out some of our outdoor lights and put motion sensors on a couple of them. One of them was the one that lights the patio. A few nights ago I saw the light on out there and peeked out. This is what I saw.


Busted! A raccoon had been at the top of the list, and now we had visual confirmation. But it wasn't just one raccoon....


Yes, he has an accomplice! And last night my daughter counted four of them scouting the patio for sunflower seeds. I didn't get pics of that mob.

And this is what happens if you don't refill the feeder that's more easily accessible by climbing....


I'm not sure how it got up there, but it was hanging on, swinging, and eating all at the same time. Raccoons are certainly persistent, not to mention acrobatic!

Just thought I'd share these fun photos for a change of pace. :-)

Back to blogging!

Okay. I'm back! It's been quite a while since I last posted something here. I've still been stamping and crafting, but blogging took a back seat when the holidays became busier. Around here the holidays start with the birthdays in October, go right into the Thanksgiving holiday, more birthdays, then Christmas is upon us. This year was especially busy because we went abroad for the holidays to visit family. Hong Kong was the destination, and it was a wonderful experience! Didn't get to indulge in any crafting, but did get to do quite a bit of sightseeing and shopping. And while it was great to experience a different part of the world and a different way of life, it's also good to be home again and getting back into some familiar routines. I do rather miss the very mild temps that they were enjoying at the time though. :-)

This is a view of some of the very festive holiday decorations that were a typical sight at night. I took this one from the upper deck of a junk while we were still out on the harbor.


Belated holiday greetings to anyone still checking in here! :-) Happy 2008!

New addition

Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. I've only done the essentials for crafting, too. We'd told the girls that they could finally get a puppy over the summer when school was out. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we came across a little guy whose personality seemed like a great fit, so we got him. He was 10 weeks old at the time, so I've been spending a lot of time running him outside to do his business and doing all of the other things that having a new puppy entails. He's such a sweetie though! Here he is....



Hopefully we'll get him settled in enough that I can get to more crafting soon. I'm starting to go through withdrawals!

flowering crabapple

This is a new tree to our yard, a crabapple. It's not very mature yet, but it's loaded with blooms this spring. It has a lovely scent when you walk anywhere near it. I couldn't resist snapping a pic. All of the colors look so springy! I had to share. :-)

Spring blooms

We've had unseasonably warm weather this spring, and this past week we had rain. It has been a wonderful combo for the plants. The grass is lush and green and besides all of the flowering trees and shrubs being in bloom, we've had lots of flowers coming up. But enough talk. On to the most recent photos.

daffodils

hyacinths

grape hyacinth

tulip close up

tulip bed

So yes, this is the other reason that I've not been crafting. It's been so pretty outside! And the good news is that the plants have been doing so well that the voracious bunnies haven't been able to destroy them this year. :-)

Spring, after all

After yesterday's surprise snow, it was fun to see that the first daffodils of the year have opened up. Such a pretty splash of yellow!


Ahhh, it makes me smile to see them. :-)

What happened to Spring?!

Last week we had a couple of really gorgeous days, sunny with temps in the upper 70s. Trees are budding. Flowers are starting to bloom. The grass is turning green. The last couple of days were cooler. We even dipped below freezing at night. This was the sight today.


Huge flakes came down for much of the day. You can see some of them in the foreground. Nothing stuck, but it was an odd sight after the distinct spring-like feeling of earlier in the week. Mother Nature is such a tease!!! :-)

Looks like spring!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here for the past few days, which explains, at least in part, why I've not posted any new creations lately. It's been too pretty to be cooped up indoors. Over the weekend I'd gone searching for signs of spring. I'd seen the beginnings of daffodils and tulips, not to mention the distinct signs of them being munched on by rabbits. GRR! That's another story though. Today I found some crocuses that have apparently survived the depredation of the bunnies! YAY!



These are always such a welcome sight after all of the grays of winter. There are some hyacinths starting to peek out, too, in that photo above.

Unexpected visitors

I see these birds a couple of times a year. They seem to travel in groups. I always manage to think that they're female cardinals, at least until I realize that they're smaller and that they have that tell-tale ;-) cadmium yellow color on the tip of their tails. Here are a couple of pics that I took of them this past week....


There's a bit of artifact at the right edge. It's not your monitor or your eyes. I didn't want to crop out those birds though.


This is a shot that I got of them on a cloudier day. Cedar waxwings are fun to spot. :-)

It's the look

You know how there are some people who can say so much with just a look? I know a few folks like that. Anyway, I was going through some pics that I hadn't pulled off my camera. When I got to this one, I was reminded of 'The Look'. It made me chuckle, but it's also a pretty photo of a female cardinal. I love how soft her feathers look.

Pop Outs

Well, I could have crafted this weekend, but I have a cold that's made me feel like I'm in a fog, so I've read books and surfed the internet and I've had mug after mug of hot tea. Earlier today I came across some pics and a few links to some tutorials. That perked me up! Basically you can give digital photos a 3D look. This was fairly simple and it was fun to play around with. One of the keys is finding photos that will work. Here are some of my attempts.







Essentially, what you do is find a photo that you think will work. You select part of that photo and create a frame. Add a little perspective, black out the background, erase the part of the frame that should be hidden behind your popped out object, add some drop shadows to add some realism, and you've got a fun 3D graphic. Here's a link to an Out of Bounds tutorial. Just another fun thing to do with digital pics, particularly on a snowy day when a virus is getting you down. :-)