Big Day

I was exhausted last evening so I didn't blog...in fact, I went to bed a little after 9:00!  We had a big day!

In the morning, we went to the farmer's market to get some tomatoes, sweet corn, and watermelon.  Then we ran errands after that.  About 1:00 we  left for Linda's so we could visit with the family before Kaylee's baby shower.  Got to see Bob & Ann, Kaylee, Linda, Al, Marilyn, Vicki, Allison, Blaise and Rowyn!  Blaise wanted us to stay overnight because Grandpa Bob was going to!  I got to color with him...he told me to use orange!  (I was coloring a fox, so that was appropriate!)  Rowyn is just all smiles!  She is adorable!

This is the card I made for Kaylee!  She loved it! Fun shower!  She got lots of gifts.  Clayton will play in the Netherlands again this year - for Leiden again!  They leave in a couple of weeks to go over the pond!  Baby will be born over there!!

More later...

Uneventful Friday

Dave went to work this morning and I was lazy!  I didn't even take my shower until around 11:00.  I woke up around 7:15, ate my breakfast, and just hung out upstairs until about lunch time.  I worked in my craft studio putting away some of the supplies I had out last night for our class.

I told you we made some cool cards last night, and we did.  Here is one I demo'd..  I love this card because it's entirely done freestyle.  Each time you do one, it looks different.  To me it looks a little like a famous artist painted it.  Anyway, it's entirely done using Stampin' Up products.  The inks are Blushing Bride, Hello Honey, and Pistachio Pudding and the stamp set is Work of Art.  Everyone had fun with this card.  I was a little concerned that some of the ladies would be too stressed to make it fun, but it didn't turn out that way at all!

Tomorrow we're leaving early for Indiana, so I may not be on here until Sunday.  I don't think I'll take my computer with me.  We plan to be back Sunday late afternoon.


More later...

Gorgeous Day!

Today was a gorgeous day!! It was supposed to be in the 70's today and I'm sure it got there! Tomorrow, however, is another story...rain, a high in the low 50's AND possibly rain mixed with snow - yuck!! I'm glad I got outside to enjoy the day today! Poor Kaylee's soccer team plays tomorrow night in Waverly. So, you know if it's going to be that bad here, it'll be even worse in Waverly because it's so far north of here!

I was able to get our motel room and tickets for the Letterwinners' events this weekend, including the game. Right now the forecast is calling for 60 and cloudy. That won't be so bad to sit out in, although I think I heard that it's to be very windy too!

I got some of the cards we made on Sunday afternoon scanned today - I used my new scanner! It's lots faster than my old one!! This first card is one of my favorites. First of all I love this stamp set and I really like the blues she used. They are new in colors, both of them. The little round thing on the left of the card is a shaker...you shake the card and the snowflakes (mica) are loose in there. Cool! All products in all of these cards are from Stampin' Up!!

This is the only card that I got done in less than 10 minutes. That's because it comes basically as it appears - without the sentiment. You stamp the sentiment on the little label and stick it on with dimensionals. Viola! You have a card. It's truly that simple!
This last card is done with a background of More Mustard. The Garden Green and the Early Expresso are layered behind the designer paper squares which have been corner-rounded on two sides. The squares are made with the 1 1/4" and 1" punches. The flowers are made with the Boho Blossoms punch, I believe, and are fastened together with a brad. The sentiment is from Day of Gratitude. Love this card!!
I went to give blood today and, since I'm having surgery soon, they wouldn't take my donation. So now I'm scheduled to give blood on 12/27 when I'm back for Christmas. I did, however, get my flu shot...and you know what, this shot hasn't hurt at all! That's a first because usually flu shots make my arm hot and achy!

More later...

A Beautiful Fall Day!

Today was another beautiful fall day...not too hot and not too cold! Tomorrow's supposed to be even nicer from what I've heard!!

I had a bunch of things to do today and I got them all done...anyway as far as I could! The records department was closed today, so I wasn't able to get Dave's records from Dr. Paluska's office. I called IHCC, the Country Club, and Bridge View to get quotes for our upcoming PEO reciprocity event, but BV didn't call me back and IHCC couldn't accommodate us, so I don't have any comparisons at this point. I have to make a decision tomorrow, so I hope BV calls me in the morning.

I was also able to get all the card parts sorted from last Thursday's camp camp. I have packets made up for Sunday's event now. Hopefully we'll have 8-10 attend on Sunday. I know I'm going to be tired after our class reunion events, but I get energized making cards and showing people how they can do it too! Speaking of cards, here are four of the cards we made Thursday. I don't have the 5th one, I guess. Juliene must have it yet! I'm going thru the supplies needed for each of the cards and putting each card's "stuff" in a separate bag. I think it'll make us far more organized! Since the stamp camp is here at my house, it won't be as hard to be organized anyway!

This card is just beautiful in real life. I used Autumn Splendor stamps and embossed them with clear embossing powder, over a colored background. Then after embossing, I sponged Chocolate Chip ink over all of the leaves, which just makes them pop!
Probably the easiest card we did was this one. All you do is stamp 2 of the ornaments, punch one of them out and mount it on the whisper white background. Then you cut a 1" circle out of the second stamped ornament and mount it with dimensionals over the first one. I then drew a "cord" with Basic Black marker, added a Cherry Cobbler bow, and mounted it all on a Cherry Cobbler card blank. Beautiful!

This card is made with Real Red, Crumb Cake, and Whisper White card stock. The "Joy" is embossed with Cherry Cobbler embossing powder, and the snowflakes are from glossy paper.
I thought this card was way harder than it looks. I used Lucky Limeade for the backing, along with Real Red and Whisper White cardstock. The Petite Silhouette stamps are inked with Certainly Celery, Old Olive, and Real Red markers. The bow is made from Lucky Limeade ribbon.
The fifth card is made with Day of Gratitude and is really an easy card to do. I'll try to get a picture of it sometime soon! Tomorrow I've got to work on getting our samples ready for October 13th stamp camp. Juliene, we need to talk!!

Today, I received good news. You know I've been telling you we're singing Vivaldi's "Gloria" Sunday - all 60 pages of it. Well, because Becky couldn't get the orchestra members to commit to the date, it's been postponed until Feb. 19th...what a shame, I'll still be in Florida!! This, however, gives us lots more time to work on the piece, so I'll still be practicing it even though I won't be performing it!

On another note, I haven't seen any hummingbirds for two days. I guess that means they're headed south. I'll leave my feeders up, though, just in case there are some stragglers coming through our area! More later...

Hot Day #9

Is this heat wave ever going to end??? I'm a little tired of it now! I am ready for a little bit of a cool down and less humidity! Church today was hot, too! I don't mean temperature-wise - I mean Gail and Kari had the place rocking! Their music, along with Pastor David's wonderful sermon on the forgiveness of sins - all I can say is wow! Great job, all of you! I'm sorry I'll miss the last installment of PD's series about the Apostle's Creed - the life everlasting!

Dave worked on the '56 today. He got the power steering pump back into the car and I think it's drivable now! I worked on 8 book bag backpacks for church. I also made pillowcases for our little travel pillows. I cut one of our Tempurpedic pillows in two and covered them with some fabric from my "stash"...mine is pink and Dave's has hotrod flames! I also started getting some of my clothes out. We won't have laundry facilities until August 6th, so we've got to pack 10 days worth of clothes - in one suitcase, and not go over 50#!! I sure hope we can do it!

Here are the last two cards we made on Saturday. I think this first one is beautiful. I like the color combination! Again everything is from Stampin' Up! This black ribbon is really luxurious! I'm going to have to find out which one it is in the catalog.
Both cards are made from the new In-Colors. This last card is only 4 x 4" but will fit in a regular envelope. We used dimensionals to pop the layers so in real life, it is 3-D! I really like this flower stamp. You can use punchs to cut all 3 layers out! Saves me from trying to cut things out with scissors!

I hope you enjoyed these cards. It'll be a while before you see any more. More later...

Hot Day #8...

It was another hot, humid day in the neighborhood! We got some thunder tonight, but no rain! We really need rain - I can't believe I'm actually saying that! The corn is curling big time, so we need some rain and some cooler days...not really cooler, like colder...just in the 80's instead of the 90's!

This morning I took a big step. I'm now going to be a Stampin' Up demonstrator! I love SU products and I'm a BIG customer, so why not be available to sell their products to others! I won't get my kit until I get back from Alaska, but I'm looking forward to getting started! In September, we're going to have a Stamp Camp type of day, where you'll make maybe 10 Christmas projects for a very low price. We haven't set the date yet, but be ready to get an invitation! I'll have more details later! In the meantime, today we made 5 cards in a 3-hour workshop. Here are 3 of them:

This first one uses the square punches as well as a 3-step flower punch (for the bows) . This designer paper is new and incorporates the new in-colors! Love the new in-colors! Those little black-dot-looking things just below the bows, are in reality little "diamonds"...just some bling! They don't scan very well!
This second card is really pretty in real life. The colors didn't scan as well as I thought they would. This paper is really vibrant! I'm not usually an orange and yellow gal, but I tried to step out of my comfort zone a bit today! I love the technique we used for the flower on this card. The flower petals are cut from a Sizzix die that SU carries exclusively. Then the petals are misted with alcohol and scrunched up. When you open them back up, they have texture! I also really like the way the sentiment is put on. In real life, the sentiment is furled like a real banner!
For this third card, we did a bunch of tearing of paper. I think my brown piece of paper looks a little like bib overalls!! It's really a pretty card in person. The colors are very rich!


I'll show you a couple more tomorrow night! For now, you'll just have to wait! Dave took time this morning to get his clothes all ready to go into his suitcase. I've still got to do that! I'll be done by Wednesday since we leave on Thursday! I don't want to get in too much of a hurry! I wonder if ships have hair dryers in their cabins? If they did, I wouldn't have to pack that at least! Everyone is telling us to dress in layers - are shorts and sweatshirts layers?? I might even pack some capris! I've been told you can buy sweatshirts really cheap up there so I'm not going to worry too much. Dave even went to Target and bought himself a little cheap rain jacket - he's way too prepared!!

More later...

Hot Day #7

Some people got rain last night and this morning - we got a few drops, not even .1 of an inch! It was really humid today which made it feel much warmer! At noon it was only 85, but it sure felt hotter than that.

I went to stamping club this morning and then ran errands afterwards. We made some really pretty cards all using the same background technique. For this first one, I used Certainly Celery and Close to Cocoa and just smudged those colors on a background of white paper. Then the script in the background was stamped on with Not Quite Navy and the mesh was stamped with a blue from Distress Inks. When I was finished with that, I stamped the flower image in Versamark and heat embossed it with white SU embossing powder. I then mounted the finished image on both black and white cardstock before adhering it to an olive green cardstock.

With this one, I tried to just use Apricot Appeal and Barely Banana, but I couldn't handle those colors so I added some Certainly Celery to tone the other colors down a bit. The white image was applied in the same manner as above. I mounted this image on a kraft color of cardstock, then white, and then placed them on an olive green card blank. Last, I added the ribbon from Kaiser Craft.

This card is my absolute favorite! For this one, I used a blue with my Certainly Celery. I love it - it is really vibrant in real life. For a little bit of sparkle, I added peridot-colored "jewels" in the two corners. Thanks, Jan! Love this technique!!

I got to sew a little bit today too. I am about finished with the gray bookbags for church. Then I think I have 6 or 7 blue bags and I'll be done. I hope I get them done before we leave for Alaska! I heard it was 61 degrees in Seattle today - I wonder what it was in Vancouver and in Anchorage??

More later...

Hot Day #6

Enough already! I'm ready for this hot weather to go back down south! Actually, as soon as it's gone, I'll be complaining that summer is over - I'm NEVER satisfied 100%! I like 78-80 degrees and no humidity - then I'm really happy!

Today was a fun day. Five of my PEO ladies met five of Chapter OO's ladies in Fairfield at Yummy's for lunch. Just like the name says, the lunch was yummy!! The company was great also. All of us truly enjoyed ourselves visiting with other PEO sisters! I only knew two of the ladies very well; I knew a couple others by name only. I wouldn't have known who they were unless Sally introduced them to me. One of the ladies I didn't know at all! Here is a picture of all of us - good picture!! This will go into my next newsletter to Chapter HC! Hopefully we started a tradition that will continue for many years to come. Next year, we'll host them here in O-town!
I also wanted to share another card with you. This is one I made yesterday or the day before. I used 3 yellow inks and brayered the background - the inks were Yoho Yellow, Daffodil Delight, and something Curry (I'm having a senior moment - can't remember its name and I don't want to go upstairs and look right now!). Then I took a sponge with Chocolate Chip ink and just dabbed around the background to give it some dimension. After that I added some lace that I had, a sentiment from Stampin' Up and a Primo flower that started out all white. I simply sponged some of the yellows on it. I really like the effect. This is a card that is a little out of my comfort zone...I'm not really a yellow kind of person! I do, however, like this card. I think I'll try it in various shades of pink!


I forgot to tell you that I got up this morning, pulled open the blind and checked the bluebird feeder - all of the food was gone! I think our deer must like bluebird food!! I mean the tray was wiped clean!! Funny!

Tomorrow's a very busy day starting with a haircut at 8:15 AM - what was I thinking???

More later...

Tired and Allergy Laden!!

I have had a very hard day today. Not only am I tired - my legs kept me awake last night - but I'm also having allergy issues today! I think a lot of it is all the hay down around us. Yesterday when I was driving home from S English, it seemed like everyone was raking hay! Usually if I can turn the recirculate button on in my car, it doesn't get to me. However, I must not have hit it early enough!! So, I'm taking an allergy pill and going to bed!!

I thought you might like to see a couple of cards that I made. These are very simple cards that I'm giving to my PEO chapter to use. There's absolutely NOTHING to making them. They take about 8 minutes per card to make - and that includes cutting out the butterflies! These papers are just single sheets I had lying around. I think I bought them both in Florida one time. This one is made with double-sided paper. I simply turned the flowered paper over for the butterfly. The butterflies are cut out using my Sizzix butterfly die that I got from Stampin' Up. The sentiment is from SU too!
This card is basically the same as the one above, only the butterfly is made from DCWV paper.
Isn't she pretty? This is a little house finch female getting a drink right outside my window!
You're gonna laugh at this - I was so tired, I forgot to post this blog last night. It was still here waiting for me this morning!!

More later...

I've Been Waiting a Year!

I've been waiting almost a year for this day! Today I took the advanced class with Michelle Zindorf, a Stampin' Up demonstrator from Ohio. You will recall that I took the beginner's class last year in Grinnell. Well, this time it was here in O-town! My class didn't start until 2:30 and the morning just seemed to crawl by! We made 3 cards in class. This is the first one. It's a relatively simple brayered card. All products, of course, are from Stampin' Up! These cards are much prettier in person because the colors are so vibrant. Michelle didn't know that the balloon races were in Ottumwa until last night, but she had this card planned for a couple of months - very appropriate!
The second card is this butterfly one. It wasn't so simple! I'm so glad I did it, though. Next time I try doing a reflection in water, I'll do better! Now that I know how, I can line up the plants a little better and get the butterfly a little more distinct. I had Michelle re-ink my ink pad for the blue shadow (middle right). Unfortunately when I went to sponge the shadow on, I got in the new ink and made a mess! I'll know better than to do that next time too! This is our third card and I LOVE IT!! The bird and the plants on the left have clear embossing powder on them, so they are shiny! I love the sun rays - cool technique that is soooo simple!


Taking these classes is kind of expensive, but it is worth it. We got two stamp sets, a stamp pad of Versamark, a Versamark pen, and all the supplies to make these cards. We used her inks and embossing powders. You also get to meet ladies from all over. We had two who were from Cedar Rapids and 1 from Omaha in our class. The rest were from O-town! I only knew one of the ladies, though...so I met some new people today! Fun!!

More later...

Yucky Day Today!

I was dizzy when I woke up this morning and that makes for a really yucky day for me! It the dizziness doesn't go away right away, it pretty much stays around for a while. I'm not so dizzy that I can't function...I just don't want to function! I'll take a meclazine tonight and see if that takes the dizziness away.

I did make a graduation card today and I played with my new butterfly die (from SU), but other than that I did some puzzles and tried to take a nap, which didn't work!

Here are the graduation cards I'm sending out - I know, I'm late but I say, "Better late than never!" This first one, I purchased for $2.00. The price was definitely good. Unfortunately the quality of the paper is awful! It's very lightweight, but I love the idea. Too bad she didn't use SU paper, it would have been much nicer!

I saw a card very similar to this one on Splitcoaststampers.com and I really liked it. I made one for a young man. If I were to make it for a girl, I would make the collar lacy by punching it with a corner punch and then pearl buttons instead of black brads. All these papers are Stampin' Up, by the way. The sentiment is from the dollar bin at Michael's. After studying this closely, I've decided I need to change the blade on my paper cutter - I think that's why the rough edges on the "v". Maybe I'll make another one tomorrow and keep this one for my sample book. There's no way I would sell this card for $2.00. I think $3.00 at the least! What do you think???



I was supposed to give blood this afternoon, but decided I didn't need THAT on top of my dizziness. I'll have to reschedule because they love my blood!!

I wonder how Allison did tonight. They played at the Township School (Mennonite) over by Kalona somewhere...it's out in the country and there's no way I could ever find it!

More later...

Great Thursday!

We sure did have a beautiful day today! It wasn't terribly warm, but pretty nonetheless! I had a wonderful day just doing what I wanted to do! This morning, however, I went to Cardinal HS to present a PEO Star scholarship to a young lady who is VERY deserving! She got lots of scholarship money today - I wish I'd been paying more attention and added it all up! Anyway, back to the Star scholarship...PEO gave 3 Star scholarships in the entire state of Iowa. Two of those three were to girls from Cardinal HS!! How cool is that? A school in little old Eldon, Iowa, has two PEO Star Scholars!! When I got to the awards assembly, I didn't know that. Then the presenter before me presented her Star Scholarship and then me! Since she said basically everything I was going to say, I just ad libbed - I was much more comfortable doing that than reading a script! It was fun!

I came home, changed clothes, ate my lunch and played all day! I did go outside to try to take some iris pictures. They are truly beautiful right now. It was hard to get a great picture, though, because the wind was blowing pretty hard while I was out there! This iris is from bulbs we got from mom, who got them from her sister, Wanda. Wanda had the most beautiful flowers! I got this one from Bob and Ann to replace my big yellow hybrid which froze out one year! It's a beautiful iris and I was especially intrigued with the inside of it. This one was more protected from today's wind.

Speaking of wind, Dave is outside right now blowing a million Maple squirters out of our gutters! The trees here are still loaded with the little devils too, so he's going to have to do this again! They are pretty dry now, so in today's wind they just blew and blew and rustled as they blew!

I've also attached a picture of the card I made where I was able to get the flower to stick...it's been on this card for two days, standing upright, and it hasn't fallen off yet! This will be one of those cards that will be given to someone, NOT mailed. The flower is too big to make it through the mail slot! I think it's really pretty, though!
Here is another card I made a couple of days ago. I think I will make more using this technique. To me, the background looks like a Grandma's Fan quilt pattern. Verve Stamps calls it sun rays or something to that effect. It makes a very attractive background, plus you get to use up some "junk" cardstock behind it because it doesn't show on the finished card!! This entire card is made with scraps of paper from DCWV, except the blotchy looking one - I made it with ink and shaving cream! I used my scalloped circle Nestabilities to make my flower! The ribbon and the big yellow brad are just miscellaneous "stuff" I had around my craft studio!

Since Dave got home at a decent hour, I fixed tenderloins for us for supper. My, they were good! For dessert we had key lime pie and I must say it was scrumptious!!

Tomorrow I have a PEO luncheon. It's one of those times when I wish I could be two people. One of my high school friends is back from Florida and some classmates are meeting to have lunch with her. I'd like to be there as well, but I keep preaching the my PEO sisters that PEO is a prior commitment, so I'd better practice my preaching!!

More later...

Patchy Frost Tonight!?!?

What's going on? I was brought up to believe that you could plant your tomatoes after May 15th because that was the last frost date in the spring. This is May 16th and they're saying patchy frost tonight. I sure hope I don't have to replant my tomatoes or replace my houseplants which are also outside! Dave covered the hanging planters, bless his heart!

Today was a sad day in O-town. One of our eye doctors died last night and word got around town today. He was a really nice guy. He will be missed. There were two other deaths today too, plus some ex-IHCC employees' baby was stilborn. Bad day. I know that there are lots of prayers being sent to God's ears tonight! RIP, Bob and Pino and the other two whose names I don't know.

I made a couple more cards today...one will go to Bob's wife and family. This is the sympathy card I made for Jane. It's much prettier in real life. The polka dot paper is from Die Cuts With a View and the pink paper is Stampin' Up. The lace is some scrap that was left over from some project I did a long time ago. The sentiment on the front says "from the heart". The sentiment and inks are from SU as well. The butterfly is from a DCWV paper and I used my new Cuttlebug die and embossing folder on it.
This is a birthday card. I got the paper in the scrapbook shop in Ft Lauderdale...it's another DCWV paper. The card itself is from SU, the butterfly is another DCWV paper and the lace is another scrap from my scrap stash!

I hope you like these cards. I woke up feeling very creative. I also was pretty ambitious. I cleaned house today because my sorority group will be here tomorrow night at 6:00 for the first stop in a progressive dinner! When Dave got home, he vacuumed and carried chairs for me. He's such a good hubby!!

More later...

Friday, May 13th

in-law's birthday. This would have been my late-sister-in-law's birthday - yesterday was her grand-daughter's 9th birthday! I miss Bonnie...she and I used to sit out on the porch when they were here and we'd talk forever. The guys would come in and turn on the light - we'd been talking so long and hard that we didn't realize it had gotten dark!

Today I went to Mt. Pleasant to see my Aunt who is in a nursing home there. I feel really bad for her. She lived on her own for so long and she was really quite active. Now she just sits in a chair. She did walk to the bathroom with the aid of a walker, but she also needed lots of help to get out of her chair. I don't know that she could get up on her own. She's 92 though, so I guess she has earned the right to sit for a while! She has bird feeders outside her window (all the rooms do) and while I was there she had 3-4 gold finches on her feeder AND a woodpecker! If they would turn her chair a little, she'd enjoy watching them. The feeder is about 6 inches from her window, so she can get an up-close-and-personal look at the birdies!!

After visiting with Auntie Mae, I went to Fairfield to have lunch with Sudi and Howard. Tomorrow is Sudi's birthday and I wanted to take her out to lunch. We went to Johnny's Place on the square. It was the first time we'd been there, and it may very well be the last. It wasn't anything special! In my haste to get to Mt. P this morning I forgot Sudi's card, so now I've got to mail it and she won't get it until Monday. Sorry, Sudi! Speaking of cards:


I've been working on this card in my mind for a long time. Unfortunately, it was not any easier to do in real life than it was in my brain!! I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder to dry emboss the top layer and a Versamark pad with gold embossing powder to highlight the writing. I used the lightest touch I could possibly use, but I still got Versamark in between the lines. I don't know how else to do this. I guess I need help!! As for the flower, I took a white flower and used a Pretty in Pink ink refill to color it. The butterfly is made with a Cuttlebug die and embossing folder. The pearls on the butterfly, as well as the papers are all Stampin' Up. I love trying new techniques, even if they don't turn out quite like I wanted them to. Shortly after I took this picture, the flower fell off, so I have to try something else. I'll have time to work on it tomorrow! Dave's going to work Habitat and I'm going to play all day!

Stamping Club

Today was our monthly stamp/card club at First Presbyterian. Juliene was the demonstrator today and she showed us how to make three cards. The first one was this scalloped square., which was made into a sympathy card. It was fun to make and is much prettier in person than it is in this scan! We used all Stampin' Up products - Juliene is a SU consultant! I guess the dragonfly embossing folder isn't from SU - it's a cuttlebug folder that Jan got online for Juliene.
I think this card is very attractive and if I had the die cut for the scalloped square, I'd probably make some more of these. You know, I may have a 4" die from Nestabilities...I'll have to check that out!
The second card we made was this one with the tulip on it. Again, the scan does nothing for this card! It is unique in the way it opens! I messed up with my "from the heart" - it should have been down lower so it would show better...then I also messed up on the inside of the card, too. I will be remaking this one! Everything on this card is from SU except the above-mentioned Cuttlebug embossing folder! The tulip is made by using the owl punch and modifying it! Very clever!!

This is the third card we made. I stamped it on the outside with River Rock, but you can barely see it...I guess I'll be making this one again too! Oh well! I always like to have a sample for my card album, so these will be my samples!! The flowers were colored with a white gel pen. The uniqueness of this card is how it opens too! Good job, Juliene!

Juliene also showed us how to make an envelope to fit any sized card. I was glad to see how to do that as I have often wanted to coordinate my envelope with my card!

This afternoon, while Dave worked on his garage, I got my hair cut. Yay! She gave me a new style - Dave really likes it, as do I. It's very different from the way I usually have my hair cut!

Tomorrow I'm getting up way early to go to Kalona to watch Allison play softball. It's supposed to be 62...I don't have a clue what to wear. Her colors are orange and black and if it were to be warmer, I'd wear an orange shirt and black shorts. I don't think 62 will be warm enough to wear shorts and sit outside all day! I think I'll wear jeans and take a coat!! More later...

Winter Again!

I am sick of this cold weather!! When there's still a chill factor and only 37 degrees on April 19th - that's just awful! This morning I woke up to thunderstorms and pouring rain. In fact, we had about .8 of an inch in a very short time. It's spring!! I'd sure like some warmth to go with the blooming trees and flowers!!

I got my third Easter card made today. Here it is. I think it is darling! Everything except the eggs are made of Stampin' Up paper. I printed the sentiment on my computer and used the large oval punch to cut it out. The eggs are cut with Nestabilities out of DCWV paper. I think the kids will really like these cards. I know Jami will!! She keeps all of these for their scrapbooks!


Tonight I went downtown to the Hotel Ottumwa to our annual Beta Sigma Phi Founder's Day celebration. It was very nice. For entertainment, we played "famous women" trivia. One table had the easiest questions and the rest of us had really hard ones! It was lots of fun, though! Thanks ladies for a good evening.

I got home just in time to see Petra and Dimitri kicked off of DWTS...again, I'm wondering who in the heck voted for Kendra. She is horrible and Petra was very good and improving. I guess I'd better start voting again!

More later...

Another Sunday!

This was another beautiful Sunday! Dave went to church early this morning, so he had Elsie Mae pick me up. We sat down front today because Dave had to give a Minute for Mission about the Habitat house. We had two baptisms this morning and welcomed 2 more new members to church! After that we sang a couple of wonderful praise songs. Karen K. got up and shouted, "I have the Holy Spirit in me!" She and Pastor David had planned a little drama about us getting the fire (the Holy Spirit) and then having someone throw water on our fires to put them out. Well, as it turned out, Pastor David had a bucket of water to throw on Karen, but he switched in (a la the Harlem Globetrotters) and threw the bucket of "water" onto Karen and us because we were in the front row! The "water" was actually styrofoam packing peanuts! The problem with styrofoam peanuts is that they get static electricity really bad in the winter and they were all over us and our pew! Every time I moved, a peanut "jumped" onto my slacks! David's sermon then was about being able to catch the fire and to keep the fire that's in us when others try to put our fires out. It was a very good sermon!

This afternoon Dave and I both took naps and now we're getting ready for bed. I got all of the little notes that we'd accumulated about our Holiday home, typed them onto 2 pages, and was able to make a file to keep all our papers together! That helped my desk a lot! Tomorrow I'll pay a couple of bills, file paperwork, and get ready for two church meetings tomorrow night, as well as one on Tuesday night!
Oh, I almost forgot to show you another Valentine's card I made. This card is made with all SU products. The heart is some of SU's new glitter paper and was punched out with a SU punch. The black frill around the heart is a embosslet from SU, and the two pink papers are both embossed with Sizzix embossing folders only available through SU. The light pink paper was punched with a border punch from SU - if you enlarge this photo, you'll see that the "holes" are actually little hearts! I LOVE this card! You could use this layout for any kind of card - birthday, anniversary, wedding, etc. All you have to do is change out the heart and the Valentine's colors! Cool card!!

More later...

Another Monday in O-town

Today was another beautiful day. I didn't have to wear a coat, so as far as I'm concerned it was beautiful! I was the demonstrator today at PMS stamp club. These are the two cards I demo'd. This first one is just a piece of white SU card stock, scored randomly. I then applied ink directly from the ink pad (Going Gray) to the paper, which made it look like a barn board door. I then attached a wreath and bow (made from a Cuttlebug die and embossing folder) along with a circle of gold for the door handle. All papers are from Stampin' Up. I also used Stickles to add the berries to the wreath. My second card is another door, only this time the door has raised panels. Again all the paper is from SU except the wreath is made from self-adhesive DWAV paper. The wreath was punched from a Martha Stewart punch and the ribbon is just some I had lying around. I thought these were cute cards that could be used for other occasions - welcoming home a new baby, Valentine's Day, etc. Inside each card I stamped "Welcome Christmas into your heart" from SU. I thought it was truly an appropriate sentiment.Today was Danny's 3rd birthday. I got absorbed in Dancing with the Stars and forgot to call him. I guess we'll get to see him in about a week and at 3 he probably doesn't care that we didn't call. Since tomorrow is Allison's birthday and she'll be 9, I mustn't forget to call her!

I'm so glad that Sudi & Howard made it safely to Florida. I'll be glad to join them! Dave is still working and it's 9:15. He probably won't be home until around 10:30 or so. I think he left here at 6:00 this morning, so he's had a really long day!

Speaking of Dancing with the Stars, I forgot to say that I thought Bristol really danced well tonight. I still think she's the weakest of the 4 dancers remaining, but she did a great job tonight.

That's all for tonight. I'm going to go read. More later...

Another Gorgeous Day!

It's really hard to believe that it's November 8th. We had a beautiful day here...shorts weather again!! At 5:00 it was still 65!!

As promised, I've attached a couple of pictures of the cards I've been making. This first one is one of the Christmas cards using Dasher, a stamp from Stampin' Up. In fact, everything on this card, except for the ribbon is from SU. I used gold embossing powder to do Dasher and the sentiment and the background is the snowflake folder from Cuttlebug. This picture doesn't really do this card justice...it's much prettier in real life!
Here is the Spiderman card I made from my grandson. I think I'll cover up the "for you" and put a dialog balloon with Danny's name in it instead. This paper is just scraps I had lying around. I used Stampin' Up punches and CASE'd a card I saw on SplitcoastStampers! Hope he likes it.

I haven't felt very well this afternoon...must have been something I ate. I hope I feel better tomorrow. I watched Dancing With The Stars tonight. It was very interesting. I loved the concept of the dancers not getting the music for their second dance until after they performed their first dance...I think it really evened the playing field. Again, I thought that Bristol's marks were too high. She got a 7 and 2 8's. Kurt Warner got 3 8's and he did much better than she did. I went to the ABC website and voted. I hope she goes home before Kurt does. More later...

Friday the 22nd of October

I didn't start out too well today. I was just lolligagging around about 9:30 this morning, not worrying about getting my shower taken, when the phone rang. I knew it would be Dave because he went to work this morning and I had called him at 7:40 and again at 8:15 and he didn't answer. Wrong! It was Juliene and she wanted to know if my ears burned. I said no and asked if she was talking about me. She asked if I wasn't coming to card club at the church (which started at 9:30!). I said shirt-without-the-r and said I'd be right there. So I went upstairs, washed my face, threw on some clothes and went to card club! I am glad I went because we were making backgrounds using shaving cream and inks. It's a really fun project, but really messy. My hands are still stained from the inks. Hopefully the stains will go away soon!! Here is a sample of some of the backgrounds I made today. This card is one I made this afternoon, using one of the backgrounds that we made today. See all the beautiful colors in the focus paper? It is really pretty...actually it's one that Mary made and gave to me. This is also a stamp that Mary brought with her. But the frames are from papers I had here at home.

I just had to share this picture with you. I have seen pictures of the moon that other people have taken, so I decided to see how good of a picture my camera would take. This was taken last night after I returned from Fairfield (about 10:00 PM). I took my camera and tripod outside and took this shot. I think it's pretty good for a relatively cheap camera!!

Dave finally got home about 6:45 tonight and since the cleaning lady had been here all afternoon and I hadn't cooked anything, we ordered a pizza. We haven't had a Breadeaux pizza for a long time - it was really, really good! I really like Breadeaux because they don't put a ton of tomato sauce on their pizzas!!

That's it for tonight. Dave is working Habitat tomorrow - I guess I'll check my calendar before I go to bed to see if I need to get up and around...I just looked. I have to sing with the choir at a memorial tomorrow afternoon at 1:00. Hope I don't forget!! More later...