Chick Card

This is another of the cute cards I made for one of our grandchildren for Easter. I think they're really going to like them! This one was also CASE'd from www.splitcoaststampers.com - I changed the way the wings were and I used a different punch for the chick's feet and comb. I think it's really cute!

Today's another one of those cold days - gray and windy! Yesterday evening we got snow, but it didn't accumulate, thank goodness! The little robins are all hunched up out there today. The thermometer says 35 degrees but I'll bet the windchill is in the teens! I have to go out, unfortunately, so I guess it'll be a heavy winter-coat day again!

Over the weekend, Dave decided that it was time to paint our master bedroom. That means removing wallpaper and wallpaper borders - yuk. Most of the wallpaper/borders so far have come off relatively easily...NOT THIS ROOM! This particular wallpaper is requiring one of those scoring tools, then soaking the wall about 3x and then finally the wallpaper will come off. Dave's such a trouper, though! He just told me to leave and he'd work on it. There are about 8 more strips of paper to remove, so tonight I guess you know what we'll be doing. The painter is coming in Tuesday to start painting the room...it's a big room, so he'll have 3 walls to start on Tuesday - we should be done removing the wallpaper by Tuesday night hopefully; then he can paint the last wall! I'll sure be glad when this room is painted - that's all we're going to do for a while. The next one will be our master bath - it's got wallpaper too - yuk!! NO MORE WALLPAPER IN ANY HOUSE I OWN!!! Mark my words!

My Friday!

Yesterday was sure a fun day! I met 11 other ladies at 8:15 AM and went to Mt Pleasant to tour the P.E.O. memorial rooms at Iowa Wesleyan. They have lots of artifacts and period furniture from the 1860's when 7 women from Iowa Wesleyan started P.E.O. It was a very informative tour. After touring the P.E.O. rooms, we went to the Harlan-Lincoln home which is basically on the IW campus. It was the home of Senator Harlan whose daughter married Abraham Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln. Again they had a lot of artifacts from both families - the Harlans and the Lincolns, including a piece of the coat that President Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated and one of Mary Todd Lincoln's mourning veils. After these two interesting tours, we went to a fellow P.E.O. sister's home where she and a couple other P.E.O. sisters served us a wonderful meal. Following lunch we were treated to a tour of her home which is absolutely beautiful. When we finally left there we were running a little behind! We went to the Old Threshers grounds for our next two tours. The first was of their doll room. They were given over 400 dolls by a gentleman whose wife had collected dolls. She wanted her babies to stay together in one place! When they got the dolls, they were in something like 54 boxes with each doll wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic bread wrappers. Now most of the dolls have been cleaned up and catalogued. It is a beautiful collection - from china head dolls to Barbies! They have one French doll there worth over $8,000! After the dolls, we went to our last tour, which again was on the Old Threshers Grounds - The Theater Museum. Here they have a wonderful display of curtains from the opera houses around the country, as well as musical instruments, scripts, costumes, handbills, tickets - everything from the old tent shows and traveling acting troups. They have a lot of information about the old Toby and Susie actors and skits. It was a fascinating day! After I got home, I talked Dave into going downtown to the river to take a few water shots for my class. Here is just one of them. I'm still awaiting my instructor's comments. I went down this morning to get some morning shots, but actually they look just about the same. Anyway, I think I was able to capture the power of the water pretty well. If I had a DSLR camera with lots of settings (more money!!) I would have been able to get the water to look like strands of silk. My camera has some settings on it for changing the shutter speed, but I don't think it's ever going to get the water to look like silk! I'll keep trying though!

Rose Pictures

Part of our assignment last week was to take pictures of flowers in nature. Well, spring is maybe here on the calendar, but it's snowing/raining/sleeting again today, so I'm not going outside to take pictures of my neighbor's crocus!! So our instructor suggested that we buy some flowers and take pictures of them. So, here's one of my pictures. I really like this. It's taken with no flash and light coming in the window from behind the rose. It's a pink rose, believe it or not! Anyway, I like the effect and the colors. My instructor didn't comment on it other than to say he really liked my second rose shot better.

Here's the second rose shot. His comments indicated he liked the soft colors and the contrast with the woodgrain.

I like this shot, too, but I thought the other one had more artistic character. Oh well, what do I know!? I guess that's why I'm taking the class!!

Bunny Card

Now this is a cute card...I CASE'd it (copy and share everything) from someone on www.splitcoaststampers.com - actually it's a combination of a couple of different bunnies I saw on there. SCS is a wonderful website for those of us who like to make cards - there are lots of ideas! This will go to one of my granddaughters, since it's definitely a little girl bunny!
Tomorrow I'm showing a group of ladies how I made this card and 2 others. I'll share the others later - maybe tomorrow. Should be lots of fun. These ladies are such avid card-makers that it's fun to share something with them.
Right now, since the sun is shining, I'm going to try to get a couple of landscape pictures for my class. I still haven't done that! More later...

Painting Again

This was a beautiful, but cold, day! Yesterday we had snow again - yuk! Today the sun shone and a lot of the snow melted away, but unfortunately there is still some left on the north lawns. Dave and I went to church this morning, came home and Dave decided he was going to paint the foyer and upstairs hall. When he decides to do something, watch out! We got the border down from the walls and then stopped for lunch. After lunch he taped off and started painting. It's now about 6:00 and we're all done with one coat. He did most of it, but I helped a great deal when it came to the stairway. Anyway, I'm glad that is done for tonight. I have a meeting tomorrow night so he'll probably put the second coat on while I'm gone. Darn - I so wanted to help!!

Oh, by the way, I'm on Facebook now. One of our ex-softball players emailed me and asked me to join. This way I can see pictures of her beautiful daughter almost daily. Since I joined, I've found several classmates of mine, Jami, Bryan & Deanna, and a lot of the IHCC athletes are on FB, so I've added them as friends! This might be a lot of fun! More later....

Circles in Nature

One of our assignments last week was to take a picture of circles in nature, if we could find any. These are the ones I found. I think it's funny how they almost look like a face of some creature. Our lessons this week are to take pictures of flowers and trees AND 3 landscape pictures. I can't even think of where I'm going to go to get landscape pictures...or for that matter, flower pictures! Our instructor suggested we either go to a local florist or greenhouse, or go buy a bouquet of mixed flowers and bring them home to shoot them. I guess I'll probably have to do that! I do have a question for those of you out there were read this: Are we north of Washington DC, or south of it. I've always figured we were south of DC, but the news has been showing pictures of the cherry trees blooming in DC - we don't have trees blooming here. I guess I'll have to get out an atlas!

Dave broke his glasses last night and he's running around on this gray, gray day with his sunglasses on. He looks pretty funny! He has another pair of glasses, but we can't find them anywhere! The glasses he broke are titanium frames, so we didn't think they could possibly break - so much for that theory! Gotta run...more later....

Pretty Heron

Isn't he beautiful? I took this picture in Sarasota on Lido Beach - DH and his father were fishing and feeding this guy any shrimp pieces that were left after the fish had taken part of their bait. I just think he's gorgeous. I was able to get within 10 feet of him, but as you'll notice he's really watching me!

My brother and sister-in-law are in Clearwater, FL this week taking a few days of vacation. He just called to let me know how warm it was down there today - the old coot! Well, I've got to run. More later...