Serene Bliss to Oh My!

Hello Friends,

My husband, Dean, and I just returned from a camping trip to Howard Prairie Reservoir where it was absolutely beautiful.  The landscape there in the high mountain forest is so beautiful and serene.  The smells of the warm pine forest are so, so good.  We went a few days after Memorial Day in order to miss the crowd.  We succeeded in that… we were the only ones in the campground!  It was rather idyllic.

We did quite a bit of hiking around, taking pictures of scenery and butterflies.  It became a quest to see how many different species of butterflies/moths we could get good pictures of!  I’ve yet to sort through the butterfly pictures, so I’ll save those for another post.  It’s rather amazing how many pictures one can take with the camera set to “sports” mode.  Click, click, click in rapid succession and BOOM!  Just like that you’ve got 500+ pictures to sort through!  Thank goodness for digital cameras right?!

Dean and I were reflecting on the days of film cameras and having to wait a week or better to actually see your pictures, pay for them, and then only half of them turned out… UGH!!!!

Unfortunately, the lake was only 27% full and the boat ramps, docks and even the main marina at the lodge were sitting on dry dirt.  I’ve seen it low before, but never quite that low.

After a few days of camping with only “camper showers”, we were looking quite forward to getting home.

We pulled into the driveway at about 5:30p.m. but unfortunately, as we pulled the truck around to the back door to unload, we noticed water pouring out of the side of house between the siding and foundation.  With a “That’s not good!” and rush to unlock the door, we found that a pipe had broken in the wall while we were gone, and had flooded my entire craft room. Luckily, the damage was limited to only that room.

We shut the water off to the house and Dean went to work finding the leak, cutting a hole in the wall, removing exterior siding, insulation, etc.  Thankfully Dean is extremely handy (he built our house) and keeps a fair amount of building supplies on hand “just in case we need it”.   He had what he needed to at least temporarily fix the leak, and had the water turned on again by about 11:30p.m.  We were able to take our long anticipated showers.

While he was working on plumbing, I went to work emptying my craft room.  Thankfully, I lost very little in terms of “supplies”, as I try to keep everything stored away neatly in the cabinets that Dean installed for me just a few months ago, i.e. there was nothing lying on the floor.  Our kids came the following day to assist in moving the heavy furniture out.

It still amazes me the amount of paper, ink, glue, embellishments, accessories, etc. that one can acquire over say… 30 years!

The rest of our house is now in chaos with crafting supplies EVERYWHERE – living room, dining room (table is buried), and my husband’s taxidermy showroom.

And this is my craft room now…

It’s going to be a few weeks before I’m back in my craft room, as Dean is re-doing all the plumbing throughout the house, replacing the copper pipes with PEX, to avoid future similar problems, and then my room will get put back together.

In the meantime, I hope you’ll all bear with me as I try to sort through my piles of “stuff” to find some good ol’ inspiration!

****Remember, the new catalog goes live TODAY!  Get your orders in for what you really, really want FAST so that you don’t end up on a backordered list!

Today’s card was made with the new “Flowers For Every Season” suite of products.  The Designer Series Paper for this suite features the new In-Colors and are so pretty and cheerful!

Let’s get INKY!

Colors and Measurements:

Bumblebee CS cut at 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ and scored at 4 1/4″.  Fold for 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ card base.

Flowers For Every Season DSP:  Blue dots cut at 5 1/4″ x 4″.  Triangles cut to fit with long side at 4″.

Flowers, stems and jar stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

Water in jar stamped with Pool Party, using the reverse side of the smaller “jar” stamp.

Flowers and stems then colored using Stampin’ Blends in Mango Melody, Bronze, Soft Suede, Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry, Flirty Flamingo.

The stamped image was then cut out with the largest of the Stitched Nested Dies.

Adhere all together and finish with a bow tied of the Misty Moonlight/Silver Baker’s Twine, and embellish with Flowers For Every Season Gems.

I hope that you’ve been getting some time with paper and ink lately!  Mine will be challenging for the next few weeks, but as soon as my craft room is back together… look out!!!  I plan to create a very light and bright space in my re-done craft room and I can’t wait to get it put together!!!!

Remember to get your orders from the new catalog in quickly to avoid the inevitable “Backordered” status of the popular new products!

Until next time,

Janet

Product List

Paper Snips

$10.00