Seen at the bird feeder

I keep getting distracted from stamping today. I had been trying to get a picture of these two guys for days now, and this was the day they finally cooperated with me. These are just two of the birds who frequent my backyard feeder. The females are around but won't stay still for photos. I also have a multitude of sparrows and four or five pairs of doves.

All of the birds are a bit confused at the moment because we're in the process of getting a new fence. You can see part of it in the background. It's an overlapping board fence, so another layer of boards will be there soon, filling the gaps that you see now. The birds are happier now that the fence is partly back - they have something to sit on. For the two days that the fence was totally gone, they just flew around yelling about it.

We have a blog candy winner!

Here are your random numbers:

4

Timestamp: 2008-04-21 04:38:43 UTC

Here's comment number 4:

Cassie said...

Good for you!!!
What a great idea - I can't wait to check out all the sites that will be listed. Here is mine:
http://rosylittlethings.typepad.com/
Posie Gets Cozy.

April 16, 2008 3:52 PM

Cassie, get in touch with me to claim your blog candy!

Start where you are

I want to share a little bit of philosophy with you. I learned this while reading something yoga-related, but it applies to just about every part of my life. Maybe it will help you as well.

How many times do you find yourself saying things like this:

After I lose some weight, I'll go to the gym.

Once my thighs are less jiggly, I'll take the kids to the pool.

When I learn to make better cards, maybe I'll start a gallery (or blog).

When the kids are better behaved, we can start to do more fun things on the weekends.

Once the kids get less picky, I'll start cooking more interesting foods.

Sounds familiar, right? Well, how about this for a life-changing concept?


START WHERE YOU ARE.

That's it. No waiting until things are "right" or "better" - do it now. If you wait for your life to be perfect before you start living your life, you'll miss the whole thing.

Blog candy!

I'm excited! Looks like the 10,000 hit mark is coming in the next couple of days, so I'm going to offer my very first blog candy. Here's the stash of goodies that I have for one lucky commenter.


Here we have an alterable scrapbook and picture frame, two brand new Stampin' Up! classic ink pads in Chocolate Chip and Pink Passion, and one brand new Stampin' Up! stamp set called Warmest Regards. What do you have to do to be eligible to win this good stuff? Easy! Just post a comment and tell me your favorite non-stamping creative web site. I love getting inspiration from all over the place, so help me find some new things to look at! I'll take comments until this Sunday, April 20, and I'll randomly select a winner at 11 p.m. Central time. Good luck!

New clock for my stamping room!

For a couple of days, I've been muttering to myself about the lack of a clock in my relocated stamping room. Then while rummaging around in my piles, I found a clock in the dreaded "alterables" stash.


To cover the clock face, I chose the Perhaps collection from Basic Grey. My new room has yellow walls and this paper will go beautifully in there. As expected, I couldn't decide on just one or even four or five papers, so I embarked on a plan to use twelve different patterns. I drew a full-size pattern the size of my clock face plus a one inch border on grid paper (actually two pieces of grid paper taped together). Then I used a quilting ruler to get the 30- and 60-degree lines needed for my twelve sections. Once I had the pattern, I cut the sections apart and used them to trace the necessary shapes on the back of the patterned paper. Then it was just a matter of gluing them on to the clock using Tombow Mono Multi glue.

Being a stamper, I of course had to stamp on the clock. I chose a variety of inspirational words. I stamped them all in Always Artichoke ink. I also added a bunch of spirals, stamped off once in Always Artichoke.

Stamp sets:
Stampin' Up! - Everyday Flexible Phrases, Expressive Flexible Phrases, Letterpress Numbers
Invoke Arts - Artwords II
other - Believe, Spiral Bouquet
Gel-a-tins - Spiral Symphony

After stamping, I added Spring Moss wide grosgrain ribbon all around the edges of the clock with hot glue. I found a new use for my bone folder - smoothing down the hot-glued ribbon as I went to keep the glue from forming a thick line under the ribbon.

This was a fun and surprisingly quick project. It came together in just a couple of hours.

Fun card day!

I actually had some time to make a couple of cards today. I'm nearly finished with the great room swap (family room and stamping room are completely swapping places), and have been up to my ears in piles of craft things. I'm down to the crazy-making piles - stuff I probably should never have bought that doesn't want to find a place to be. So I gave up and made cards instead.

My oval Nestabilities came last week after a very long wait due to the backorder situation. They were just begging to be used. Here's the result!


Details: stamps - Out on a Limb; paper - white, certainly celery, regal rose (Stampin' Up!); ink - regal rose, certainly celery, close to cocoa (SU!); accessories - oval Nestabilities, certainly celery 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals

This next card is for a shoebox swap with my upline's group. It probably looks kind of familiar, since I posted one almost like it just the other day. Since this swap is all-SU, I had to make a different card using all SU materials. I'm digging the color combo!


Details: stamps - Friendly Flowers, Carte Postale; paper - Purely Pomegranate, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Bali Breeze designer paper; ink - Old Olive; accessories - 1 1/4", 1 3/8" circle punches, scallop circle punch, corner rounder punch, Ice rhinestone brad, dimensionals